#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; my $str = qq(just wondering how i can have perl display part of my long memo. basically i want the first lets say 255 charachters of the paragraph. im really new to perl so i don't know how i would come about this?); my $max = 50; (my $copy = $str) =~ s/(.{1,$max})\b.*/$1.../; print "$copy\n"; __END__