Name conversion

[Anon]

given a text string which contains a name. Convert the name to LastName, FirstName

$name="Joe Hagerty";
$pieces = explode (" ", $name);
$newname=$pieces[1].", ".$pieces[0];
echo $newname;

No problem

Now the question:
What to do about names like:

Joe F Hagerty
R. R. Hagerty
Joe F Hagerty III

Any suggestions?

[Anon]

Here's what I ended up with. It works but it's ugly. Anyone know of a more elegant solution?

$pieces = explode(" ", $name);
if ($pieces[3]!=NULL) {
echo $pieces[3];
echo ", ";echo $pieces[0];
echo " ";echo $pieces[1];
echo " ";echo $pieces[2];}
elseif ($pieces[2]!=NULL) {
echo $pieces[2];
echo ", ";echo $pieces[0];
echo " ";echo $pieces[1];}
elseif ($pieces[1]!=NULL) {
echo $pieces[1];
echo ", ";echo $pieces[0];}
elseif ($pieces[0]!=NULL) {
echo $pieces[0];}

[Anon]

Hmm...pseudocode follows...

1) Count the members of the array,
2) Check that the last array member isn't all "I"s
3a) if it is all "I"s, take the second-to-last member, and put it in $lastname
3b) if it isn't all "I"s, put it in $lastname
4) print $lastname, followed by each other array member in order, excluding the one that matches $lastname

so...

$pieces = explode(" ", $name);

$count = count($pieces);

if (preg("^I+$", $pieces[$count - 1])) {
$lastname = $pieces[$count - 2];
} else {
$lastname = $pieces[$count - 1];
}

$fmt_name .= $lastname.",";

for ($i = 0; $i < $count; $i++ ) {
if ($pieces[$i] != $lastname) {
$fmt_name .= $pieces[$i]." ";
}
}

echo $fmt_name;

This should give you:

Lastname, Firstname whatever whatever...

Of course, this is off the top of my head 😉