Help with a regular expression

Getting Started
1

I wonder if I may ask for some help with a regular expression. The list I am trying to sort is:

A. Culling Jnr
J. & K. Taylor
W. Dodd
K. Smith
Clough Family
G. Grieve
S. & D. Phipps
A. L. Newnham
Davies/Thompson
J. & D. Elms
R. Henson
D. G. Quinn
K. Shields
R. & L. Hammer
Brooks Family
C. Reid
R. Price

I have this for my regular expression:

([A-Z]\.\s[&?]\s[A-Z]\.\s|[A-Z]\.\s)(.+)

and my replacement is:

\1, \2

This results in:

Culling Jnr, A.
Taylor, J. & K.
Dodd, W.
Smith, K.
Clough Family
Grieve, G.
Phipps, S. & D.
L. Newnham, A.
Davies/Thompson
Elms, J. & D.
Henson, R.
G. Quinn, D.
Shields, K.
Hammer, R. & L.
Brooks Family
Reid, C.
Price, R.

If works for nearly everything, except where a person has two initials. I have spent hours playing with my search pattern, and I just can’t seem to resolve my problem.

Any help would be gratefully received.

2

Try this:

^(\\w\\.(?: &)?(?: \\w\\.)?) (.+)$
3

Once again WOW!!

Thank you very much, Kem.

May I ask what the (?: is doing?

Also, Xojo regex is the same as Perl, is that correct?

4

code[/code] means a non-capturing group. If you had the text “ABC” and used the pattern code(b)©[/code], you’d end up with three subgroups (in Xojo, SubExpressionString). But the pattern code(?:b)(?:c)[/code] would yield no subgroups.

It’s a way to group a subpattern without capturing it.

Xojo uses the PCRE library, or Perl Compatible Regular Expressions, so it’s mostly like Perl, but also recognizes some conventions from other implementations like Python.

5

Thanks once again Kem. I can’t remember any other forum I have been on where I am learning (and have learned) so much.