I am trying to figure out how to split a string based on length, while also keeping words together (word boundary). I have the split based on length part worked out, but can't figure out how to not split a word.

More info...
I am building a menu system. I have a subroutine for adding menu items that splits strings based on length, to maintain the width of the menu, but if I pass a string that contains a bunch of words, that exceed the menu's width, words get cut and makes the menu look very bad.

Example:

+------------------+
|  This is my menu |
+------------------+
|                  |
+------------------+

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The menuAdd() subroutine adds the pipes at the left and right side of the menu and either pads a short string with spaces or splits a long string into multiple lines.

My dilema:

menuAdd('A really long string that I want to add to the awesome menu s
+ystem',20);

[download]
produces
+------------------+
|  This is my menu |
+------------------+
|                  |
| A really long st |
| ring that I want |
| to add to the aw |
| esome menu syste |
| m                |
+------------------+

[download]
I want it to produce
+------------------+
|  This is my menu |
+------------------+
|                  |
| A really long    |
| string that I    |
| want to add to   |
| the awesome menu |
| system           |
+------------------+

[download]

This is what I have for the menuAdd() subroutine

sub menuAdd{
    my $text = shift;
    my $menuWidth = shift;
    my $textLength = length($text);
    $menuWidth-=4; #shorten $menuWidth to leave room for | and a space
+ on left and right sides of the menu
    if ( $textLength <= $menuWidth ){
        #add spaces to end of $text to maintain menuWidth
        print "| " . padSpaces($text,$menuWidth) . " |\n";
    } elsif( $textLength > $menuWidth ){
        #split $text into separate lines to maintain menuWidth
        my @textArray = split(/(.{$menuWidth})/, $text);
        print @textArray;
        foreach my $line (@textArray){
            print "| " . padSpaces($line,$menuWidth) . " |\n";
            #print "| $line |\n";
        }
    } else {
        print "******SHOULD NEVER GET HERE******\n";
    }
}

[download]

In reply to How to split a string based on length or word boundary by bcarroll

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