$summary = substr($text, 0, 500); Thanks.
Use [doc://length|length]. Specifically, use length($summary).
In context:
$text = '.'x600; $summary = substr($text, 0, 500); print(length($summary), "\n"); # 500 $text = '.'x500; $summary = substr($text, 0, 500); print(length($summary), "\n"); # 500 $text = '.'x400; $summary = substr($text, 0, 500); print(length($summary), "\n"); # 400
As an addendum -- in case it's not clear for the OP or others -- this works because substr used in the way described takes up to as many characters specified (e.g. 500 in this case). If used on a string shorter than the maximum length, there is no padding added at the end. Thus length works on the summary exactly as one would expect.
-xdg
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Of course none of these is efficient, but if you really do not want to use the built-in length function, ...
CountZero
"If you have four groups working on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass compiler." - Conway's Law
or counting nibbles and dividing by two (bit fraught for multi-byte characters though):
use strict; use warnings; my $text = '.'x400; my $summary = substr($text, 0, 500); print length(unpack 'H*', $summary) / 2, "\n";
Prints:
400
DWIM is Perl's answer to Gödel
A simple search for count characters returns: And length is always the first answer.