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Archives for August 2009

STRLEN

There is another great command in PHP similar called STRLEN. The command counts the number of characters in a string. In our previous example, we were using a string called $post with a Lorem Ipsum content.

$post="Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit,
sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna
aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud
exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea
commodo consequat."
$count=strlen($post);
echo $count;

The result is a character count of: 276.

Using Substr

PHP has a powerful command called SUBSTR which returns part of a string based on the length parameters you provide. In this article, we will cover how to create an excerpt of a string, like a post, and shorten it using the SUBSTR command.

We have a string called $post with a string of Lorem Ipsum. We will shorten it to 55 characters using SUBSTR and assigning the shortened string to $excerpt.

$post="Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit,
sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna
aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud
exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea
commodo consequat.";
$excerpt=substr($post,0,55);
echo $excerpt;

Syntax: string substr ( string $string , int $start [, int $length ] )

The first parameter is the string.
The second is start position of the string.
The third is the length of the string.

The $excerpt variable now contains 55 characters after using SUBSTR.

Build Linux From Scratch

If you want to learn the internals of Linux, try building a Linux kernel from scratch using LFS, Linux from Scratch. The 300 page instruction will teach you how to create your own distribution. You can customize, compile and build Linux to your own taste. LFS gives you the ability to select which programs you want loaded, what services you want running, what security features you want loaded. LFS is ideal for anyone who wants to delve into the internals of Linux. Download.