Maybe you guys can help:

I have a variable called $bio with bio data.

$bio = "Hello, I am John, I'm 25, I like fast cars and boats. I work as a blogger and I'm way cooler then the author of the question";

I search the $bio using a set of functions to search for a certain word, lets say "author" which adds a span class around that word, and I get:

$bio = "Hello, I am John, I'm 25, I like fast cars and boats. I work as a blogger and I'm way cooler then the <span class=\"highlight\">author</span> of the question";

I use a function to limit the text to 85 chars:

$bio = limit_text($bio,85);

The problem is when there are more then 80 chars before the word "author" in $bio. When the limit_text() is applied, I won't see the highlighted word author.

What I need is for the limit_text() function to work as normal, adding all the words that contain the span class highlight at the end. Something like this:

*"This is the limited text to 85 chars, but there are no words with the span class highlight so I am putting to be continued ... **author**, **author2** (and all the other words that have a span class highlight around them separate by comma "*

Hope you understood what I mean, if not, please comment and I'll try to explain better.

Here is my limit_text() function:

function limit_text($text, $length){ // Limit Text
        if(strlen($text) > $length) {
        $stringCut = substr($text, 0, $length);
        $text = substr($stringCut, 0, strrpos($stringCut, ' '));
        }
        return $text;
    }

UPDATE:

$xturnons = str_replace(",", ", ", $xturnons);
$xbio = str_replace(",", ", ", $xbio);

$xbio = customHighlights($xbio,$toHighlight); 
$xturnons = customHighlights($xturnons,$toHighlight);

$xbio = limit_text($xbio,85);
$xturnons = limit_text($xturnons,85);

The customHighlights function which adds the span class highlighted:

function addRegEx($word){ // Highlight Words
        return "/" . $word . '[^ ,\,,.,?,\.]*/i';
    }
    function highlight($word){
        return "<span class='highlighted'>".$word[0]."</span>";
    }
    function customHighlights($searchString,$toHighlight){
        $searchFor = array_map('addRegEx',$toHighlight);
        $result = preg_replace_callback($searchFor,'highlight',$searchString);
        return $result;
    }