/ 
Text-Names-Abbreviate-0.02
/ Text::Names::Abbreviate

NAME

Text::Names::Abbreviate - Create abbreviated name formats from full names

VERSION

Version 0.02

SYNOPSIS

use Text::Names::Abbreviate qw(abbreviate);

say abbreviate("John Quincy Adams");		 # "J. Q. Adams"
say abbreviate("Adams, John Quincy");		# "J. Q. Adams"
say abbreviate("George R R Martin", { format => 'initials' }); # "G.R.R.M."

DESCRIPTION

This module provides simple abbreviation logic for full personal names, with multiple formatting options and styles.

The input is expected to be a personal name consisting of one or more whitespace-separated components. These are typically interpreted as:

First [Middle ...] Last

Names consisting of a single component are treated as a single name, and no abbreviation of given names is possible.

SUBROUTINES/METHODS

abbreviate

Make the abbreviation. It takes the following optional arguments:

format

One of: default, initials, compact, shortlast

Shortlast produces initials followed by the full last name, ignoring style reordering. This is similar to the default format but does not support last_first output.

style

One of: first_last, last_first

separator

String used between initials (default: ".").

Note that spacing between initials is handled separately depending on the selected format.

Name Formats

The function recognizes names in both of the following forms:

  • First Middle Last

  • Last, First Middle

In the latter case, the name will be normalized internally before abbreviation.

If the input begins with a comma (e.g., ", John"), it is interpreted as having no last name, and only initials will be produced.

Errors

The function will throw an exception (via croak) if:

  • The name parameter is missing or undefined

  • The name parameter is an empty string

  • An invalid value is provided for format or style

EXAMPLES

abbreviate("Madonna")
# "Madonna"

abbreviate("Adams, John Quincy")
# "J. Q. Adams"

abbreviate("John Quincy Adams", { style => 'last_first' })
# "Adams, J. Q."

abbreviate("John Quincy Adams", { format => 'compact' })
# "JQA"

Notes

Abbreviation formats such as compact and initials are lossy transformations. They discard structural information about the original name.

As a result, passing the output of abbreviate() back into the function may not yield equivalent results:

abbreviate("George R R Martin", { format => 'compact' })   # "GRRM"
abbreviate("GRRM", { format => 'initials' })			# "G."

In such cases, the input is treated as a single name.

Initials are derived by taking the first character of each name component verbatim. No filtering is applied, so non-alphabetic characters (such as punctuation or digits) will be included as-is.

API SPECIFICATION

INPUT

{
  'name' => { 'type' => 'string', 'min' => 1, 'optional' => 0 },
  'format' => {
    'type' => 'string',
    'memberof' => [ 'default', 'initials', 'compact', 'shortlast' ],
    'optional' => 1
  }, 'style' => {
    'type' => 'string',
    'memberof' => [ 'first_last', 'last_first' ],
    'optional' => 1
  }, 'separator' => {
    'type' => 'string',
    'optional' => 1
  }
}

OUTPUT

Argument error: croak

{
  'type' => 'string',
}

AUTHOR

Nigel Horne, <njh at nigelhorne.com>

BUGS

REPOSITORY

https://github.com/nigelhorne/Text-Names-Abbreviate

SUPPORT

This module is provided as-is without any warranty.

Please report any bugs or feature requests to bug-text-names-abbreviate at rt.cpan.org, or through the web interface at http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Text-Names-Abbreviate. I will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.

perldoc Text::Names::Abbreviate

You can also look for information at:

LICENCE AND COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2025-2026 Nigel Horne.

Usage is subject to the terms of GPL2. If you use it, please let me know.