public static function safe_truncate($string, $length, $append = '...')
{
$ret = substr($string, 0, $length);
$last_space = strrpos($ret, ' ');
if ($last_space !== false && $string != $ret) {
$ret = substr($ret, 0, $last_space);
}
if ($ret != $string) {
$ret .= $append;
}
return $ret;
}