WordPress: Custom Excerpt

excerpt.php

function get_custom_excerpt($length)   {
    $excerpt = get_the_content();
    $excerpt = preg_replace(" (\[.*?\])",'',$excerpt);
    $excerpt = strip_shortcodes($excerpt);
    $excerpt = strip_tags($excerpt);
    $excerpt = substr($excerpt, 0, $length);
    $excerpt = substr($excerpt, 0, strripos($excerpt, " "));
    $excerpt = trim(preg_replace( '/\s+/', ' ', $excerpt));
    $excerpt = $excerpt.'...';
    return $excerpt;
}