php - Limit product short description length in Woocommerce

Question

I'm using the following code on my WordPress site to shorten my description excerpt on WooCommerce and it works fine if I input my characters for 14 or less. As soon as I enter more than 14 characters it shows the full short description.

add_action( 'woocommerce_after_shop_loop_item_title', 'lk_woocommerce_product_excerpt', 35, 2);
if (!function_exists('lk_woocommerce_product_excerpt'))
{
    function lk_woocommerce_product_excerpt()
    {
        $content_length = 14;
        global $post;
        $content = $post->post_excerpt;
        $wordarray = explode(' ', $content, $content_length + 1);
        if(count($wordarray) > $content_length) :
            array_pop($wordarray);
            array_push($wordarray, '...');
            $content = implode(' ', $wordarray);
            $content = force_balance_tags($content);
            $content = substr($content, 0, 14);

        endif;
        echo "<span class='excerpt'><p>$content...</p></span>";
    }
}

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Answer 1

Your code is counting letters with white spaces, instead the code below is counting words without white spaces. Please See this live php file in action (here the result of your code on a string containing 25 words and mine too). Then this code is working correctly as you wish:

add_action( 'woocommerce_after_shop_loop_item_title', 'shorten_product_excerpt', 35 );
function shorten_product_excerpt()
{
    global $post;
    $limit = 14;
    $text = $post->post_excerpt;
    if (str_word_count($text, 0) > $limit) {
        $arr = str_word_count($text, 2);
        $pos = array_keys($arr);
        $text = substr($text, 0, $pos[$limit]) . '...';
        // $text = force_balance_tags($text); // may be you dont need this…
    }
    echo '<span class="excerpt"><p>' . $text . '</p></span>';
}

---

Or you can use the function from the thread below, with yours this way:

if (!function_exists('lk_limit_text'))
{
    function lk_limit_text($text, $limit) {
        if (str_word_count($text, 0) > $limit) {
            $words = str_word_count($text, 2);
            $pos = array_keys($words);
            $text = substr($text, 0, $pos[$limit]) . '...';
        }
        return $text;
    }
}

add_action( 'woocommerce_after_shop_loop_item_title', 'lk_woocommerce_product_excerpt', 35, 2);
if (!function_exists('lk_woocommerce_product_excerpt'))
{
    function lk_woocommerce_product_excerpt()
    {
        global $post;
        $content = $post->post_excerpt;
        // $content = force_balance_tags($content); // may be you dont need this…
        echo '<span class="excerpt"><p>' . lk_limit_text( $content, 14 ) . '</p></span>';
    }
}

This should work…

This code is based on this thread: How can I truncate a string to the first 20 words in PHP?