Read more tag shows up on EVERY post

I recently read this awesome post and I need help figuring out how to display the ‘Read More’ link only on posts with more content to display. As it is, currently, it’s displaying on every post, even if it’s a short one-liner. Any help would be appreciated, I basically just copy/pasted Pieter’s code with a minor addition:

// Begin Excerpt Code
function wpse_allowedtags() {
    // Add custom tags to this string
        return '<script>,<style>,<br>,<em>,<i>,<ul>,<ol>,<li>,<a>,<p>,<img>,<video>,<audio>'; 
    }

if ( ! function_exists( 'wpse_custom_wp_trim_excerpt' ) ) : 

    function wpse_custom_wp_trim_excerpt($wpse_excerpt) {
    $raw_excerpt = $wpse_excerpt;
        if ( '' == $wpse_excerpt ) {

            $wpse_excerpt = get_the_content('');
            $wpse_excerpt = strip_shortcodes( $wpse_excerpt );
            $wpse_excerpt = apply_filters('the_content', $wpse_excerpt);
            $wpse_excerpt = str_replace(']]>', ']]&gt;', $wpse_excerpt);
            $wpse_excerpt = strip_tags($wpse_excerpt, wpse_allowedtags()); /*IF you need to allow just certain tags. Delete if all tags are allowed */

            //Set the excerpt word count and only break after sentence is complete.
                $excerpt_word_count = 75;
                $excerpt_length = apply_filters('excerpt_length', $excerpt_word_count); 
                $tokens = array();
                $excerptOutput="";
                $count = 0;

                // Divide the string into tokens; HTML tags, or words, followed by any whitespace
                preg_match_all('/(<[^>]+>|[^<>\s]+)\s*/u', $wpse_excerpt, $tokens);

                foreach ($tokens[0] as $token) { 

                    if ($count >= $excerpt_length && preg_match('/[\,\;\?\.\!]\s*$/uS', $token)) { 
                    // Limit reached, continue until , ; ? . or ! occur at the end
                        $excerptOutput .= trim($token);
                        break;
                    }

                    // Add words to complete sentence
                    $count++;

                    // Append what's left of the token
                    $excerptOutput .= $token;
                }

            $wpse_excerpt = trim(force_balance_tags($excerptOutput));

                $excerpt_end = ' <a href="'. esc_url( get_permalink() ) . '">' . '&nbsp;&raquo;&nbsp;' . sprintf(__( 'Read more about: %s &nbsp;&raquo;', 'wpse' ), get_the_title()) . '</a>'; 
                $excerpt_more = apply_filters('excerpt_more', ' ' . $excerpt_end); 

                //$pos = strrpos($wpse_excerpt, '</');
                //if ($pos !== false)
                // Inside last HTML tag
                //$wpse_excerpt = substr_replace($wpse_excerpt, $excerpt_end, $pos, 0); /* Add read more next to last word */
                //else
                // After the content
                $wpse_excerpt .= $excerpt_more; /*Add read more in new paragraph */

            return $wpse_excerpt;   

        }
        return apply_filters('wpse_custom_wp_trim_excerpt', $wpse_excerpt, $raw_excerpt);
    }

endif; 

remove_filter('get_the_excerpt', 'wp_trim_excerpt');
add_filter('get_the_excerpt', 'wpse_custom_wp_trim_excerpt'); 

// Replaces the excerpt "more" text by a link
function new_excerpt_more($more) {
       global $post;
    return '<br /><br /><a class="moretag btn-lg" href="'. get_permalink($post->ID) . '"> Read more</a>';
}
add_filter('excerpt_more', 'new_excerpt_more');
// End Excerpt Code

1 Answer
1

I actually never got to add this section to my answer you are referring to. To remove the read more link from the excerpt is quite easy, you just need to compare $count with $excerpt_length. $count will always be between 0 and the value assigned to $excerpt_length. So what we want to do here is to add the read more link in a condition that states that if $count is less than $excerpt_length, we should not display the read more

To put that all in code, you simply need to replace the following section

$excerpt_end = ' <a href="'. esc_url( get_permalink() ) . '">' . '&nbsp;&raquo;&nbsp;' . sprintf(__( 'Read more about: %s &nbsp;&raquo;', 'wpse' ), get_the_title()) . '</a>'; 
$excerpt_more = apply_filters('excerpt_more', ' ' . $excerpt_end); 

//$pos = strrpos($wpse_excerpt, '</');
//if ($pos !== false)
// Inside last HTML tag
//$wpse_excerpt = substr_replace($wpse_excerpt, $excerpt_end, $pos, 0); /* Add read more next to last word */
//else
// After the content
$wpse_excerpt .= $excerpt_more; /*Add read more in new paragraph */

with

if ( $count >= $excerpt_word_count ) {   
     $excerpt_end = ' <a href="'. esc_url( get_permalink() ) . '">' . '&nbsp;&raquo;&nbsp;' . sprintf(__( 'Read more about: %s &nbsp;&raquo;', 'wpse' ), get_the_title()) . '</a>'; 
    $excerpt_more = apply_filters('excerpt_more', ' ' . $excerpt_end); 

    //$pos = strrpos($wpse_excerpt, '</');
    //if ($pos !== false)
    // Inside last HTML tag
    //$wpse_excerpt = substr_replace($wpse_excerpt, $excerpt_end, $pos, 0); /* Add read more next to last word */
    //else
    // After the content
    $wpse_excerpt .= $excerpt_more; /*Add read more in new paragraph */
}  

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