=head1 NAME
NameCase - Perl module to fix the case of people's names.
=head1 SYNOPSIS
use Text::NameCase 'NameCase' ;
$FixedCasedName = NameCase( $OriginalName ) ;
@FixedCasedNames = NameCase( @OriginalNames ) ;
$FixedCasedName = NameCase( \$OriginalName ) ;
@FixedCasedNames = NameCase( \@OriginalNames ) ;
NameCase( \@OriginalNames ) ; # In-place.
# NameCase will not change a scalar in-place, i.e.
NameCase( \$OriginalName ) ; # WRONG: null operation.
# "Faster" version for working with scalars only; complementing lc and uc.
use Text::NameCase qw( nc ) ;
$FixedCasedName = nc( $OriginalName ) ;
$FixedCasedName = nc( \$OriginalName ) ;
=head1 DESCRIPTION
Forenames and surnames are often stored either wholly in UPPERCASE
or wholly in lowercase. This module allows you to convert names into
the correct case where possible.
Although forenames and surnames are normally stored separately if they
do appear in a single string, space separated, NameCase and nc deal
correctly with them.
NameCase currently correctly name cases names which include any of the
following:
Mc, Mac, el, ap, da, de, di, du, del, der, la, le, van and von.
It correctly deals with names which contain apostrophies and hyphens too.
=head2 EXAMPLE FIXES
Original Name Case
-------- ---------
KEITH Keith
LEIGH-WILLIAMS Leigh-Williams
MCCARTHY McCarthy
O'CALLAGHAN O'Callaghan
ST. JOHN St. John
plus "son (daughter) of" etc. in various languages, e.g.:
VON STREIT von Streit
VAN DYKE van Dyke
AP LLWYD DAFYDD ap Llwyd Dafydd
etc.
=head1 BUGS
The module covers the rules that I know of. There are probably a lot
more rules, exceptions etc. for "Western"-style languages which could be
incorporated.
We don't fix "ben" - for hebrew names this means son of, but it can
mean "Ben" as a name in itself or as a form of "Benjamin". Similarly we
don't fix "al" - for arabic names this means son of, but it can also
mean "Al" as a name in itself.
There are probably lots of exceptions and problems - but as a general
data 'cleaner' it may be all you need.
=head1 CHANGES
1998/4/20 First release.
1998/6/25 First public release.
1999/01/18 Second public release.
1999/02/08 Added Mac with Mack as an exception, thanks to Kim Ryan for this.
=head1 AUTHOR
Mark Summerfield. I can be contacted as <mark.summerfield@chest.ac.uk> -
please include the word 'namecase' in the subject line.
=head1 COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) Mark Summerfield 1998/9. All Rights Reserved.
This module may be used/distributed/modified under the same terms as Perl
itself.
=cut