Initials of a name Post: 302590154

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Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Initials of a name Post 302590154 by agama on Saturday 14th of January 2012 11:23:18 AM

01-14-2012

Registered User

It would be nice to know what context you are trying to do this in. As has been suggested, if you have a file of first and last names, just run a sed across the file. However, if you have a string, or two tokens, as a part of a loop in a programme, then the answer will be different. As an example, if you are working in ksh or bash this is much more efficient than running sed for each individual string:

Code:

full_name="Eric Clapton"
initials="${full_name//[a-z]/}"
echo "$full_name -> $initials"

If you need E.C. or E. C. you can do something like this:

Code:

echo "${initials/ /.}."
echo "${initials/ /. }."

---------- Post updated at 11:23 ---------- Previous update was at 11:16 ----------

Crossed posts with you...

Again, if you're using a Ksh like shell language, then you could just echo out the first characters like this:

Code:

full_name="Eric Clapton"
last="${full_name#* }"
echo  "${full_name:0:1} ${last:0:1}"

agama

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LEARN ABOUT DEBIAN

swiss::stars::ev

SWISS::Stars::EV(3pm)					User Contributed Perl Documentation				     SWISS::Stars::EV(3pm)

   new
   fromText
   toText
   sort
   addEvidence($category, $type, $initials, $attributes [, $date])
	Title:	  addEvidence

	Usage:	  $evidenceTag = $entry->Stars->EV->addEvidence($category,
								$type,
								$initials,
								$attributes
								[, $date])

	Function: adds the evidence to the EV block if it does not yet exist
		  or returns the correct evidence tag if the evidence already exists,
		  possibly with a different date.

	Args:	 $category: the evidence category. Currently one of 'A', 'C', 'I','P'.
		 $type: the evidence type
		 $initials: The initals of the person doing the update.
			    For programs this should be '-'.
		 $attributes: the attributes of the evidence
		 $date: optional. If present, it must be in standard SWISS-PROT
			date format. If not present the current date will be used.

	Returns: The correct evidence tag.

   updateEvidence($category, $type, $initials, $attributes [, $date])
	Title:	  updateEvidence

	Usage:	  $evidenceTag = $entry->Stars->EV->updateEvidence($category,
								   $type,
								   $initials,
								   $attributes
								   [, $date])

	Function: updates the evidence to the EV block to $date or inserts it
		  if it does not yet exist.

	Args:	 $category: the evidence category. Currently one of 'A', 'C', 'I','P'.
		 $type: the evidence type
		 $initials: The initals of the person doing the update.
			    For programs this should be '-'.
		 $attributes: the attributes of the evidence
		 $date: optional. If present, it must be in standard SWISS-PROT
			date format. If not present the current date will be used.

	Returns: The correct evidence tag.

Name
       SWISS::Stars::EV.pm

Description
       SWISS/Stars/EV.pm represents the evidence section within an SWISS-PROT + TrEMBL entry. See
       http://www3.ebi.ac.uk/~sp/intern/projects/evidenceTags/index.html

       For a usage example, see evTest.pl in the Swissknife package.

Inherits from SWISS::ListBase.pm
Attributes
       "list" Each element of the list describes one evidence, itself represented as an array.

perl v5.10.1							    2006-01-26						     SWISS::Stars::EV(3pm)

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LEARN ABOUT DEBIAN

swiss::stars::ev