=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 - 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