WordPress: echoing just the first 60characters of the post title - php

Question

I am styling a WordPress Theme and I would like to make sure that if the post title is longer than 60 characters it shows the first 6ß0 characters +
three points (...) at the end
In Native Php would like:
<?php
if (strlen($title) <= 60) {
echo %title
} else {
echo (substr($title, 60) . "..."
}
?>
My problem is that inside WordPress the syntax of variables is not $title but %title as you could see in the code:
<?php previous_post_link( '%link', '%title ' ); ?>
My questions are:
How would be the final IF inside WordPress
How would be in shorthand if/else (ternary) form?
Thanks

Answer 1

You achieve this by creating your custom post_nav function
<div class="prev-posts pull-left">
<?php
$prev_post = get_previous_post();
if ($prev_post)
{
$prev_title = strip_tags(str_replace('"', '', $prev_post->post_title));
if (strlen($prev_title) >= 60) //<-- here is your custom checking
{
$prev_title = (substr($prev_title, 0, 60)) . "...";
}
echo "\t" . '<a rel="prev" href="' . get_permalink($prev_post->ID) . '" title="' . $prev_title . '" class=" "><strong><<< "' . $prev_title . '"</strong></a>' . "\n";
}
?>
</div>
<div class="next-posts pull-right">
<?php
$next_post = get_next_post();
if ($next_post)
{
$next_title = strip_tags(str_replace('"', '', $next_post->post_title));
if (strlen($next_title) >= 60) //<-- here is your custom checking
{
$next_title = (substr($next_title, 0, 60)) . "...";
}
echo "\t" . '<a rel="next" href="' . get_permalink($next_post->ID) . '" title="' . $next_title . '" class=" "><strong>"' . $next_title . '" >>></strong></a>' . "\n";
}
?>
</div>
Hope this helps!