Using PHP substr() and strip_tags() while retaining formatting and without breaking HTML

Question

I have various HTML strings to cut to 100 characters (of the stripped content, not the original) without stripping tags and without breaking HTML.

Original H

Answer 1

Regardless of the 100 count issues you state at the beginning, you indicate in the challenge the following:

• output the character count of strip_tags (the number of characters in the actual displayed text of the HTML)
• retain HTML formatting close
• any unfinished HTML tag

Here is my proposal: Bascially, I parse through each character counting as I go. I make sure NOT to count any characters in any HTML tag. I also check at the end to make sure I am not in the middle of a word when I stop. Once I stop, I back track to the first available SPACE or > as a stopping point.

$position = 0;
$length = strlen($content)-1;

// process the content putting each 100 character section into an array
while($position < $length)
{
    $next_position = get_position($content, $position, 100);
    $data[] = substr($content, $position, $next_position);
    $position = $next_position;
}

// show the array
print_r($data);

function get_position($content, $position, $chars = 100)
{
    $count = 0;
    // count to 100 characters skipping over all of the HTML
    while($count <> $chars){
        $char = substr($content, $position, 1); 
        if($char == '<'){
            do{
                $position++;
                $char = substr($content, $position, 1);
            } while($char !== '>');
            $position++;
            $char = substr($content, $position, 1);
        }
        $count++;
        $position++;
    }
echo $count."\n";
    // find out where there is a logical break before 100 characters
    $data = substr($content, 0, $position);

    $space = strrpos($data, " ");
    $tag = strrpos($data, ">");

    // return the position of the logical break
    if($space > $tag)
    {
        return $space;
    } else {
        return $tag;
    }  
}

This will also count the return codes etc. Considering they will take space, I have not removed them.