Re^3: Parsing out first names

So do what grep already hinted at, split and keep only the parts you want:

foreach ( @names ) {
  my @name_parts = split;
  pop @name_parts if $name_parts[-1] =~ /^[a-zA-Z]\.?$/; # throw last 
+name away
  my $f_name = join ' ', @name_parts;
  print "$f_name\n";
}
[download]

Updated code to reflect Not_a_Number's correction, thanks!

-- Hofmator

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Comment on Re^3: Parsing out first names Download Code

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Re^4: Parsing out first names by Not_a_Number (Prior) on Oct 13, 2006 at 09:19 UTC
`pop @name_parts; # throw last name away` Look at the OP's list of names again: some of them are only first names. This code throws "Kurt" away completely, as well as "Jo" in the second "Mary Jo". Update: That line can be replaced by: `pop @name_parts if $name_parts[-1] =~ /^[a-zA-Z]\.?$/;`	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^4: Parsing out first names by driver8 (Scribe) on Oct 13, 2006 at 12:03 UTC
That works, but now you just have an obfuscated version of `foreach my $name ( @names ) { $name =~ s/ [a-zA-Z]\.?$//; print "$name \n"; }` [download]	[reply] [d/l]