How to strip of characters when long text is displayed?

[WestSide]

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone had some function or has had to strip off characters
from a long string. We have a user inteface, and the text is long, like we
display 'descriptions' but I want to "SNIP" the text off a set point and then
have the trailing ...... at the end.

This seems like a common thing... any ideas.

-WestSide

[CriticalIM]

<cfset LongDescription = 'This is a sample of more than 25 characters of text'>
<cfoutput> <cfif Len(LongDescription) GT 25> #Left(LongDescription, 25)#...
<cfelse> #LongDescription# </cfif> </cfoutput>

[dempster]

Another approach, if you want it to look a little better, is to define the
maximum length you want and then find a breaking point (space, period, question
mark, etc.) to trim the string. In this example, I take the text of an
article,extract the first 75 characters, and reverse them. The I look for one
of these break points, copy the string (MID function) from that point on,
reverse it again, and add the trailing ... at the end. Works pretty well.
-Paul Paul Dempsey Dickinson College

<CFSCRIPT>
tempsyn = Reverse(Left(rsDate.article,75));
artsyn = Reverse(Mid(tempsyn,FindOneOf(". ?!",tempsyn),75)) & "...";
</CFSCRIPT>

[kyle969]

Try this for some reusability...
<cfscript>
function snipString(argString, argLength){
var rtnString = left(argString,argLength);
if(Len(argString) gt argLength)
rtnString = rtnString & '...';
return rtnString;
}
</cfscript>
<cfset LongDescription = "This is a sample of more than 25 characters of
text">
<cfoutput>#snipString(LongDescription,25)#</cfoutput>