Getting x characters from text

[Dotan Cohen]

I have this SQL statement:
SELECT ID, title, date, content FROM news ORDER BY date asc LIMIT 0,10

However, I only need the first 40 characters of the content field,
which in some cases is over 5000 characters long. Is there a way to
request only the first 40 characters of a field? Thanks in advance.

Dotan Cohen
http://www.technology-sleuth.com/mobile/cellphones.php