javascript substr chars without counting spaces

Question

I have a text description with css of

white-space: pre-wrap;

and it includes spaces and new lines etc...

I would like to limit number of characters in description without counting spaces:

description = description.substr(0,100);

Of course I need to preserve description formatting.

How could I do that?

Answer 1

Try this function. This returns exactly desired value:

function mySubstr(a/*description*/, c/*count*/){
    var l=0, dif=0, p=c, 
          dt=[a.substr(0, c)];
    while((l=dt.join("").replace(/\s/g, "").length)<c){
         dt.push(a.substr(p, dif=c-l));
         p+=dif;
    }
    return dt.join("");
}
console.log(mySubstr("1    2 $- 8 58 9&8 85 0j g fg hc 6 4 34 8", 16));

check result online!

---

Added part (method2 - updated version):

You can try this. This version supports multi \s too:

function Substr2(desc, c/*count*/){
    var r="", s=0, m=0, res, ok;
    desc.replace(/(.+?)(\s+)/g, function(a,b,d){
        if(ok) return;  
        m+=b.length;
        r+=a;
        res=r.substr(0, m+s-(m-c));
        if(m>=c) ok=1;
        s+=d.length;
    });
    return res;
};

console.log(Substr2("1 2 $- 8 58 9&8 85 0j g fg hc 6 4 34 8", 16));