[SOLVED] concatenate text output

[jb60606]

If I have a field (type = 'text') in my database called "comments"; containing various amounts of text submitted by users. I want to display those comments on a PHP web page, though I want to concatenate them to only show, say, the first 5 or 6 words of each individual comment.

 

e.g.:

 

"I think 300 sucked. The acting was terrible, the special effects were nothing I've never seen before and I question the timing of this movie's release."

 

should read:

 

"I think 300 sucked. The acting..."

 

Any ideas...

Thanks

[corbin]

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/string-functions.html#function_substring

 

 

Maybe something like:

 

SELECT SUBSTRING(comments, 0, 50) FROM comments WHERE movie_id = '<some movie id>'

 

That would give you the first 50 characters from the comments column.

 

 

(PS Everytime I've heard concatenate, it's meant to combine strings, not shorten them x.x)

[jb60606]

DOH! I meant "truncate".

 

Thanks for your help; it works perfectly