Shorten user description

gistfile1.aw

<?php
/**
 * Limit User Description to 50 characters
 * @link https://gist.github.com/1335597
 * @param string $description
 * @return string modified description
 */
function be_limit_description( $description ) {
	$max_characters = 50;
	if ( strlen( $description ) > $max_characters ) {

		/** Truncate $text to $max_characters + 1 */
		$description = substr( $description, 0, $max_characters + 1 );

		/** Truncate to the last space in the truncated string */
		$description = trim( substr( $description, 0, strrpos( $description, ' ' ) ) );
	}
	return $description;	// Return the trimmed description to wp_insert_user();
}
add_filter( 'pre_user_description', 'be_limit_description' );

I don't know why this doesn't work. If I change update_user_meta at the end to use a different field (ex: 'brand_new_field' ), it works for creation but it doesn't ever update.

I pasted two paragraphs of text in my description, and if you do print_r( $description ) right before update_user_meta you can see it successfully shortened it.

Same here. All the way down, I could var_export($description) the value was correct. If I var_export($update), I get "true", but that update seems to just not do anything. I'm using WP3.3beta2.

if you add

$newdesc = get_user_meta( $user_id, 'description', true );
var_export ($newdesc);

at line 23, $newdesc returns the shortened description.

May be a bug. I tried using the basic example from the Codex (http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/update_user_meta) and got nothing.

Paul Menard on the wp-austin mailing list pointed out the issue. The hook I was using was being called too early and was being overwritten later on based on the data in $_POST. I updated the above code to use the 'pre_user_description' filter which runs much later.

Glad it's working.

Paul rocks. Excellent filter mod, Bill. @norcross, it's weird that the update_user_meta method returns the value in the array, but it doesn't record it. Seems a little voodoo-ish.

@ramseyp, I think the issue is that wp_insert_user() didn't care what was currently in the database. When the page loads, it puts the database value into the textarea. When the page is saved, it updates the user_meta to whatever is in that textarea (what's in $_POST['description']). My code was hopping in the middle of that, updating the database (but then it gets overwritten later on).

I was able to get my original code to work by changing the last line from this: $update = update_user_meta( $user_id, 'description', $description ); to this: $_POST['description'] = $description;