Smart_Trucate.py

def smart_truncate(text, max_length=0, word_boundary=False):
    if not max_length or len(text) < max_length:
        return text

    if not word_boundary:
        return text[:max_length].strip('-')

    truncated = ''
    for i, word in enumerate(text.split('-')):
        if not word: continue
        if len(truncated) + len(word) + i <= max_length:
            truncated += '{0}{1}'.format('-' if i else '', word)
    return truncated.strip('-')
 
if __name__ == '__main__':
    for i in range(21):
        print smart_truncate('jaja---lol-mememeoo--a', max_length=i, word_boundary=True)