= WebGet Ruby Gem: Flexible ways to deal with real human names

Author:: Joel Parker Henderson, [email protected] Copyright:: Copyright (c) 2006-2010 Joel Parker Henderson License:: CreativeCommons License, Non-commercial Share Alike License:: LGPL, GNU Lesser General Public License

Access a human name from the fields of an ActiveRecord-based model in several combinations:

• first_name_middle_name
• first_name_middle_initial
• fullname: first_name_middle_name_last_name
• first_name_middle_initial_last_name
• first_name_last_name
• list_name: last_name, first_name

Note that the model doesn't need attributes called first_name, middle_name, and last_name to call the gem's methods; the methods are protected by testing with respond_to?(name_field).

However all of these fields which are present must be strings.

==Example class User < ActiveRecord::Base include PersonName end

u=User.first => {first_name => 'Zora', middle_name => 'Neale', last_name => 'Hurston'}

u.full_name => "Zora Neale Hurston" u.list_name => "Hurston, Zora Neale" u.first_name_middle_name => "Zora Neale" u.first_name_middle_initial_last_name => "Zora N Hurston"

==Performance Tip

Use memoize to make these very fast in Rails:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base include PersonName memoize :full_name memoize :list_name end