As others mention, the idea of limiting extension to a certain number of characters is invalid. Going with the idea of array_pop, thinking of a delimited string as an array, this function has been useful to me...
function string_pop($string, $delimiter){
$a = explode($delimiter, $string);
array_pop($a);
return implode($delimiter, $a);
}
Usage:
$filename = "pic.of.my.house.jpeg";
$name = string_pop($filename, '.');
echo $name;
Outputs:
pic.of.my.house (note it leaves valid, non-extension "." characters alone)
In action:
http://sandbox.onlinephpfunctions.com/code/5d12a96ea548f696bd097e2986b22de7628314a0