unable to return three dots at the end of excerpt.

You just have to get the output of the function according to some parameters.

The simplest would be something like that:

$args = array(
'readmore' => true
)

$excerpt = A5_Excerpt::text($args);

which gives you the […] at the end.

If you don’t want the [] around the dots, you just add the additional parameter ‘rmtext’ to the $args. The code would then look like that:

$args = array(
'readmore' => true,
'rmtext' => '...'
)

$excerpt = A5_Excerpt::text($args);

But it should be enough to just enter the text into the input field for the read more text in the widget.

I hope that helped.

<?php

/**
 *
 * Class A5 Excerpt
 *
 * @ A5 Plugin Framework
 * Version: 1.0 beta
 *
 * Gets the excerpt of a post according to some parameters
 *
 * standard parameters: offset(=0), usertext, excerpt, count
 * additional parameters: class(classname), filter(boolean), shortcode(boolean), format(boolean), readmore_link(boolean),
 * readmore_text(string)
 *
 */

class A5_Excerpt {

	public static function text($args) {

		extract($args);

		$offset = (isset($offset)) ? $offset : 0;

		$class = (!empty($class)) ? ' class ="'.$class.'"' : '';

		$filter = (isset($filter)) ? $filter : false;

		$shortcode = (isset($shortcode)) ? $shortcode : false;

		$format = (isset($format)) ? $format : false;

		if (!empty($usertext)) :

			$output = $usertext;

		else: 

			if (!empty($excerpt)) :

				$output = $excerpt;

			else :

				$excerpt_base = (empty($shortcode)) ? preg_replace('/\[caption(.*?)\[\/caption\]/', '', $content) : strip_shortcodes($content);

				$text = (empty($format)) ? strip_tags(trim(preg_replace('/\s\s+/', ' ', str_replace(array("\r\n", "\n", "\r", "&nbsp;"), ' ', $excerpt_base)))) : preg_replace('#<img(.*?)/>#', '', $excerpt_base);

				$text = preg_replace('/\b(https?|ftp|file):\/\/[-A-Z0-9+&@#\/%?=~_|$!:,.;]*[A-Z0-9+&@#\/%=~_|$]/i', '', $text);

				$length = (isset($count)) ? $count : 15;
				$dots = 'hello';
				$style = (isset($type)) ? $type : 'sentences';

				switch ($style) :

					case 'words' :

						$short = array_slice(explode(' ', $text), $offset, $length);

						$output = trim(implode(' ', $short));

						break;

					case 'sentences' :
						/*
						$short = array_slice(preg_split("/([\t.!?:]+)/", $text, -1, PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE), $offset*2, $length*2);

						$output = trim(implode($short)); */
						$short = array_slice(explode(' ', $text), $offset, $length);
						$output = trim(implode(' ', $short));
								$args = array(
								'readmore' => true,
								'rmtext' => '...'
)

$excerpt = A5_Excerpt::text($args);
						break;

					case 'letters' :

						$output = substr($text, $offset, $length);

						break;

					default :

						$output = $text;

				endswitch;

			endif;

		endif;

		if (!empty($linespace)) :

			$short=preg_split("/([\t.!?:]+)/", $output, -1, PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE);

			$short[count($short)] = '';

			foreach ($short as $key => $pieces) :

				if (!($key % 2) && $key < (count($short)-1)) :

					$tmpex[] = implode(array($short[$key], $short[$key+1]));

				endif;

			endforeach;

			if (isset($tmpex)) $output = trim(implode('<br /><br />', $tmpex));

		endif;

		if (!empty($readmore)) $output.=' <a href="'.$link.'" title="'.$title.'"'.$class.'>'.$rmtext.'</a>';

		$output = ($filter === true) ? apply_filters('the_excerpt', $output) : $output;

		return $output;

	}

} // A5_Excerpt

?>

This throws an error! Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘$excerpt’ (T_VARIABLE.

I’m kinda new to the php. Can you please guide me exactly where to put that piece of code . It will be appreciated. ??

Well, first of all you leave my code untouched. It’s a class in itself and the code, I wrote yesterday, you call from outside the class. Not from in the middle of the function.

And as I mentioned before, the easiest way, to get your dots is just to use the settings of the widget.