namefully

A Dart utility for handling person names.

Motivation

Have you ever had to format a user's name in a particular order, way, or shape? Probably yes. If not, it will come at some point. Be patient.

You may want to use this library if:

• you've been repeatedly dealing with users' given names and surnames;
• you need to occasionally format a name in a particular order, way, or shape;
• you keep copy-pasting your name-related business logic for every project;
• you're curious about trying new, cool stuff (e.g., learning Dart).

Key features

1. Accept different data shapes as input
2. Use optional parameters to access advanced features
3. Format a name as desired
4. Offer support for prefixes and suffixes
5. Access to names' initials
6. Support hyphenated names (and other special characters)
7. Offer predefined validation rules for many writing systems, including the Latin and European ones (e.g., German, Greek, Cyrillic, Icelandic characters)

Advanced features

1. Alter the name order anytime
2. Handle various parts of a surname and a given name
3. Use tokens (separators) to reshape prefixes and suffixes
4. Accept customized parsers (do it yourself)
5. Build a name on the fly (via a builder)
6. Parse non-standard name cases

Dependencies

None

Usage

See example/namefully.dart.

import 'package:namefully/namefully.dart';

void main() {
  var name = Namefully('Thomas Alva Edison');
  print(name.short); // Thomas Edison
  print(name.public); // Thomas E
  print(name.initials(withMid: true)); // ['T', 'A', 'E']
  print(name.format('L, f m')); // EDISON, Thomas Alva
  print(name.zip()); // Thomas A. E.
}

NOTE: if you intend to use this utility for non-standard name cases such as many middle names or last names, some extra work is required. For example, using Namefully.parse() lets you parse names containing many middle names with the risk of throwing a NameException when the parsing is not possible.

Config and default values

Config is a single configuration to use across the other components.

The multiton pattern is used to handle configurations across the namefully setup. This adds consistency when building other components such as FirstName, LastName, or Name of distinct types that may be of particular shapes.

Below are enlisted the options supported by namefully.

orderedBy

NameOrder - default: NameOrder.firstName

Indicates in what order the names appear when set as raw string values or string array values. That is, the first element/piece of the name is either the given name (e.g., Jon Snow) or the surname (e.g.,Snow Jon).

// 'Smith' is the surname in this raw string case
var name1 = Namefully('Smith John Joe', config: Config.byLastName());
print(name1.last); // Smith

// 'Edison' is the surname in this string array case
var name2 = Namefully.fromList(['Edison', 'Thomas'], config: Config.byLastName());
print(name2.first); // Thomas

NOTE: This option also affects all the other results of the API. In other words, the results will prioritize the order of appearance set in the first place for the other operations. Keep in mind that in some cases, it can be altered on the go. See the example below.

// 'Smith' is the surname in this raw string case
var name = Namefully('Smith John Joe', config: Config.byLastName());
print(name.fullName()); // Smith John Joe

// Now alter the order by choosing the given name first
print(name.fullName(NameOrder.firstName)); // John Joe Smith

separator

Separator - default: Separator.space

Only valid for raw string values, this option indicates how to split the parts of a raw string name under the hood.

var name = Namefully('John,Smith', config: Config(separator: Separator.comma));
print(name.full); // John Smith

title

Title - default: Title.uk

Abides by the ways the international community defines an abbreviated title. American and Canadian English follow slightly different rules for abbreviated titles than British and Australian English. In North American English, titles before a name require a period: Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr.. In British and Australian English, no periods are used in these abbreviations.

var name = Namefully.only(
  prefix: 'Mr',
  firstName: 'John',
  lastName: 'Smith',
  config: Config(title: Title.us),
);
print(name.full); // Mr. John Smith
print(name.prefix); // Mr.

ending

bool - default: false

Sets an ending character after the full name (a comma before the suffix actually).

var name = Namefully.only(
  firstName: 'John',
  lastName: 'Smith',
  suffix: 'Ph.D',
  config: Config(ending: true),
);
print(name.full); // John Smith, Ph.D
print(name.suffix); // Ph.D

surname

Surname - default: Surname.father

Defines the distinct formats to output a compound surname (e.g., Hispanic surnames).

var name = Namefully.of(
  [FirstName('John'), LastName('Doe', 'Smith')],
  config: Config(surname: Surname.hyphenated),
);
print(name.full); // John Doe-Smith

bypass

bool - default: true

Skips all the validators (i.e., validation rules, regular expressions).

var name = Namefully.fromJson(
  {
    'firstName': 'John',
    'lastName': 'Smith',
    'suffix': 'M.Sc.', // will fail the validation rule and throw an exception.
  },
  config: Config(bypass: false, ending: true),
);

To sum it all up, the default values are:

Config._default(this.name)
    : orderedBy = NameOrder.firstName,
      separator = Separator.space,
      title = Title.uk,
      ending = false,
      bypass = true,
      surname = Surname.father;

Do It Yourself

Customize your own parser to indicate the full name yourself.

import 'package:namefully/namefully.dart';

// Suppose you want to cover this '#' separator
class SimpleParser implements Parser<String> {
  const SimpleParser(super.names);

  @override
  FullName parse({Config? options}) {
    final names = raw.split('#'); // simple parsing logic :P
    return FullName.fromJson({
      'firstName': names[0].trim(),
      'lastName': names[1].trim(),
    }, config: options);
  }
}

var name = Namefully.fromParser(SimpleParser('Juan#Garcia'));
print(name.full); // Juan Garcia

Concepts and examples

The name standards used for the current version of this library are as follows:

[prefix] firstName [middleName] lastName [suffix]

The opening [ and closing ] brackets mean that these parts are optional. In other words, the most basic/typical case is a name that looks like this: John Smith, where John is the firstName and Smith, the lastName.

NOTE: Do notice that the order of appearance matters and (as shown in orderedBy) can be altered through configured parameters. By default, the order of appearance is as shown above and will be used as a basis for future examples and use cases.

Once imported, all that is required to do is to create an instance of Namefully and the rest will follow.

Basic cases

Let us take a common example:

Mr John Joe Smith PhD

So, this utility understands the name parts as follows:

• prefix: Mr
• first name: John
• middle name: Joe
• last name: Smith
• suffix: PhD
• full name: Mr John Joe Smith PhD
• birth name: John Joe Smith
• short version: John Smith
• flattened: John J. S.
• initials: J J S
• public: John S

Limitations

namefully does not have support for certain use cases:

• mononame: Plato. A workaround is to set the mononame as both first and last name;
• multiple prefixes: Prof. Dr. Einstein.

See the test cases for further details or the API Reference.

License

The underlying content of this utility is licensed under MIT.