Smarter word-wrap in PHP for long words?

Question

I'm looking for a way to make word-wrap in PHP a bit smarter. So it doesn't pre-break long words leaving any prior small words alone on one line.

Let's say I have this (the real text is always completely dynamic, this is just to show):

wordwrap('hello! heeeeeeeeeeeeeeereisaverylongword', 25, '<br />', true);

This outputs:

hello!
heeeeeeeeeeeeeeereisavery
longword

See, it leaves the small word alone on the first line. How can I get it to ouput something more like this:

hello! heeeeeeeeeeee
eeereisaverylongword

So it utilizes any available space on each line. I have tried several custom functions, but none have been effective (or they had some drawbacks).

Solution 1

I've had a go at the custom function for this smart wordwrap:

function smart_wordwrap($string, $width = 75, $break = "\n") {
    // split on problem words over the line length
    $pattern = sprintf('/([^ ]{%d,})/', $width);
    $output = '';
    $words = preg_split($pattern, $string, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY | PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE);

    foreach ($words as $word) {
        if (false !== strpos($word, ' ')) {
            // normal behaviour, rebuild the string
            $output .= $word;
        } else {
            // work out how many characters would be on the current line
            $wrapped = explode($break, wordwrap($output, $width, $break));
            $count = $width - (strlen(end($wrapped)) % $width);

            // fill the current line and add a break
            $output .= substr($word, 0, $count) . $break;

            // wrap any remaining characters from the problem word
            $output .= wordwrap(substr($word, $count), $width, $break, true);
        }
    }

    // wrap the final output
    return wordwrap($output, $width, $break);
}

$string = 'hello! too long here too long here too heeeeeeeeeeeeeereisaverylongword but these words are shorterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr';
echo smart_wordwrap($string, 11) . "\n";

EDIT: Spotted a couple of caveats. One major caveat with this (and also with the native function) is the lack of multibyte support.

Solution 2

How about

$string = "hello! heeeeeeeeeeeeeeereisaverylongword";
$break = 25;

echo implode(PHP_EOL, str_split($string, $break));

Which outputs

hello! heeeeeeeeeeeeeeere                                                                                                                                                           
isaverylongword

str_split() converts the string to an array of $break size chunks.

implode() joins the array back together as a string using the glue which in this case is an end of line marker (PHP_EOL) although it could as easily be a '<br/>'

Solution 3

This is also a solution (for browsers etc.):

$string = 'hello! heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeereisaverylongword';
echo preg_replace('/([^\s]{20})(?=[^\s])/', '$1'.'<wbr>', $string);

It puts a <wbr> at words with 20 or more characters

<wbr> means "word break opportunity" so it only breaks if it has to (dictated by width of element/browser/viewer/other). It's invisible otherwise.

Good for fluid/responsive layout where there is no fixed width. And does not wrap odd like php's wordwrap

Solution 4

You can use CSS to accomplish this.

word-wrap: break-word;

That will break the word for you. Here is a link to see it in action:

http://www.css3.info/preview/word-wrap/

Solution 5

This should do the trick...

$word = "hello!" . wordwrap('heeeeeeeeeeeeeeereisaverylongword', 25, '<br />', true);
echo $word;

View more solutions

Comments

[mowgli]

I just used some example words. In real use, the text would be completely dynamic, so I could'nt use that

[mowgli]

I'm not breaking the words for a browser

[Paul Dessert]

Not sure exactly how your trying to do this, but why couldn't you dynamically change this? Just use variables to set your text

[mowgli]

Dynamically change what? The text can be anything, any length, any number of words. I don't know what the first word or any word will be ;)

[Paul Dessert]

Oh, gotcha. Then, I guess you'd need to create a custom function.

[mowgli]

;) Do you have an idea how? I know I should probably use some regex, but don't know how to get about it..

[Paul Dessert]

Sorry, don't have the time for that right now. :) Someone else might come along and give you more detail... Good luck.

[zerkms]

The trivial regexp would be: replace \S{42} with \\1 (note space in the replacement)

[mowgli]

where does the word wrapping go then? ;)

[mowgli]

What does $width = 75 set excactly?

[cmbuckley]

The function signature is exactly that of wordwrap (without the break parameter), so it sets a default wrap width of 75 characters.

[Eli]

nothing, its just the default values he is using. In case you don't supply your own with of 11, then 75 will be used.

[mowgli]

Ah ok. Nevermind multibyte support cbuckley ;) Well I don't need it for this anyway

[Sandeepan Nath]

this did not work for me. I tried it on a table's td. I applied some width under style and word-wrap: break-word;

[Sandeepan Nath]

It seems this solution handles both cases - 1. long word with no spaces and 2. long word with spaces. An advantage over @frglps's solution

[Maelish]

It's 2014 and it still down't work in every browser. Sometimes php covers your butt.

[LecheDeCrema]

yow even it's 2017 this is very helpful! Thanks :)

[Nicklasos]

Thank! Works for me! But you should add unicode option to regex: /([^\s]{20})(?=[^\s])/u

[Vipertecpro]

I just made helper function in laravel with your answer thank you so much.