the_excerpt() does not work with has_excerpt()?

Question

I'm trying to shorten the excerpt but it does not work. It shows the full excerpt which I write in the post edit!

I've added this to the functions.php

function custom_excerpt_length( $length ) {
    return 20;
}
add_filter( 'excerpt_length', 'custom_excerpt_length', 999 );

To show the excerpt I'm using in content.php:

if(has_excerpt()) { the_excerpt(); } else { the_content(); }

The above code display full excerpt, not shortened!

Without has_excerpt() if statement it displays correctly.

Where can be the problem? Any ideas what can cause this?

Answer 1

excerpt_length is only applied to generated excerpts-- excerpts automatically generated from the post body.

To trim your manually created excerpt, use the same function that trims the generated one-- wp_trim_words.

if(has_excerpt()) { 
  $length = apply_filters('excerpt_length',20);
  echo wp_trim_words(get_the_excerpt(),$length); 
} else { 
  the_content(); 
}