I am working on an app that has user generated content. What I'd like to do, is display X characters of, say, a title and put "..." for the rest. This sounds like something you see in soc networking type app and wondering if there is some code out there to do this. thanks.
<%= h truncate( model.property, X ) %>
Nahabed, Just in case you didn't follow Lucas's explanation the 'X' is the length you wish to display on the form. Kathleen
@Dan, in short, rails is smart enough. See http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/TextHelper.html#M001049
Dan __ wrote:
Lucas wrote:
<%= h truncate( model.property, X ) %>
Hey, I've just got a quick question on this (I've run into needing this same thing, but I've done it a different way). Say I want to limit something to 50 characters before cutting it off and adding the "...". If it turns out that whatever I want to limit ends up only being 30 characters, will it still add the "..."? I'd assume it wouldn't, because Rails is usually smarter than that, but its good to check before I go changing my app to use this method (which is way better than how I've been doing it)
(model.property.length > X ? truncate(model.property, X-3)+'...' : model.property)
or something like that...
DyingToLearn wrote:
@Dan, in short, rails is smart enough. See ActionView::Helpers::TextHelper
Beautiful! Simplifies my code a decent amount (gets rid of the if
statements I had before to do the same job). Thanks a bunch 
(model.property.length > X ? truncate(model.property, X-3)+'...' : model.property)
Doh! Ignore that... truncate... Nice.
Quoting nahabed <roupenn@gmail.com>:
I am working on an app that has user generated content. What I'd like to do, is display X characters of, say, a title and put "..." for the rest. This sounds like something you see in soc networking type app and wondering if there is some code out there to do this. thanks.
# truncate a string to N characters, add elipsis if over def short_desc(s, n=80) if s.nil? '' elsif s.length <= n s else i = n - 4 # 4 characters in ellipsis while i > 0 && " \t".include?(s[i]) # is whitespace? i = i - 1 end if i <= 0 s else s.slice(0, i) + ' ...' end end end
HTH, Jeffrey
I was under the impression that’s what truncate did, Jeffrey.
hi
I guess u want to do something like this
some text upto say 30 char and after that ... so u can restrict just by doing
<%= t.content[0..30]%>...
Thanks
Dhaval Parikh Software Engineer www.railshouse.com sales(AT)railshouse(DOT)com
My bad. Made an improvement without verifying the result. Corrected line below uncommented.
Sorry, Jeffrey
Quoting Jeffrey L. Taylor <ror@abluz.dyndns.org>:
Quoting nahabed <roupenn@gmail.com>: > > I am working on an app that has user generated content. What I'd like > to do, is display X characters of, say, a title and put "..." for the > rest. This sounds like something you see in soc networking type app > and wondering if there is some code out there to do this. thanks.
# truncate a string to N characters, add elipsis if over def short_desc(s, n=80) if s.nil? '' elsif s.length <= n s else i = n - 4 # 4 characters in ellipsis while i > 0 && " \t".include?(s[i]) # is whitespace?
while i > 0 && !" \t".include?(s[i]) # is not whitespace?
Quoting Ryan Bigg (Radar) <radarlistener@gmail.com>:
I was under the impression that's what truncate did, Jeffrey.
No, truncate just chops it off at N characters, possibly in mid-word. My code truncates at whitespace, i.e., between words. (Or at least it does after the correction I just posted.)
Jeffrey
You really, REALLY ought to have tests for this:
class TruncateTest < Test::Unit::TestCase def test_fits str = "short" assert_equal str, truncate(str, 10) end
def test_backs_up_to_space str = "short filibuster" exp = "short ..." assert_equal exp, truncate(str, 10) end
def test_breaks_word_if_no_space str = "antidisestablishmentarianism" exp = "antidis..." assert_equal exp, truncate(str, 10) end
end
I didn't look back at your code so these tests might not actually be the results that you want, but this ought to give you the right idea.
-Rob
Rob Biedenharn http://agileconsultingllc.com Rob@AgileConsultingLLC.com
Shorter, faster version
# truncate a string to N characters, add elipsis if over def short_desc(s, n=80) if s.nil? '' elsif s.length <= n s else # find last break character (space, tab, hyphen, slash, underscore) i = s.rindex(/[ \t-\/_]/, n) i = n - 4 if i.nil? # none, just truncate() s.slice(0, i+1) + '...' end end
Quoting Rob Biedenharn <Rob@AgileConsultingLLC.com>:
> Quoting Ryan Bigg (Radar) <radarlistener@gmail.com>: >> I was under the impression that's what truncate did, Jeffrey. > > No, truncate just chops it off at N characters, possibly in mid- > word. My code > truncates at whitespace, i.e., between words. (Or at least it does
> after the > correction I just posted.) > > JeffreyYou really, REALLY ought to have tests for this:
class TruncateTest < Test::Unit::TestCase def test_fits str = "short" assert_equal str, truncate(str, 10) end
def test_backs_up_to_space str = "short filibuster" exp = "short ..." assert_equal exp, truncate(str, 10) end
def test_breaks_word_if_no_space str = "antidisestablishmentarianism" exp = "antidis..." assert_equal exp, truncate(str, 10) end
end
I didn't look back at your code so these tests might not actually be
the results that you want, but this ought to give you the right idea.
It's added to the TODO list. I'll start with your examples.
Thanks, Jeffrey
Quoting Jeffrey L. Taylor <ror@abluz.dyndns.org>: [snip]
It's added to the TODO list. I'll start with your examples.
Done.
