Show only part of a record from mySQL?

If I have a paragraph stored in a mySQL database can I just have it show so many lines of it in the output for example:


DATABASE RECORD:
This is an article about showing only part of a mysql database record. I hope this helps more than just me. Thank you for all of your help and I hope it works because this would be a great help to a website I am working on.

DISPLAY ONLY:
This is an article about showing only part of a mysql databaserecord, I hope this helps more than just ....

Then I will have a link to read more.

Thank you in advance

 

Here's a truncate function that I use for purposes like this:

function truncate($data, $length = 150)
	{
		$data = strip_tags($data);	
		
		return substr($data,0,$length.'...');
	}

PHP:

You could modify this to include a link instead of ...

You can also do this on a database level.

SELECT LEFT(text_field,150) AS truncated_text FROM my_table;

Or even something like:

SELECT
CONCAT(
'<p>',
LEFT(text_field,150),
' <a href="link_to_page.php?id=',
page_id,
'"> Continue reading...</a></p>') AS formatted_string FROM my_table;

 

Aparently you have helped me quite a bit +rep although it won't let me it says I must spread around first. Thank you