There are a lot of scripts going arround, even one which defined the PIXELS of a character, like a is 4, and p is 3,9. So, you can define, into the function, how long you want your sentence to be. For example shortenCode($text, $pixels); Define yours, what ever you please.

Next, you can, if you want, define the cutter, as I like to call it, which ends the code with, for example "..." or "...<br /><br /><strong>Read More</strong>". Only "read more" of course, will act as a full link to the posted message.

It's a little bit overkill, but for those who want to be precise, should use that. If somebody is interested, I can find it (again). ;)