Re: determining length of string

[John Graham-Cumming]

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John Graham-Cumming wrote:
> Left as an exercise for the reader :-)

OK.  That was a little harsh.  Here's a strchop function that can
truncate an arbitrary string to a certain number of characters:

characters := A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
characters += a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
characters += 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
characters += ` ~ ! @ \# $ % ^ & * ( ) - _ = +
characters += { } [ ] \ : ; ' " < > , . / ? |

sp :=
sp +=

strchop = $(strip $(eval __temp := $(subst $(sp),|,$1))$(foreach
a,$(characters),$(eval __temp := $$(subst $$a,$$a ,$(__temp))))$(eval
__temp := $(wordlist 1,$2,$(__temp)))$(eval __temp := $$(foreach
a,$(__temp),$$a))$(eval __temp := $$(subst |, ,$(__temp))))$(__temp)

X = the quick brown
$(warning x$(call strchop,$(X),4)x)

Note that the string _must not_ contain the | character.

John.

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