You're probably looking for substr http://uk2.php.net/manual/en/function.substr.php.

Something like substr($string, 0, 11) should give you the first 11 characters, but remember to check the lenght and only do this if it's over 11 chars

if (strlen($string) > 11)

{

$string = substr($string, 0, 11);

}

This should help:

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.substr-replace.php



$var = 'ABCDEFGH:/MNRPQR/';

/* These two examples replace all of $var with 'bob'. */

echo substr_replace($var, 'bob', 0) . "
\n";

echo substr_replace($var, 'bob', 0, strlen($var)) . "
\n";

/* Insert 'bob' right at the beginning of $var. */

echo substr_replace($var, 'bob', 0, 0) . "
\n";

/* These next two replace 'MNRPQR' in $var with 'bob'. */

echo substr_replace($var, 'bob', 10, -1) . "
\n";

echo substr_replace($var, 'bob', -7, -1) . "
\n";

/* Delete 'MNRPQR' from $var. */

echo substr_replace($var, '', 10, -1) . "
\n";