Get first n characters of a string

Question

How can I get the first n characters of a string in PHP? What\'s the fastest way to trim a string to a specific number of characters, and append \'...\' if needed?

Answer 1

$width = 10;

$a = preg_replace ("~^(.{{$width}})(.+)~", '\\1…', $a);

or with wordwrap

$a = preg_replace ("~^(.{1,${width}}\b)(.+)~", '\\1…', $a);