Truncating Database text

mjs416's picture

They have: 127 posts

Joined: Dec 2003

I have a MYSQL database table with some text fields. I have these fields (or the text in it rather) being output to a php page. The text field is of the type "longtext".

How do I truncate the text displayed when it is being browsed by someone?

For exmple, say the text field in the database has "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz". Yet when someone is trying to view it, only the "abcdefg" text is displayed.

Greg K's picture

He has: 2,145 posts

Joined: Nov 2003

In your SQL query itself you can do the following:

$query = "SELECT LEFT(fieldname,7) FROM table";

In the server side script itself, assuming the data you want to truncate is in variable:

in PHP, substr(variable,0,7);

in ASP, not sure, but if it's like VB, left(variable,7)

-Greg

mjs416's picture

They have: 127 posts

Joined: Dec 2003

Splendid. Thank you very much. =)

openmind's picture

He has: 945 posts

Joined: Aug 2001

or in ColdFusion:

#Left(variable, 7)#

just wanted to round off the choices! Laughing out loud

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