Get first n characters of a string

Question

How can I get the first n characters of a string in PHP? What\'s the fastest way to trim a string to a specific number of characters, and append \'...\' if needed?

Answer 1

This is what i do

    function cutat($num, $tt){
        if (mb_strlen($tt)>$num){
            $tt=mb_substr($tt,0,$num-2).'...';
        }
        return $tt;
    }

where $num stands for number of chars, and $tt the string for manipulation.