Limit Text in Laravel

Limit text in Laravel can be done using the Str helper class from the Illuminate\Support\Str namespace. The Str::limit method truncates the given string to the specified length and the Str::words method limits the number of words in a string. The Str helper class provides many functions other than the limit for working with string.  

We can also limit the number of characters in a string using CSS and JavaScript in the front end. 

In this article we are going to discuss:

1. Limit string length by character count
2. Limit string length by words count

Limit string length by character count

The Str::limit method truncates the given string to the given length by its character count. We can use it at the controller level, blade template, and in the model as well.

Limit string character length in the controller

We can add laravel str limit in the controller as given below.

Import Illuminate\Support\Str at the top.

use Illuminate\Support\Str; 

Then use Str::limit() to limit the string length as below.

Str::limit("Hello World!", 5);

Output:

Hello...

You may be noticed that three dots are appending to the above output of Str::limit(). You may pass a third argument to the method to change the string that will be appended to the end of the truncated string. 

If we want to avoid the appending text we can pass the third argument as empty like the given below code.

Str::limit("Hello World!", 5, "");

Output:

Hello

If want to append some text at the end of the truncated string, we can do as given below.

use Illuminate\Support\Str;

$truncated = Str::limit('This is a sample text content', 20, ' (...)');

// This is a sample text (...)

Limit string character length in the blade template

We can use the Str helper class in the blade template as given below.

<p>{{ Illuminate\Support\Str::limit($data, 20) }}</p>

Here,  $data is the actual string and 20 is the number of characters that you would like to limit the string.

Limit string character length in the Model

Using Str::limit() in the blade is not a best practice since we want to add limit() function in each and every place in the blade template where the text is used. So we can set the limit on the model level as given below.

...
use Illuminate\Support\Str;
class Product
{
    protected $fillable = [
        ..., 'description'
    ]
    public function shortDescription()
    {
        return Str::limit($this->description, 20 )
    }
}

Instead of taking description object we can use the truncated object as shortDescription.

Limit string length by words count

The Str::words method limits string length by word count in a string. An additional string can be passed to this method as its third argument to specify which string to be appended at the end of the truncated string.

import Illuminate\Support\Str at the top.

use Illuminate\Support\Str; 

Then use Str::words() to limit the string length by word count as below.

return Str::words('Laravel is a web application framework with expressive, elegant syntax.', 6, ' >>>');

Output:

Laravel is a web application framework >>>

Conclusion

Laravel makes it quite easy to string operations using the Str helper class in our blade view, controller, and even in the model.

The Str::limit method truncates the given string to the given length by its character count and the Str::words method truncates words in the string by the given word count.

To learn more about laravel helper classes, check laravel documentation.