Set Excerpt Length

Property	Value
description	Truncate WordPress excerpts to a fixed length.
tags	lib, php, wp, oop
rating

Human: 3 - Mixed authorship

Roughly half AI, half human. Core content reviewed, but minor risk remains.

Overview

Set a fixed word count for automatically generated WordPress excerpts. The snippet hooks into excerpt_length and returns 40, replacing WordPress' default excerpt length.

Change the returned number when a theme needs a different excerpt length.

Variants

Procedural

Add Macro

Add wp-set-excerpt-length macro.

<?php
/**
 * Set excerpt length.
 */
if ( ! function_exists( 'mac_set_excerpt_length' ) ) {

    function mac_set_excerpt_length( int $length ): int {
        return 40;
    }
}

add_filter( 'excerpt_length', 'mac_set_excerpt_length', 10, 1 );

OOP

Add Macro

Add wp-set-excerpt-length--oop macro.

<?php
/**
 * Truncate WordPress excerpts to a fixed length.
 *
 * @package mac-core
 */

declare(strict_types=1);

namespace MacCore\Services\Core;

use MacCore\Contracts\Service;

final class SetExcerptLength implements Service
{
    /**
     * Register WordPress hooks.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function register(): void
    {
        \add_filter(
            'excerpt_length',
            [$this, 'set_excerpt_length'],
            10,
            1
        );
    }

    /**
     * Force a fixed excerpt length.
     *
     * @param int $length Default excerpt length.
     * @return int
     */
    public function set_excerpt_length( int $length ): int
    {
        return 40;
    }
}