Question

$name (string) gives something like (possible value):

John II, Litten Draw

We should update $name in two steps:

1. Catch the words before first comma and throw them to the end of the string
2. Remove first comma
3. Create a file current_name.txt (or update if already exists) and throw to it source of $name

“John II, Litten Draw” should be replaced with “Litten Draw John II”.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Here’s some sample code that should work OK:

<?php

    function getCanonicalName($name) {

        // Check for the existance of a comma and swap 'elements' if necessary.
        if(strpos($name, ',') !== false) {
            list($surname, $forename) = explode(',', $name);
            $name = $forename . ' ' . $surname; 
        }

        // Trim the name.
        return trim($name);
    }   


    // Test data and file I/O.
    $outputData = '';
    $testData = array('Obama, Barak', 'Federer, Roger', 'John Parker');

    foreach($testData as $name) {
        $outputData .= getCanonicalName($name) . "\n";
    }


    file_put_contents('current_name.txt', $outputData, FILE_APPEND);
?>

Incidentally, this (like all of the solutions currently attached to your question) will cause data loss if there’s more than one comma in $name. As such, if this is possible you should update getCanonicalName to cater for this eventuality.