icemac.truncatetext 0.1

Nicely truncate text

Intelligent truncation of text means that truncation does not take place inside a word but only between words. So the required length is only an approximation. The result text might be a bit longer than the required length:

>>> from icemac.truncatetext import truncate
>>> 'I was here.'[:3]
'I w'
>>> truncate('I was here.', 3)
'I was ...'

Only instances of basestring can be truncated:

>>> truncate(3, 3)
Traceback (most recent call last):
ValueError: 3 is no instance of basestring or None
>>> truncate(u'Lorem ipsum', 5)
u'Lorem ...'

None is handled nicely:

>>> truncate(None, 4)
''

Always at least one word is returned even when it is longer than the required length:

>>> truncate('Lorem ipsum', 1)
'Lorem ...'

If the text contains only of one word which is longer the the wished lenght it is returned but without the ellipsis:

>>> truncate('The-really-long-word', 5)
'The-really-long-word'

If the text is shorter than the length parameter it is returned without the ellipsis:

>>> truncate('Lorem ipsum', 11)
'Lorem ipsum'

Truncation also takes place at tabs and linebreaks:

>>> truncate("I was here.\nNow I'm away", 11)
'I was here. ...'
>>> truncate("I was here.\rNow I'm away", 12)
'I was here.\rNow ...'
>>> truncate("I was here.\tNow I'm away", 11)
'I was here. ...'

Changelog

0.1 - 2009-01-31

• Initial public release