A different way of looking at this could be to use formats (see perlform), maybe through formline and $^A. A format of ^<<<<<<<< (etc) should split a line at the correct place, and that can be adjusted using $:

In reply to Re: How do I truncate a string while preserving words? by cdarke
in thread How do I truncate a string while preserving words? by Cap'n Steve

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