Maybe it is better to implement a method for that purpose:
string shorten(sting yourStr)
{
//Suppose you have a string yourStr, toView and a constant value
string toView;
const int maxView = 3;
if (yourStr.Length > maxView)
toView = yourStr.Substring(0, maxView) + " ..."; // all you have is to use Substring(int, int) .net method
else
toView = yourStr;
return toView;
}
There isn't a built in method in the .NET Framework which does this, however this is a very easy method to write yourself. Here are the steps, try making it yourself and let us know what you come up with.
Create a method, perhaps an extension methodpublic static void TruncateWithEllipsis(this string value, int maxLength)
Check to see if the passed in value is greater than the maxLength specified using the Length property. If the value not greater than maxLength, just return the value.
If we didn't return the passed in value as is, then we know we need to truncate. So we need to get a smaller section of the string using the SubString method. That method will return a smaller section of a string based on a specified start and end value. The end position is what was passed in by the maxLength parameter, so use that.
Return the sub section of the string plus the ellipsis.
A great exercise for later would be to update the method and have it break only after full words. You can also create an overload to specify how you would like to show a string has been truncated. For example, the method could return " (click for more)" instead of "..." if your application is set up to show more detail by clicking.
I found this question after searching for "C# truncate ellipsis". Using various answers, I created my own solution with the following features:
An extension method
Add an ellipsis
Make the ellipsis optional
Validate that the string is not null or empty before attempting to truncate it.
public static class StringExtensions
{
public static string Truncate(this string value,
int maxLength,
bool addEllipsis = false)
{
// Check for valid string before attempting to truncate
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(value)) return value;
// Proceed with truncating
var result = string.Empty;
if (value.Length > maxLength)
{
result = value.Substring(0, maxLength);
if (addEllipsis) result += "...";
}
else
{
result = value;
}
return result;
}
}
I has this problem recently. I was storing a "status" message in a nvarcharMAX DB field which is 4000 characters. However my status messages were building up and hitting the exception.
But it wasn't a simple case of truncation as an arbitrary truncation would orphan part of a status message, so I really needed to "truncate" at a consistent part of the string.
I solved the problem by converting the string to a string array, removing the first element and then restoring to a string. Here is the code ("CurrentStatus" is the string holding the data)...
if (CurrentStatus.Length >= 3750)
{
// perform some truncation to free up some space.
// Lets get the status messages into an array for processing...
// We use the period as the delimiter, then skip the first item and re-insert into an array.
string[] statusArray = CurrentStatus.Split(new string[] { "." }, StringSplitOptions.None)
.Skip(1).ToArray();
// Next we return the data to a string and replace any escaped returns with proper one.
CurrentStatus = (string.Join(".", statusArray))
.Replace("\\r\\n", Environment.NewLine);
}