limiting text output...

i'm not sure what it's called in PHP lingo...so i can't find anything about this by searching on the web...

i'd like to limit the amount of text that a loop is outputting...to 500 characters or less...

what's this called? and/or does anybody know a piece of code that can make this happen?

thanks...jv

can we see the loop?

simple example without knowing what you're trying to do.

YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO LAUGH AT MY CODE!!! hehe...

<?
$username="vvvv";
$password="vvvv";
$database="vvvvvv";

mysql_connect(localhost,$username,$password);
@mysql_select_db($database) or die( "Unable to select database");
$query="SELECT * FROM response where a='$blog' ";

$result=mysql_query($query);

$num=mysql_numrows($result);

mysql_close();

$i=0;
while ($i < $num) {

$name=mysql_result($result,$i,"name");
$email=mysql_result($result,$i,"email");
$website=mysql_result($result,$i,"website");
$date=mysql_result($result,$i,"date");
$a=mysql_result($result,$i,"a");
$comments=mysql_result($result,$i,"comments");
?>
<table width="425">
<tr span class="unnamed2"><td><a href="mailto:<? echo "$email"; ?>"><? echo "$name"; ?> </a>says...</td></tr>
<tr span class="unnamed5"><td><? echo "$comments"; ?></td></tr>
<tr span class="unnamed3" align="right" valign="top"><td><? echo "$date"; ?><br></td></tr>
<tr><td><hr size="1" noshade><br></td></tr>
</table>
<?
++$i;
}

?>