Golang : Word limiter example

Problem:

You want to limit a string to X number of words. How to do that?

Solution:

Break the string into a slice of words, count the total number of words and join the words into a new string again but limited to the specified X number.

For example:

 package main

  import (
 "fmt"
 "strings"
  )

  // Limits a string to X number of words.

  func word_limiter(s string, limit int) string {

 if strings.TrimSpace(s) == "" {
 return s
 }

 // convert string to slice
 strSlice := strings.Fields(s)

 // count the number of words
 numWords := len(strSlice)

 var result string

 if numWords > limit {
 // convert slice/array back to string
 result = strings.Join(strSlice[0:limit], " ")

 // the three dots for end characters are optional
 // you can change it to something else or remove this line
 result = result + "..."
 } else {

 // the number of limit is higher than the number of words
 // return default or else will cause
 // panic: runtime error: slice bounds out of range
 result = s
 }

 return string(result)

  }

  func main() {

 str := "Here is a nice text string consisting of eleven words."

 // limit to 3 words
 fmt.Println(word_limiter(str, 3))

 // limit to 8 words
 fmt.Println(word_limiter(str, 8))

 // limit to 18 words
 // will return all words because limit is higher than the number of
 // words
 fmt.Println(word_limiter(str, 18))

 unicodeStr := "世界你好"

 // limit to 3 words -- will not work!
 // characters need to be separated by spaces
 fmt.Println(word_limiter(unicodeStr, 3))

 unicodeStr2 := "世 界 你 好"

 // limit to 3 words
 // -- will work because characters are separated by spaces
 fmt.Println(word_limiter(unicodeStr2, 3))

  }

Output:

Here is a...

Here is a nice text string consisting of...

Here is a nice text string consisting of eleven words.

世界你好

世 界 你...

References:

https://www.socketloop.com/tutorials/golang-append-and-add-item-in-slice

https://github.com/bcit-ci/CodeIgniter/blob/develop/system/helpers/text_helper.php