public static function getPrefix($str, $length)
    {
        $prefixBytes = 0;
        $prefixChars = 0;
        while ($prefixBytes < strlen($str)  &&  $prefixChars < $length) {
            $charBytes = 1;
            if ((ord($str[$prefixBytes]) & 0xC0) == 0xC0) {
                $charBytes++;
                if (ord($str[$prefixBytes]) & 0x20 ) {
                    $charBytes++;
                    if (ord($str[$prefixBytes]) & 0x10 ) {
                        $charBytes++;
                    }
                }
            }

            if ($prefixBytes + $charBytes > strlen($str)) {
                // wrong character
                break;
            }

            $prefixChars++;
            $prefixBytes += $charBytes;
        }

        return substr($str, 0, $prefixBytes);
    }