Truncate suffixes from a person's name

[pakenney38]

Say I have a string like "JOHN DOE JR". Does anyone know the best way to truncate suffixes like " JR" from the name? I need to be able to truncate " JR", " SR", " I", " II", " III", " IV", etc on a large list of names. The names are stored in MySQL if it matters.

[trq]

If they are the only suffixes, the easiest method would be a simple string replace.

 

<?php $val = str_replace(array(" JR", " SR", " I", " II", " III", " IV"),"",$val); ?>

[pakenney38]

I tried that and unfortunately there are several names in the list that are multiple words with words beginning with " I", so that will not work.

[kenrbnsn]

You should be able to do something like this:

<?php
$str = 'JOHN DOE JR';
$tmp = explode(' ',$str);
array_pop($tmp);
$new_str = implode(' ',$tmp);
echo "$str<br>\n$new_str\n";
?>

 

Ken

[papaface]

You should be able to do something like this:

<?php
$str = 'JOHN DOE JR';
$tmp = explode(' ',$str);
array_pop($tmp);
$new_str = implode(' ',$tmp);
echo "$str<br>\n$new_str\n";
?>

 

Ken

If you use PHP5 you can do it like this:

<?php
$str = 'JOHN DOE JR';
$tmp = implode(' ',explode(' ',$str,-1));
echo $tmp;
?>

[kenrbnsn]

You learn something new everyday!

 

Ken

[pakenney38]

Thanks! That gets me a lot closer.

Is there any way I could check to see if $str[2] equals any value within an array? Say I have:

$suffixes = array('JR', 'SR', 'I', 'II', 'III', 'IV');

I realize I would have to find the number of elements in $str, but can I just do:

$str = 'JOHN DOE JR';
$tmp = explode(' ',$str);
if $str[2] == $suffixes
{
   array_pop($tmp);
   $new_str = implode(' ',$tmp);
}

Sorry I don't mean to be a complete noob, but how would I work the if statement?

[trq]

if (in_array($str[2],$suffixes))
{
   array_pop($tmp);
   $new_str = implode(' ',$tmp);
}

[papaface]

OP - Just so you know, it should be $tmp[2] not $str[2].

[pakenney38]

Good point. Sorry for the confusion. Thanks for the solution.

[Daniel0]

You could also do

<?php
$val = preg_replace('/ (JR|SR|I{1,3})$/', '', $name);
?>