excerpt in characters

I have code in functions.php:

function string_limit_words($string, $word_limit)
{
  $words = explode(' ', $string, ($word_limit + 1));
  if(count($words) > $word_limit)
  array_pop($words);
  return implode(' ', $words);
}

but i need to limit excerpt in number of characters,
could you help me with that?

Answers:

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Method 1

I used this code in one of my last projects:

function ng_get_excerpt( $count ){
  $permalink = get_permalink( $post->ID );
  $excerpt = get_the_content();
  $excerpt = strip_tags( $excerpt );
  $excerpt = mb_substr( $excerpt, 0, $count );
  $excerpt = mb_substr( $excerpt, 0, strripos( $excerpt, " " ) );
  $excerpt = rtrim( $excerpt, ",.;:- _!$&#" );
  $excerpt = $excerpt . '<a href="'.$permalink.'" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener" style="text-decoration: none;">&nbsp;(...)</a>';
  return $excerpt;
}

I got it from here:

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/limit-excerpt-length-by-characters

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10923955/make-function-that-limits-text-not-show-last-punctuation-mark

It has the advantage of not allowing punctuation on the end and ending with the last complete word

Using the filters as suggested by @medhamza7 or @bainternet or @fuxia is preferable.

Method 2

Use the function utf8_truncate() from this answer and fight your way through wp_trim_excerpt().

Sample code, not tested:

add_filter( 'excerpt_more', 'wpse_69436_excerpt_more' );

function wpse_69436_excerpt_more( $more )
{
    add_filter( 'wp_trim_excerpt', 'wpse_69436_trim_excerpt' );
    // we remove the more text here
    return '';
}

function wpse_69436_trim_excerpt( $excerpt )
{
    return utf8_truncate( $excerpt, 300 );
}

Method 3

WordPress has a filter for that which is conveniently named excerpt_length and it accepts a number of chars so:

function custom_excerpt_length( $length ) {
    return 50;
}
add_filter( 'excerpt_length', 'custom_excerpt_length', 999 );

change 50 to whatever limit you want.

Update per @toscho comment:

that is the solution above is for words as well and not for chars so here is a quick one:

add_filter('the_excerpt','excerpt_char_limit');
function excerpt_char_limit($e){
    return substr($e,0,50);
}

Method 4

For a better way, you can use the get_the_excerpt filter:

function get_excerpt($excerpt="",$limit=140){

    $excerpt = preg_replace(" ([.*?])",'',$excerpt);
    $excerpt = strip_shortcodes($excerpt);
    $excerpt = strip_tags($excerpt);
    $excerpt = mb_substr($excerpt, 0, $limit);
    $excerpt = mb_substr($excerpt, 0, strripos($excerpt, " "));
    $excerpt = trim(preg_replace( '/s+/', ' ', $excerpt));
    $excerpt = $excerpt.'...';
    return $excerpt;
}   
add_filter('get_the_excerpt',"get_excerpt");

Change the $limit=140 to the number of characters you want. Also if you want in different way:

add_filter('get_the_excerpt',function ($excerpt="",$limit=140){

    $excerpt = preg_replace(" ([.*?])",'',$excerpt);
    $excerpt = strip_shortcodes($excerpt);
    $excerpt = strip_tags($excerpt);
    $excerpt = mb_substr($excerpt, 0, $limit);
    $excerpt = mb_substr($excerpt, 0, strripos($excerpt, " "));
    $excerpt = trim(preg_replace( '/s+/', ' ', $excerpt));
    $excerpt = $excerpt.'...';
    return $excerpt;
});

That will make avoid any conflict like existing name of function get_excerpt.

All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0