Dylan Barber wrote:
I am needing to provide back a fixed length file out of a shopping
cart system - I can create the file but does anybody have a simple
function to pad or truncate a string to a certain length?
Use sprintf() to format your string.
$len = 20 //the length you want
$str = 'abcde';
The following says to pad the string with the character x to a final
length of $len characters or to trim the string to $len characters. The
% is simply there to show that the argument is a formatting instruction.
The "'x" says to use an x as the padding character (default is a space).
The s informs that we're performing this on a string, as opposed to a
number.
echo sprintf("%'x${len}.${len}s", $str);
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxabcde
This one will add the padding to the end (note the minus sign):
echo sprintf("%-'x${len}.${len}s", $str);
abcdexxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
If you want the default space, use:
echo sprintf("%${len}.${len}s", $str);
abcde
Truncate:
$str = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz';
echo sprintf("%'x${len}.${len}s", $str);
abcdefghijklmnopqrst
You probably want to assign this to a variable so, instead of using
echo, do:
$padded = sprintf("%'x${len}.${len}s", $str);
HTH
brian
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