Multiple excerpt lengths in wordpress

Question

As it says in the title, I'm looking for multiple excerpt lengths in WordPress.

I understand you can do this in functions.php:

function twentyten_excerpt_length( $length ) {
    return 15;
}
add_filter( 'excerpt_length', 'twentyten_excerpt_length' );

What I want to know is how you can have multiple of these each returning different numerical values so I can get short excerpts for sidebar loops, longer excerpts for featured loops, and the longest excerpt for the main article.

Something like using these in the templates:

<?php the_excerpt('length-short') ?>
<?php the_excerpt('length-medium') ?>
<?php the_excerpt('length-long') ?>

Cheers, Dave

Answer 1

How about...

function excerpt($limit) {
      $excerpt = explode(' ', get_the_excerpt(), $limit);

      if (count($excerpt) >= $limit) {
          array_pop($excerpt);
          $excerpt = implode(" ", $excerpt) . '...';
      } else {
          $excerpt = implode(" ", $excerpt);
      }

      $excerpt = preg_replace('`\[[^\]]*\]`', '', $excerpt);

      return $excerpt;
}

function content($limit) {
    $content = explode(' ', get_the_content(), $limit);

    if (count($content) >= $limit) {
        array_pop($content);
        $content = implode(" ", $content) . '...';
    } else {
        $content = implode(" ", $content);
    }

    $content = preg_replace('/\[.+\]/','', $content);
    $content = apply_filters('the_content', $content); 
    $content = str_replace(']]>', ']]>', $content);

    return $content;
}

then in your template code you just use..

<?php echo excerpt(25); ?>

from: http://bavotasan.com/tutorials/limiting-the-number-of-words-in-your-excerpt-or-content-in-wordpress/