Wordpress: How to obtain different excerpt lengths depending on a parameter - wordpress

Question

The length of the excerpt in wordpress is 55 words by default.
I can modify this value with the following code:
function new_excerpt_length($length) {
return 20;
}
add_filter('excerpt_length', 'new_excerpt_length');
So, the following call will return just 20 words:
the_excerpt();
But I can't figure out how could I add a parameter to obtain different lengths, so that I could call, for example:
the_excerpt(20);
the_excerpt(34);
Any ideas? Thanks!

Answer 1

uhm, answering me again, the solution was actually quite trivial. it's not possible, as far as i know, to pass a parameter to the function my_excerpt_length() (unless you want to modify the core code of wordpress), but it is possible to use a global variable. so, you can add something like this to your functions.php file:
function my_excerpt_length() {
global $myExcerptLength;
if ($myExcerptLength) {
return $myExcerptLength;
} else {
return 80; //default value
}
}
add_filter('excerpt_length', 'my_excerpt_length');
And then, before calling the excerpt within the loop, you specify a value for $myExcerptLength (don't forget to set it back to 0 if you want to have the default value for the rest of your posts):
<?php
$myExcerptLength=35;
echo get_the_excerpt();
$myExcerptLength=0;
?>

Answer 2

There is no way to do this as far as I have found using the_excerpt().
There is a similar StackOverflow question here.
The only thing I have found to do is write a new function to take the_excerpt()'s place. Put some variation of the code below into functions.php and call limit_content($yourLength) instead of the_excerpt().
function limit_content($content_length = 250, $allowtags = true, $allowedtags = '') {
global $post;
$content = $post->post_content;
$content = apply_filters('the_content', $content);
if (!$allowtags){
$allowedtags .= '<style>';
$content = strip_tags($content, $allowedtags);
}
$wordarray = explode(' ', $content, $content_length + 1);
if(count($wordarray) > $content_length) {
array_pop($wordarray);
array_push($wordarray, '...');
$content = implode(' ', $wordarray);
$content .= "</p>";
}
echo $content;
}
(Function credit: fusedthought.com)
There are also "advanced excerpt" plugins that provide functionality like this you can check into.

Answer 3

Thanks for your answer, thaddeusmt.
I am finally implementing the following solution, which offers a different length depending on the category and a counter ($myCounter is a counter within the loop)
/* Custom length for the_excerpt */
function my_excerpt_length($length) {
global $myCounter;
if (is_home()) {
return 80;
} else if(is_archive()) {
if ($myCounter==1) {
return 60;
} else {
return 25;
}
} else {
return 80;
}
}
add_filter('excerpt_length', 'my_excerpt_length');