Truncate a text in php. avoid splitting word with substr

There are certain situations when we need to truncate a text.. for example if we want to show only some parts of a text.. like what we see in google search.. a small description is shown..
to face such situations i have kept a function and named it as truncate.. and have included the code in my helper file.. so that i have access to this function from anywhere within the project..
the code is

<?php


/*
 $string: is the text to truncate
 $start : is the starting count of the text from which the text is to be truncated.. normaly it will be zero. taht is text is from the begining
 $length : refers to the count of characters to return back. the function takes it as a apporximate value. because function searches for the nearby 'space' in the $roundof characters limit
so $roundof : is the count of  characters for the near by space,,..
$append is the characters to be appended after the truncated string for example : " like this..." (three dots)
*/

function truncate($string, $start = 0,$length = 250 ,$append="...",$roundof=5){
if (strlen($string) < $length){
                return $string;
    }else{
                $around=$length-$roundof;
                $whitespaceposition = strpos($string," ",$around);
                $truncated = substr($string, 0, $whitespaceposition);
                $truncated.=$append;
                return $truncated;
        }
        return TRUE;
        }


// example

$text  ="hai how are you friend";
// want to truncate the text in 5characters

print truncate($text,0,5);

/*
 output
hai h...
*/

?>
--
Thanks & regards

Saxan Rappai.
moderator: http://makemytaste.com