String Parsing

[alexcharleswort]

Hi everybody!

Basic background on what I have going on:

I am working on an inbound email script where the email comes in with a name like 'Jones, Tommy L (Tom)'.

I need to take this, split it rearrange it, put it back together, and then have it fill in a reference variable. I have it about 90% complete. The snag I am running into is making sure that it fills in this reference with 'Tommy Jones' and leaves off the middle initial and the nickname. I eventually worked my way up to what I want   - 'Tommy Jones' - but i accomplished it in a way that I know that will not work for all names coming in:

// sep the term name

                  var sep = email.body.name.lastIndexOf(',');

                    var space = email.body.name.lastIndexOf(' ');

                      var firstname = email.body.name.substring(sep + 2, space - 2);

                        var lastname = email.body.name.substring(0,sep);

                      var emp = ((firstname) + ' ' + (lastname));

                              // Get the Term ref

                              var term = '';

                              var termFromEmail = emp;

                              var termRecord = new GlideRecord('sys_user');

                              if (termRecord.get('name', termFromEmail)) {

                                                              term = termRecord.sys_id;

                              }

cart.setVariable(item, 'emp_name', term); // term emp

Sometime these names might come in as 'Jones, Tommy Lee' or 'Jones, Tommy (Tom). Instead of the first name reading from the space back (which it doesn't seem to be doing properly anyway), i want it to read the name until it gets to a space.

Let me know if you guys have any idea or if it needs to be explained better.

Thanks!

[Brian Dailey1]

Hi Alex,

Try this out:

        var arrName = email.body.name.split(',');

        var lastName = arrName[0];

        var firstName = arrName[1].split(' ')[0];

Then just concatenate away...

Thanks,

-Brian

Edit:   This assumes that your name is coming in as "Last, First (everything else)".

[alexcharleswort]

I guess i should have further said that last names may be hyphenated or spaced like Smith Jones, Samuel or Smith-Jones, Samuel. Would this still work with the space last name?

[Brian Dailey1]

Yes, it should work for those cases as-is... since your first split is on a comma (','), it shouldn't touch any spaces or hyphens in the last name (arrName[0]).

As long as it is formatted as "(some last name), (everything else)", this should work.

To test things out (different scenarios), I like to use this site:

        Create a new fiddle - JSFiddle

-Brian

[alexcharleswort]

That seemed to only pull the last name with a space in front of it. Was there something in the frirstName variable i should have changed?