How to limit the maximum display length of a column in PostgreSQL

Question

I am using PostgreSQL, and I have a column in a table which contains very long text. I want to select this column in a query, but limit its display length.

Something lik

Answer 1

Slightly shorter:

SELECT left(longcolumn, 10) from mytable;

Answer 2

What you can do is use PostgreSQL's substring() method. Either one of the two commands below will work:

SELECT substring(longcolumn for 10) FROM mytable;
SELECT substring(longcolumn from 1 for 10) FROM mytable;