How to change this substring logic so it will stop when the word is ended closest to the ending value in JS?

Question

I have a string and need to cut it when it longer than 50 characters. The issue is that it cuts the last word.

 showName(name) {
      if (name.length < 50) {
        return name
      } else {
        return name.substring(0, 50) + '...'
      }
    },

How can I do it in a way that last word will be complete?

Answer 1

This is a somewhat naive approach that doesn't handle non-space breaks well, but it might be good enough.

function showName(name) {
  if (name.length < 50) {
    return name
  } else {
    const short = name.substring(0, 50)
    const shortWords = short.split(/\b/)
    const lastShortWord = shortWords[shortWords.length - 1]
    const words = name.split(/\b/)
    const adjWord = words[shortWords.length - 1]
    if (lastShortWord !== adjWord) {
      return short.substring(0, short.lastIndexOf(' ')) + '...'
    }
    return short + '...'
  }
}

console.log(showName('A really long name that should span more than 50 characters but not cut in the middle of the last word in the allowed length'))