Keep only first n characters in a string?

Question

Is there a way in JavaScript to remove the end of a string?

I need to only keep the first 8 characters of a string and remove the rest.

Answer 1

You could use String.slice:

var str = '12345678value';
var strshortened = str.slice(0,8);
alert(strshortened); //=> '12345678'

Using this, a String extension could be:

String.prototype.truncate = String.prototype.truncate ||
  function (n){
    return this.slice(0,n);
  };
var str = '12345678value';
alert(str.truncate(8)); //=> '12345678'

See also