Limit number of words via PHP

gistfile1.aw

function snippet($text,$length=100,$tail="...") {
   $text = strip_tags($text);
   $text = trim($text);
   $txtl = strlen($text);
   if($txtl > $length) {
       for($i=1;$text[$length-$i]!=" ";$i++) {
           if($i == $length) {
               return substr($text,0,$length) . $tail;
           }
       }
       $text = substr($text,0,$length-$i+1) . $tail;
   }
   return $text;
}

/* Usage: snippet($textSource,100,);
* Note: the length value doesn't seem to correlate to the actual number of words.*/