CFLib.org – Common Function Library Project

Description:
Supply a string and number of words to return, this returns that number of words with an ellipsis at the end. If the number of words argument is greater than the actual number of words, the original string will be returned without the ellipsis.

Return Values:

Example:

<cfset sentance = "Hello, this is a sentance with many words and spaces.">
<cfoutput>#getWords(sentance,4)#</cfoutput>

Parameters:

Full UDF Source:

/**
 * Shortens a string without cutting words in half.
 * Modified by Raymond Camden on July 30, 2001
 * 
 * @param str      The string to modify. 
 * @param words      The number of words to display. 
 * @author David Grant (david@insite.net) 
 * @version 2, July 30, 2001 
 */
function getWords(str,words) {
    var numWords = 0;
    var oldPos = 1;
    var i = 1;
    var strPos = 0;
    
    str = trim(str);
    str = REReplace(str,"[[:space:]]{2,}"," ","ALL");
    numWords = listLen(str," ");
    if (words gte numWords) return str;
    for (i = 1; i lte words; i=i+1) {
        strPos = find(" ",str,oldPos);
        oldPos = strPos + 1;
    }
    if (len(str) lte strPos) return left(str,strPos-1);
    return left(str,strPos-1) & "...";
}