Looking for a simple way to truncate a string in c#

Question

I used the following:

t.Description.Substring(0, 20)

But there is a problem if there are less than 20 characters in the string. Is there a simple way (single inline function) that I could use to truncate to a maximum without getting errors when the string is less than 20 characters?

Answer 1

How about:

t.Description.Substring(0, Math.Min(0, t.Description.Length));

Somewhat ugly, but would work. Alternatively, write an extension method:

public static string SafeSubstring(this string text, int maxLength)
{
    // TODO: Argument validation

    // If we're asked for more than we've got, we can just return the
    // original reference
    return text.Length > maxLength ? text.Substring(0, maxLength) : text;
}