Limit excerpt length by characters

Or use this to return the excerpt in a paragraph:
return apply_filters('the_content', $excerpt);

seanjacob, no matter what number I set, your script will not display more than 64 characters.

It seems like “.$permalink.” is calling the actual url of the page where i’m at, and not the page of the single post.

Is it only me? When i click “more” the page just reloads.

$permalink = get_permalink($post->ID);

Try adding this to the top of the function.

Use this function if you’re planning on using it more than once with a different amount of characters.

function get_excerpt($count){
  $permalink = get_permalink($post->ID);
  $excerpt = get_the_content();
  $excerpt = strip_tags($excerpt);
  $excerpt = substr($excerpt, 0, $count);
  $excerpt = substr($excerpt, 0, strripos($excerpt, " "));
  $excerpt = $excerpt.'... <a href="'.$permalink.'">more</a>';
  return $excerpt;
}

Call the function plus the amount of characters –

<?php echo get_excerpt(125); ?>

cheers!!

Been trying to figure this out: Is there a way to use this code, creating a character limit, without truncating the last word? (I would still want the read more ellipses.)

Any help would be appreciated!

Without the truncating –

function get_excerpt($count){
  $permalink = get_permalink($post->ID);
  $excerpt = get_the_content();
  $excerpt = strip_tags($excerpt);
  $excerpt = substr($excerpt, 0, $count);
  $excerpt = $excerpt.'... <a href="'.$permalink.'">more</a>';
  return $excerpt;
}

Thank you, seanjacob!…I’ll give it a shot later today! ??

Haha nice one! No problem.