使StringTemplate限制字符串长度的最佳方法？

Question

This is easiest to explain using a code example. In some scenarios, we have list items that have a lot of text, but showing more than the first few words is not useful, this is how we deal with it in JSP:

<% for(Item item : items) { %>
<li><%=StringHelper.shorten(item.getValue(),30))%></a></li>
<% } %>

The filter has some logic that makes it avoid cutting words, and including a "..." to indicate truncation, and so on. ie:

<li>Some text</li>
<li>Some other text that is longer...</li>

Is there a neat way to do this with a formatter. I know I could probably do something like this, but it seems a bit hacky, as we use different numbers in different locations:

$items:{i|<li>$i.value;format="max30"$</li>}$

Answer 1

The simplest way is to customize a tag, eg

public class ShortenTag extends TagSupport{

  private static final int MAX_LENGTH = 30; 

  public int doStartTag(){

    // shorten string here
  }


}