What Does Truncating Text Mean?

Truncating text is an important process for webpages and software applications alike. Learn more about what it means to truncate text with this expert SEO guide.

What Does Truncating Text Mean?

Text truncation is the process of shortening the content of text. It is usually followed by an ellipsis, which are three points. On webpages, there are various ways to reduce the length of text to fit within a designated area. In software applications, strings may be too long for their container, so they must be truncated.

All of the following is mandatory, so the text must be in a single line that overflows a box and hides the overflow. To truncate something is to shorten it or cut off part of it. In computer science, this term is often used in reference to data types or variables, such as numbers and floating-point strings. Truncation in IT refers to “cutting something or removing parts of it to make it shorter.” In general, truncation takes an object, such as a number or a text string, and reduces it in some way, which reduces the resources needed to store it.

When the end of the text is important or distinctive, truncate the text in the middle and replace it with an ellipsis. Strings can also be truncated, which can be useful if a string exceeds the maximum character limit for a given application. If delimiters are present in the string, always truncate between them and eat the entire identifier before truncating a delimiter and moving to the next identifier; this prevents false or misleading namespaces from appearing. If you're not sure, it's best to use intermediate truncation as it keeps both the beginning and end of the string intact.

This process is often done to use less memory on a system or clear a visual interface. If all the initial text of items in a list is the same but important or distinctive text is always at the end of the string, truncate at the beginning. In this example, final truncation hides the unique identifying character from view in the file pane. A truncation operation in code can take a number with several digits to the left of the decimal point and reduce it to an integer. Truncates a string (first argument) if it is longer than the given maximum string length (second argument).

For example, if a file name exceeds space available in the Project Files panel, truncate it and use ellipsis to indicate its truncation. When using intermediate truncation on strings with delimiters, always truncate between delimiters to minimize non-existent namespaces. This is similar to mathematical “rounding” except that some forms of truncation can automatically round down by cutting off extra decimal digits even if that floating-point number is closer to a larger integer. For example, a function can truncate decimal part of floating-point number to convert it into an integer. Several operating systems or programming languages use “truncate” as command or function to limit size of field, dataflow, or file. These example sentences are automatically selected from various online news sources to reflect current usage of word “truncate”.

Charlotte Wilson
Charlotte Wilson

Friendly travel advocate. Freelance zombie scholar. Extreme web practitioner. Evil coffee buff. Professional beer practitioner.

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