shortened output

how to shorten text field to fit

[mooger35]

I know this is probably a really simple answer but hey, I'm new to this.

I want to create a comments section and I want to display a little bit of the posters comments on 1 line (regardless of text length). How do I shorten the query output so it has "..." at the end when it runs out of space?

[jatar_k]

substr() [php.net]

[mooger35]

Thanks!