Rails - Jun 2005 - [REUSE] An 'abbreviate' method for the String class

This is a simple one, maybe even something that might be nice to see  
in ActiveSupport::String.  It simply limits the length of any string  
to a specified amount, and adds "..." if the string exceeds the  
length.  I''d like to add whitespace detection to make it cleaner, but  
I haven''t had the pressing need :)

class String
   def abbreviate(abbreviate_length)
     return self[0..abbreviate_length] + ''...'' if
abbreviate_length <
self.length
     return self
   end
end

I usually put this (and methods like it) in a file called  
"support.rb" in the lib folder of my Rails application.  Then add  
"require ''support.rb''" to the bottom of my
config/environment.rb file.

Duane Johnson
(canadaduane)




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Have you seen ActionView::truncate ?  Does the same thing.  Of course, 
this could be moved in String itself.

Bye !
François

Duane Johnson said the following on 2005-06-14 11:25:
> This is a simple one, maybe even something that might be nice to see in 
> ActiveSupport::String.  It simply limits the length of any string to a 
> specified amount, and adds "..." if the string exceeds the
length.  I''d
> like to add whitespace detection to make it cleaner, but I haven''t
had
> the pressing need :)
> 
> class String
>   def abbreviate(abbreviate_length)
>     return self[0..abbreviate_length] + ''...'' if
abbreviate_length <
> self.length
>     return self
>   end
> end
> 
> I usually put this (and methods like it) in a file called
"support.rb"
> in the lib folder of my Rails application.  Then add "require 
> ''support.rb''" to the bottom of my
config/environment.rb file.

On 6/14/05, Duane Johnson
<duane.johnson-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>
wrote:
> This is a simple one, maybe even something that might be nice to see in
> ActiveSupport::String.  It simply limits the length of any string to a
> specified amount, and adds "..." if the string exceeds the
length.  I''d like
> to add whitespace detection to make it cleaner, but I haven''t had
the
> pressing need :)
What''s the difference between this and
ActionView::Helpers::TextHelper#excerpt ?
-- 
Regards,
John Wilger

-----------
Alice came to a fork in the road. "Which road do I take?" she asked.
"Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat.
"I don''t know," Alice answered.
"Then," said the cat, "it doesn''t matter."
- Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland

On Jun 14, 2005, at 9:29 AM, John Wilger wrote:
>
> What''s the difference between this and  
> ActionView::Helpers::TextHelper#excerpt ?
> -- 
> Regards,
> John Wilger
The difference is probably that I didn''t know about TextHelper :)   
Thanks for pointing that out.

Actually, upon inspection it appears that TextHelper#truncate does  
what my ''abbreviate'' method does.  It appears that #excerpt
matches
on a particular string sequence and adds ellipses (...) before and  
after the excerpt.

Duane Johnson
(canadaduane)




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On Jun 14, 2005, at 11:35 AM, Duane Johnson wrote:
>
> On Jun 14, 2005, at 9:29 AM, John Wilger wrote:
>> What''s the difference between this and 
>> ActionView::Helpers::TextHelper#excerpt ?
>> -- 
>> Regards,
>> John Wilger
> The difference is probably that I didn''t know about TextHelper :) 
> Thanks for pointing that out.
>
> Actually, upon inspection it appears that TextHelper#truncate does 
> what my ''abbreviate'' method does.  It appears that
#excerpt matches on
> a particular string sequence and adds ellipses (...) before and after 
> the excerpt.
>
> Duane Johnson
> (canadaduane)
>
I wonder if these might be better suited to activesupport.  Also, I 
just noticed a pluralize in TextHelper that should probably be removed 
since it is in AS::String.  Thoughts?  Want to do a patch?

-Scott

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On Tuesday 14 June 2005 17:39, Scott Barron wrote:
> On Jun 14, 2005, at 11:35 AM, Duane Johnson wrote:
> > Actually, upon inspection it appears that TextHelper#truncate does
> > what my ''abbreviate'' method does.  It appears that
#excerpt matches
> > on a particular string sequence and adds ellipses (...) before and
> > after the excerpt.
> I wonder if these might be better suited to activesupport.  Also, I
> just noticed a pluralize in TextHelper that should probably be
> removed since it is in AS::String.  Thoughts?  Want to do a patch?
It would be easier for me if these methods were methods on String.

Detour:

In BoilerPlate I have column meta data at the controller class level 
that defines which attributes are available and which defaults for 
ordering and some other things apply. Also, a closure (lambda) can be 
set for formatting the values in the column. Unfortunately, in the 
closure I can''t refer to any helper methods as they''re
instance
methods. A method on String wouldn''t be a problem. But then
I''m not
entirely happy with the meta data approach as it is, either. It''s just 
the best I''ve come up with. I''d prefer something that is
evaluated in
the context of the view template.

The code I''m talking about looks like this

class TasksController
  set_default_columns Task,
    ''description'',
    { :column => ''due_date'',
      :formatter => BoilerPlate::TemplateUtils::DATE_FORMATTER },
    { :column => ''status_id'', :title =>
''Status'',
      :path => ''status.name'', :type => :string, :include
=> :status }
  ...
end

This defines the default columns generated by the list action. The user 
can reorder and filter these columns and the user-defined changes are 
mixed and matched with the defaults.

Michael

-- 
Michael Schuerig                   The Fifth Rider of the Apocalypse
mailto:michael-q5aiKMLteq4b1SvskN2V4Q@public.gmane.org         is a programmer.
http://www.schuerig.de/michael/