Truncation, explained clearly

Everything about truncation, in one place.

The complete guide to truncation — in SQL, code, maths, text and search. 264 clear, practical answers covering databases, web text, mathematics, email and research.

264In-depth answers
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From TRUNCATE TABLE to CSS text-overflow to Taylor-series error bounds — pick a track.

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Database truncation

TRUNCATE vs DELETE vs DROP, foreign keys, rollbacks and transaction logs — across Oracle, MySQL, Postgres and SQL Server.

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Text on the web

Clean ways to truncate and shorten text with CSS, HTML and JavaScript — including the ellipsis overflow pattern.

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Maths & accuracy

What truncation means in numerical analysis, how it differs from rounding, and how to bound truncation error.