Wrapped up in a subroutine:
use strict;

my $string
    = 'one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve 
+thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty'
+;

{
    local $, = ', ';
    print first_x( $string, 10 ), "\n";
}

print scalar first_x( $string, 10 ), "\n";

sub first_x {
    return
        wantarray
        ? ( split /\s+/, $_[0], $_[1] + 1 )[ 0 .. $_[1] - 1 ]
        : join ' ', ( split /\s+/, $_[0], $_[1] + 1 )[ 0 .. $_[1] - 1 
+];
}

[download]
Output:
one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 
one two three four five six seven eight nine ten

[download]
If called in list context, it returns a list with the "x" first words. If called in scalar context it returns a string of the first "x" words joined by spaces.

CountZero

A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a string of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained throughout. There should be neither too little or too much, neither needless loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming rigidity." - The Tao of Programming, 4.1 - Geoffrey James

In reply to Re: Truncate Data from MySQL by CountZero
in thread Truncate Data from MySQL by rich731

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.