PHP Concatenate

[Kevin Davis]

Hi there,

Here is what I'm trying to do.. I'm trying to merge the first and last name (that I can do) into an email address. But what I'm trying to do is to drop the middle initial. If the entry was from a form, I would have no problem, but the data will be uploaded from a different source, how would I go about dropping the middle initial?

Would I use regex??

Thank you,
Kevin

[bill]

I really hate to ask these because I fear the answers:

will there always be a middle initial ?

Will there be any first or last names with embedded spaces ? (eg
Jean Paul Aloysius Smith ?

bill

[Luuk]

$name="Kevin R. Davis";
$a=split(" ",$name);
print $a[0]." ".$a[count($a)-1];

It should print:
Kevin Davis

[Captain Paralytic]

You might if you wanted and if the full problem had a decent regex
solution to match it. However as Bill and Luuk have shown, you have
not given enough data in order for us to evaluate it.

[Jerry Stuckle]

What about "John Smith Jr"?

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstu...@attglobal.net
==================

[Peter H. Coffin]

On Tue, 22 May 2012 08:21:27 -0400, Jerry Stuckle wrote:
> On 5/21/2012 3:19 PM, Luuk wrote:
>> On 21-05-2012 20:47, Kevin Davis wrote:
>>> Hi there,
>>>
>>> Here is what I'm trying to do.. I'm trying to merge the first and
>>> last name (that I can do) into an email address. But what I'm
>>> trying to do is to drop the middle initial. If the entry was from a
>>> form, I would have no problem, but the data will be uploaded from a
>>> different source, how would I go about dropping the middle initial?
>>>
>>> Would I use regex??
>>>
>>> Thank you,
>>> Kevin
>>
>> $name="Kevin R. Davis";
>> $a=split(" ",$name);
>> print $a[0]." ".$a[count($a)-1];
>>
>> It should print:
>> Kevin Davis
>
> What about "John Smith Jr"?

Or "Carlos Salinas de Gortari"?

To cut to the important point, "dropping middle initial" is a kind
of simple problem surround by worm-cans with very weak lids. Pretty
much the least damaging thing you can do is drop punctuation and any
single-letter (not single character, just Latin letter) words, using two
passes with regexp processing. Usually if someone has put something into
a field on form asking for their name, whatever they've put there is
important to them.

You'll still piss off will.i.am of The Black-Eyed Peas even with that
simple step.

--
Never correct Halloween decorations where the guidance counselor can see.
It makes for very tedious conversations later.

[Paul Herber]

and anyone with the surname De'Ath.



--
Regards, Paul Herber, Sandrila Ltd.
http://www.sandrila.co.uk/

[The Natural Philosopher]

He assisted with my late mothers will, did Mr De'Ath. Genuinely!

>


--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

[Luuk]

~/tmp> cat surname.php
<?php
$name="Kevin R. De'Ath";

$a=split(" ",$name);
print $a[0]." ".$a[count($a)-1];

?>

~/tmp> php surname.php
Kevin De'Ath
~/tmp>

But, of course, this method is not perfect and/or complete.

But where is the OP.....?

Why does not he/she give a clue about what is expected?

[Luuk]

<?php
$name="Kevin R. De'Ath";

$a=split(" ",$name);
print $a[0]." ".$a[count($a)-1];

print "\n";

// Second solution, so J. R. R. Tolkien is also handled correctly
$name="J. R. R. Tolkien";
$a=split(" ",$name);
for ($f=0; $f<count($a); $f++)
if (substr($a[$f],strlen($a[$f])-1,1)!="." or $f==0) print
$a[$f]." ";
print "\n";

?>


output:
Kevin De'Ath
J. Tolkien

[Nick Brooks]

Cool stuff guys!