处理经常表达问题的最佳方式是描述你所期望的匹配(通常称为grammar/em>)。
例如,从你的问题来看,我可以说是:
- A capitalized word is defined as one capital letter and 1+ letters/dashes or one capital letter and a
. (an initial).
- An uncapitalized word is defined as 1 letter and 1+ letters/dashes (not perfect, because that could allow ending in a dash).
- First word starts with a capital letter
- Last word ends with a capital letter
- 0+ capitalized words between first and last word
- Then 0-2 uncapitalized words between first capitalized words and last word
- At least two words.
- Words are broken by whitespace
如果这提供了与预期结果相当的接近(而且为了明确,就姓名而言,你会有这么多的改动,否则就会有虚假的正面或错误的负面之处),那么你就开始构造以下表述:
- Capitalized word:
[A-Z]([a-z]+|.)
- Uncapitalized word:
[a-z][a-z-]+
Result:
[A-Z]([a-z]+|.)(?:s+[A-Z]([a-z]+|.))*(?:s+[a-z][a-z-]+){0,2}s+[A-Z]([a-z]+|.)
Match(果敢):
Hello my name is Chandler Muriel Bing. I have a friend who is named Pieter van den Woude and he has another friend, A. A. Milne. Gandalf the Gray joins us. Together, we make up the Friends Cast and Crew.
问题:
- Because you want to match Gandalf the Gray and Pieter van den Woude you will inevitably match other sets that consist of names with uncapitalized words in between (Friends Cast and Crew). The above grammar attempts to limit the problem by limiting it to 2 uncapitalized words. You could also create a set of allowed uncapitalized words instead ("van", "der", "the"), and only match those words.
- Doesn t allow for non-Latin-alphabet letters, ligatures, diacritics, etc.
- As I and others have pointed out, regular expressions will never be perfect for this situation, but as you said, you want something to get you most of the way there. In this case, the above expression should do a pretty good job, but consider it a blunt instrument! You ve been warned.
