NAME

Lingua::EN::NameParse - routines for manipulating a persons name

SYNOPSIS

use Lingua::EN::NameParse qw(clean case_surname);

# optional configuration arguments
my %args =
(
   salutation     => 'Dear',
   sal_default    => 'Friend',
   auto_clean     => 1,
   force_case     => 1,
   lc_prefix      => 1,
   initials       => 3,
   allow_reversed => 1
);

my $name = new Lingua::EN::NameParse(%args);

$error = $name->parse("MR AC DE SILVA");

%name_comps = $name->components;
$surname = $name_comps{surname_1}; # DE SILVA

$correct_casing = $name->case_all; # Mr AC de Silva

$good_name = &clean("Bad Na9me   "); # "Bad Name"

$name->salutation; # Dear Mr de Silva

%my_properties = $name->properties;
$number_surnames = $my_properties{number}; # 1
$bad_input = $my_properties{non_matching};

$lc_prefix = 0;
$correct_case = &case_surname("DE SILVA-MACNAY",$lc_prefix); # De Silva-MacNay

DESCRIPTION

This module takes as input a person or persons name in free format text such as,

Mr AB & M/s CD MacNay-Smith
MR J.L. D'ANGELO
Estate Of The Late Lieutenant Colonel AB Van Der Heiden

and attempts to parse it. If successful, the name is broken down into components and useful functions can be performed like :

- converting upper or lower case values to name case (Mr AB MacNay ) - creating a personalised greeting or salutation (Dear Mr MacNay ) - extracting the names individual components (Mr,AB,MacNay ) - determining the type of format the name is in (Mr_A_Smith )

If the name cannot be parsed you have the option of cleaning the name of bad characters, or extracting any portion that was parsed and the portion that failed.

This module can be used for analysing and improving the quality of lists of names.

REQUIRES

Perl, version 5.001 or higher and Parse::RecDescent

HOW TO INSTALL

perl Makefile.PL
make
make test
make install

AUTHOR

NameParse was written by Kim Ryan <kimaryan@ozemail.com.au>.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 1999-2001 Kim Ryan. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the Perl Artistic License (see http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html).