how would i restrict the character limit i na category name

Use the PHP substr function.

I know how to use that for post title but not sure how to do it for category…

the best i have so far is

<?php
foreach((get_the_category()) as $category) {
    echo ShortenText($category->cat_name);
} ?>

shortentext being a code i have in the function, it works except every time theres a space in the name that cuts off it cuts off the whole word instead of the number of characters. this is the example of what happens
if i want for it to cut off on 7 characters
“category” it would change it to “categor…”
but if it’s this
“new category” instead of this “new cat…” it does this “new …”

Change:

echo ShortenText($category->cat_name);

to

echo substr($category->cat_name, 0, 7) . '...';

hmmm it seems to be doing that for all titles now regardless of characters length…

is there a way to use a if else statement for that tag?

Don’t know why not…see https://php.net/manual/en/control-structures.if.php

oh i figured it out using the function.php thanks for the help
My original code worked i just realized that one part of it was just interfering with the spacings.

I’m trying to do something similar to this here