Regex to match full name with comma or space

Question

I'm working with CommonMark and I've created a '@mention' parser that will return a link when an @mention is found. However, I'm tweaking it to link full names instead of usernames. Here's what I currently have:

$cursor->match('/^\w+,(.*)\s/');

However, this seems to capture the name incorrectly, and links the start of the other name (see below):

Does anyone have any ideas what I could change to match an entire name separated with a comma and/or space? I'm awful at writing regex.

Thanks for any help in advance!

Edit:

Here's what should match:

(A name can only be 2 words minimum and 3 words maximum)

Bauman, Steve
Steve Bauman
Doe, Mary Sue
Mary Sue Doe

A last name with a comma will only be one word.

What should not match:

Steve
Bauman
Mary
Doe

The regex needs to match an entire name, not single names.

This is the CommonMark code behind the match method:

if (!preg_match($regex, $subject, $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE)) {
    return;
}

This results to:

if (!preg_match('/^\w+,(.*)\s/', "Bauman, Steve", $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE)) {
    return;
}

What are the exact rules for the regex? It'll be much simpler if you added a sample input and a set of results that should match and shouldn't match. — degant, May 04 '17 at 18:32
No problem, so as per your updated rules, a name will be 2 seperate words. Is that always true? What if a name has 3 parts? — degant, May 04 '17 at 18:54
@degant Shoot! I forgot about a three part name (which we do have in our organization), I've updated my rules, thanks! — Steve Bauman, May 04 '17 at 19:18

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered May 04 '17 at 19:26

3

As per your new rules, match a name that has 2 or 3 words and should be separated by spaces ( ) or commas (,)

/\w+([, ]+\w+){1,2}/

Regex 101

answered May 04 '17 at 19:26

degant

4,861
1
17
29

No problem. Glad I could help! – degant May 04 '17 at 19:39

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 04 '17 at 18:35

0

Here you go

<?php
$string = <<<EOS
something @name, bla bla bla @name.surname something else
Lorem ipsum @o'brien 
EOS;

$matches = [];
preg_match_all('/@[^\s,]+/', $string, $matches);
var_dump($matches);

and working demo

answered May 04 '17 at 18:35

motanelu

3,945
1
14
21

Unforuntately this doesn't work, for example inserting '@Bauman, Steve' results to an array containing "@Bauman" and not "@Bauman, Steve" – Steve Bauman May 04 '17 at 19:21

Regex to match full name with comma or space

2 Answers2