Text

The TextHelper contains methods to make text more usable and friendly in your views. It aids in enabling links, formatting urls, creating excerpts of text around chosen words or phrases, highlighting key words in blocks of text, and to gracefully truncating long stretches of text.

autoLinkEmails

autoLinkEmails(string $text, array $htmlOptions=array())

Adds links to the well-formed email addresses in $text, according to any options defined in $htmlOptions (see HTML).

$my_text = 'For more information regarding our world-famous pastries and desserts, contact info@example.com';
$linked_text = $this->Text->autoLinkEmails($my_text);

Output:

For more information regarding our world-famous pastries and desserts,
contact <a href="mailto:info@example.com">info@example.com</a>

autoLinkUrls

autoLinkUrls(string $text, array $htmlOptions=array())

Same as in autoLinkEmails(), only this method searches for strings that start with https, http, ftp, or nntp and links them appropriately.

autoLink

autoLink(string $text, array $htmlOptions=array())

Performs the functionality in both autoLinkUrls() and autoLinkEmails() on the supplied $text. All URLs and emails are linked appropriately given the supplied $htmlOptions.

excerpt

excerpt(string $haystack, string $needle, int $radius=100, string $ending="...")

Extracts an excerpt from $haystack surrounding the $needle with a number of characters on each side determined by $radius, and suffixed with $ending. This method is especially handy for search results. The query string or keywords can be shown within the resulting document.

echo $this->Text->excerpt($last_paragraph, 'method', 50);

Output:

mined by $radius, and suffixed with $ending. This method is especially handy for
search results. The query...

highlight

highlight(string $haystack, string $needle, array $options = array() )

Highlights $needle in $haystack using the $options['format'] string specified or a default string.

Options

• ‘format’ - string The piece of html with that the phrase will be highlighted
• ‘html’ - bool If true, will ignore any HTML tags, ensuring that only the correct text is highlighted

echo $this->Text->highlight($last_sentence, 'using',array('format'=>'<span class="highlight">\1</span>');

Output:

Highlights $needle in $haystack <span class="highlight">using</span>
the $options['format'] string specified  or a default string.

stripLinks

stripLinks($text)

Strips the supplied $text of any HTML links.

toList

toList(array $list, $and='and', $separator=', ')

Creates a comma-separated list where the last two items are joined with ‘and’.

echo $this->Text->toList($colors);

Output:

red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet

truncate

truncate(string $text, int $length=100, array $options)

Cuts a string to the $length and adds a suffix with 'ending' if the text is longer than $length. If 'exact' is passed as false, the truncation will occur after the next word ending. If 'html' is passed as true, html tags will be respected and will not be cut off.

$options is used to pass all extra parameters, and has the following possible keys by default, all of which are optional:

array(
    'ending' => '...',
    'exact' => true,
    'html' => false
)

echo $this->Text->truncate(
    'The killer crept forward and tripped on the rug.',
    22,
    array(
        'ending' => '...',
        'exact' => false
    )
);

Output:

The killer crept...

trim

trim()

An alias for truncate.