Truncate

[coolguy357]

I'd like to enforce a maximum length on my variables with "octostashe", what do you recommend? Truncate would be great if it didn't add an ellipsis and just, you know, truncated.

[ay-azara]

Replace Truncate with Substring and you won't get any ellipses.

[coolguy357]

Replace Truncate with Substring and you won't get any ellipses.

That'd be great, and is what I tried first, but for strings shorter than the "max length" it throws up and just returns the template. Would probably be fine If this just returned the string instead. Then all of those folks depending on the ellipses for their critical infrastructure will not be affected.

[ay-azara]

That is a problem. Not sure what you're use case is but if you're using the variables for a script probably easier to truncate them in the language. If it's for something like release notes, the Octo staff would need to provide a solution. Too bad we can't nest or chain filters.

[500error]

Replace Truncate with Substring and you won't get any ellipses.

for strings shorter than the "max length" it throws up and just returns the template

Can we fix this too?

The Substring filter works in the form Substring 0 N but not Substring N when N is greater than the string length.

[droyad]

Both of these are now in master.

Truncate without the ellipsis — Truncate takes an optional second option for the suffix, which defaults to ... for backwards compatibility. Pass an empty string to drop it:

#{MyVariable | Truncate 7}            // Octopus...
#{MyVariable | Truncate 7 ""}         // Octopus
#{MyVariable | Truncate 7 " (more)"}  // Octopus (more)

The suffix is only appended when the value is actually longer than the given length, so nothing gets a stray suffix bolted on.

Substring no longer gives up when the length overruns — both Substring <length> and Substring <start> <length> now clamp to what's left in the string, so you get the remainder instead of the unreplaced template:

#{MyVariable | Substring 100}    // Octopus Deploy
#{MyVariable | Substring 8 100}  // Deploy

A <start> index past the end of the string is still treated as an error and leaves the expression unevaluated — that one genuinely isn't a request we can honour.

Thanks for the reports, and for the workaround suggestion along the way.