Plug in Separated names by commas/spaces into <li> 's created via jQuery

Question

I have a few actor names separated by commas, and I am trying to get each name in that list and plug it into a dynamically created li of its own under a ul while capitalizing the first letter only and trimming commas/spaces (the only space that should not get trimmed is between "john lock" since there is no comma there between the name) like this:

var cast = ('jack, kate ,sawyer , john lock ,, hurley')

<ul id="cast-members">
<li>Jack</li>
<li>Kate</li>
<li>Sawyer</li>
<li>John Lock</li>
<li>Hurley</li>
</ul>

Any idea how to get this accomplished with jQuery?

Answer 1

This should do it

var cast = 'jack, kate ,sawyer , john lock ,, hurley';
var castlist = cast.split(',');

var $ul = $('<ul>'); //create an in-memory <ul> element to hold our elements

$.each(castlist, function(idx,val){ // for each item in the split array
    var value = $.trim(val).replace(/\b\S/g, function(m){return m.toUpperCase();}); // trim and capitalize the item
    if (value.length > 0){ // if its length > 0 (non-empty)
        var $li = $('<li>', { // create a <li> element
            html: $('<a>', { // set its html to be a new <a> element
                href:'Bio.html#'+value, // with a href
                text:value // and a text value
            })
        });
        $ul.append($li); // append our new <li> to the <ul>
    }
});
$('.lost-cast').append( $ul );  // append the filled <ul> in the /lost-cast element 

demo at http://jsfiddle.net/gaby/gvb6n/