note 40508 added to function.ucfirst

Here's a function I threw together when needing to validate name entries (both first name and last name). This allows simple formatting for names prefixed with "Mc" (like McDonald, McCulloch, etc) and names prefixed with O (like O'Reilly, O'Conner, etc).. It also allows double-barrelled names to be formatted correctly, in the Smith-Jones way. Here's the function... <?php function FormatName($name=NULL) { /* Formats a first or last name, and returns the formatted version */ if (empty($name)) return false; // Initially set the string to lower, to work on it $name = strtolower($name); // Run through and uppercase any multi-barrelled names $names_array = explode('-',$name); for ($i = 0; $i < count($names_array); $i++) { // "McDonald", "O'Conner".. if (strncmp($names_array[$i],'mc',2) == 0 || ereg('^[oO]\'[a-zA-Z]',$names_array[$i])) { $names_array[$i][2] = strtoupper($names_array[$i][2]); } // Always set the first letter to uppercase, no matter what $names_array[$i] = ucfirst($names_array[$i]); } // Piece the names back together $name = implode('-',$names_array); // Return upper-casing on all missed (but required) elements of the $name var return ucwords($name); } ?> If you have any other "rules" to follow for international/foreign naming rules, you can add them to the foreach loop, and it should still follow all of the other rules. It's a quick fix, but it seems to do the job nicely. Examples... <?php $name = "o'cONNER-MCdOnAld"; echo FormatName($name); ?> Returns: O'Conner-McDonald ---- Manual Page -- http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.ucfirst.php Edit -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=edit+40508 Delete -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+40508&report=yes Reject -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=reject+40508&report=yes Search -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php