As an addendum -- in case it's not clear for the OP or others -- this works because substr used in the way described takes up to as many characters specified (e.g. 500 in this case). If used on a string shorter than the maximum length, there is no padding added at the end. Thus length works on the summary exactly as one would expect.

-xdg

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In reply to Re^2: Counting Characters by xdg
in thread Counting Characters by Anonymous Monk

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