This function is very simple and many other functions make this on PHP 5 and even some ones in 4 the good think about this one is that work on php 3.0.6 and 4 

function split_hjms_chars($xstr, $xlenint, $xlaststr)
{
    $texttoshow = chunk_split($xstr,$xlenint,"\r\n"); 
    $texttoshow  = split("\r\n",$texttoshow);
    $texttoshow = $texttoshow[0].$xlaststr;
    return $texttoshow;
}

// For use 

echo split_hjms_chars("This is your text",6,"...");

// Will return

This i...

It is useful to cut long text on preview lists and if the server it's old.

Hope it helps some one. Hans Svane