How can I concatenate the last name and remove the middle name?

Question

I am trying to concatenate the last name and remove the middle name

fullName = "De Risio, Paul William";

fullName.split(','); // complete last name to array

lastName = fullName[0]; // get complete last name

tmp = lastName.split(" ").join(""); // remove space in lastName

firstAndMid = fullName[1]; // get string after "," delimiter

firstAndMid.split(" "); // first and middle name delimited with " " to array

firstName = firstAndMid[0]; // get only first name

alert(tmp + ", " +firstName);   // ==> D, e

The problem is I want "DeRisio, Paul" and instead I am getting "D, e". I am pretty far off the mark. What gives?

Answer 1

You're not assigning the result of split to anything, so you are still working on the strings instead of an array when you do e.g. lastName = fullName[0];.

fullName = "De Risio, Paul William";

names = fullName.split(/,\s*/); // complete last name to array

lastName = names[0]; // get complete last name

tmp = lastName.split(" ").join(""); // remove space in lastName

firstAndMid = names[1]; // get string after "," delimiter

first = firstAndMid.split(" "); // first and middle name delimited with " " to array

firstName = first[0]; // get only first name

console.log(tmp + ", " +firstName);   // ==> D, e

Note you need to split on , followed by spaces (/,\s*/), otherwise first[0] will be an empty string due to the space at the start of firstAndMid.