Abbreviate First name using regex

[ianco]

Hi

 

I'm looking to do a form where the first name is abbreviated in the output.

 

I can't seem to find a solution and what i have so far is not working.

 

Any ideas where i'm going wrong or if it's even possible?

 

Thanks

 

Ian

$name = $_POST["name"];

$find ="/^\;\s[A-Z]{1}[a-z]+\s$/";

$replace = "/^\;\s[a-z]{1}\.\s$/";

echo preg_replace($find,$replace,$name);

 

[Psycho]

Hmm... are you talking about abbreviating a person's name? If so, you aren't going to be able to do this with RegEx. You would need to build a library/table of names and their applicable abbreviations. The abbreviations for many/most names cannot be determined programatically:

 

Michael = Mike

Robert = Bob

Anthony = Tony

etc.

[ianco]

what i wanted was

 

Micheal Smith -> M. Smith

 

in a list of names separated by a semicolon

 

It would be too much hassle if i had to use a str_replace() for every name possible

[salathe]

Here's an example which takes a "comma-space" separated list of names and abbreviates the first name (of each name). It might not be perfect for your own script but might provide an idea of how to go about something like this; there are lots of other ways, some simpler and some more complex but this is the regex forum so lets give you some regex.

 

$names   = 'Jack Smith; Oliver Brown; Charlie Wilson; Harry Robertson';
echo preg_replace('/(?<=^|;\s)([A-Z])\S+/', '$1.', $names);
// J. Smith; O. Brown; C. Wilson; H. Robertson

 

The main point to take away from the example above is the use of a negative lookbehind to make sure we capture the capital letter either at the very start of the string (the very first first name) or after a comma-space (every other first name). The rest of the pattern is just a basic way to get the whole of the first name, capturing the first letter for use in the replacement.