I need the method that has the ability to turn a long string like this:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Pellentesque
pulvinar turpis a nisi. Cras id elit. Aliquam vitae pede nec lacus
elementum lacinia. Ut aliquam vehicula sem.
into a shorter string like this:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Pellentesque
pulvinar turpis...
My problem is that I can't remember what the method is called. I looked
through the whole Ruby String documentation
(http://ruby-doc.org/core/classes/String.html) but I couldn't find it.
Can anyone remember what it's called?
I need the method that has the ability to turn a long string... into a shorter string...
My problem is that I can't remember what the method is called. I looked
through the whole Ruby String documentation...
There's no such method in Ruby. You might be thinking of the
truncate method that's part of ActionView's TextHelper module.
I need the method that has the ability to turn a long string like this:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Pellentesque
pulvinar turpis a nisi. Cras id elit. Aliquam vitae pede nec lacus
elementum lacinia. Ut aliquam vehicula sem.
into a shorter string like this:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Pellentesque
pulvinar turpis...
I need the method that has the ability to turn a long string like this:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Pellentesque
pulvinar turpis a nisi. Cras id elit. Aliquam vitae pede nec lacus
elementum lacinia. Ut aliquam vehicula sem.
into a shorter string like this:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Pellentesque
pulvinar turpis...
You're right, it's not a part of the Ruby standard library:
Clifford Heath wrote:
There's no such method in Ruby. You might be thinking of the
truncate method that's part of ActionView's TextHelper module.
truncate is what it's called. I was actually searching for 'rails StringHelper'...
Thanks for the replies!
Also:
a_long_string = "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Pellentesque pulvinar turpis a nisi. Cras id elit. Aliquam vitae pede nec lacus elementum lacinia. Ut aliquam ehicula sem."
limit = 86
a_long_string[0, limit] << "..." #=> "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Pellentesque pulvinar turpis..."
a_long_string = "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.
Pellentesque pulvinar turpis a nisi. Cras id elit. Aliquam vitae pede nec
lacus elementum lacinia. Ut aliquam ehicula sem."
limit = 86
a_long_string[0, limit] << "..." #=> "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
consectetuer adipiscing elit. Pellentesque pulvinar turpis..."
Note that in Ruby 1.8 String# doesn’t work on chars, but bytes,
which means the above is not reliable for multibyte strings like UTF-8:
polish = 'W trosce o byt i przyszłość naszej Ojczyzny'
=> "W trosce o byt i przyszłość naszej Ojczyzny"
polish[0, 27]
=> "W trosce o byt i przyszło\305"
polish[0, 30]
=> "W trosce o byt i przyszłość"
In Ruby 1.9 String# works on chars, so the above works as expected:
polish = 'W trosce o byt i przyszłość naszej Ojczyzny'
=> "W trosce o byt i przyszłość naszej Ojczyzny"
polish[0, 27]
=> "W trosce o byt i przyszłość"
-- Shot
···
--
Making the choice to roll your own always is a tough one,
because it breaks Programmer's Rule Number 42, which clearly
states, "Every problem has been solved. It is Open Source.
And it is the first link on Google." -- Ara T. Howard
[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]
David Trasbo wrote:
Peter Szinek wrote:
I seriously doubt this is part of standard Ruby.
You're right, it's not a part of the Ruby standard library:
Clifford Heath wrote:
There's no such method in Ruby. You might be thinking of the
truncate method that's part of ActionView's TextHelper module.
truncate is what it's called. I was actually searching for 'rails
StringHelper'...
Thanks for the replies!
Also:
a_long_string = "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing
elit. Pellentesque pulvinar turpis a nisi. Cras id elit. Aliquam vitae
pede nec lacus elementum lacinia. Ut aliquam ehicula sem."
limit = 86
a_long_string[0, limit] << "..." #=> "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
consectetuer adipiscing elit. Pellentesque pulvinar turpis..."
In general, for input strings less than the limit, you wouldn't want "..."
class String
# Return an ellided string no longer than total_length
# "hello".ellide(5) -> "hello"
# "hello there".ellide(8) -> "hello..."
def ellide total_length
if self.length > total_length
raise 'total_length must be at least 3' if total_length < 3
return self[0, total_length - 3] + '...'
else
return self
end
end
end
string = <<END
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Pellentesque
pulvinar turpis a nisi. Cras id elit. Aliquam vitae pede nec lacus
elementum lacinia. Ut aliquam vehicula sem.
END
string = <<END
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Pellentesque
pulvinar turpis a nisi. Cras id elit. Aliquam vitae pede nec lacus
elementum lacinia. Ut aliquam vehicula sem.
END
It is nicer to break at word boundaries in some contexts. But if it's
a single word (such as a long email address), then you'd still want to
show something more than "...". Maybe you can add a check for that.
e.g. for string = 'john.smith@hisdomain.com', lead = 15
wordlist = string.split(' ')
# get rid of the last space
shorttext.chop!
puts "#{shorttext}..."
It is nicer to break at word boundaries in some contexts. But if it's
a single word (such as a long email address), then you'd still want to
show something more than "...". Maybe you can add a check for that.
e.g. for string = 'john.smith@hisdomain.com', lead = 15
Hehe, ok:
if shorttext.empty?
puts wordlist[0]
else
puts "#{shorttext}..."
end
wordlist = string.split(' ')
# get rid of the last space
shorttext.chop!
puts "#{shorttext}..."
It is nicer to break at word boundaries in some contexts. But if it's
a single word (such as a long email address), then you'd still want to
show something more than "...". Maybe you can add a check for that.
e.g. for string = 'john.smith@hisdomain.com', lead = 15
Hehe, ok:
if shorttext.empty?
puts wordlist[0]
else
puts "#{shorttext}..."
end
That fixes the problem of showing only '...', but now 'puts
wordlist[0]' may display more than the limit.
Refining your idea a bit gave the following:
def elide_words total_length
return self unless self.length > total_length
raise 'total_length must be at least 3' if total_length < 3
words = self.split(' ')
result = ''
words.each do |word|
len = total_length - (result.empty? ? 3 : 4)
break if result.length + word.length > len
result << ' ' unless result.empty?
result << word
end
if result.empty?
return self.elide(total_length)
else
return result + '...'
end
end
But we really don't need to find *all* the space boundaries via
split(), so the following version is about 10 times faster:
def elide_words total_length
return self unless self.length > total_length
raise 'total_length must be at least 3' if total_length < 3
len = total_length - 3 # room for '...'
# Case 1: natural word break
return self[0, len] + '...' if self[len,1] == ' '
# Case 2: search backward for a char preceding a delimiter
delim_found = false
idx = len.downto(0) {|i|
if delim_found
break (i + 1) if self[i,1] != ' '
else
delim_found = true if self[i,1] == ' '
end
}
