How to truncate a string?

[Bruno Veldeman]

Hi,

I have been looking for a function to truncate a string at a given lenght, but am lost.

None of the functions seen to do this, I remember BASIC having A$ = 
left$("1234567890",5).
Does perl have this function? 

What I want is to cut off all strings at a given lenght if the string exeeds it, and 
add ... to them so the user can see it was cut off.

So blablablabla would be blablabl... if cut on 8th position

Any sugestions?

Bruno