Few Letters Preview of Text Field from Database Table

How do I call only the first few letters, like say 20 of the first letters from a text field of a table.

If the ItemID = $a1[ItemID], then how do I select just 20 Letters from the Field Entry $a1[ItemText]? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in Advance.

Steven

 

Use substr() -> http://www.php.net/substr

 

Thanks bro, will look into it.

 

Welcome

 

$str=$a1[ItemText];
$length=20;
$trailing='...';
      // take off chars for the trailing
      $length-=strlen($trailing);
      if (strlen($str) > $length) 
      {
         // string exceeded length, truncate and add trailing dots
         $string=substr($str,0,$length).$trailing;
      } 
      else 
      { 
         // string was already short enough, return the string
         $string = $str; 
      }

PHP:

 

Here's what I used on the Bulletin hack I modified:

function truncateEntry($string, $limit, $break=".", $pad="...") 
{ 
    # return with no change if string is shorter than $limit 
    if(strlen($string) <= $limit) return; 
    # is $break present between $limit and the end of the string? 
    $breakpoint = strpos($string, $break, $limit); 
    if($breakpoint < strlen($string) - 1) 
    { 
        # truncate string and pad 
        $string = substr($string, 0, $breakpoint) . $pad; 
    } 
    return $string;
} 

PHP: