Using ^([A-Z][a-z]*) ([A-Z][a-z]*) in the Match field and /2, /1 in the Replace field works for names like John Lane -> Lane, John, but Ed McBain would result in Mc, Ed, Kevin O'Brien gives O, Kevin and Edgar Allan Poe results in Allan, Edgar.
I fixed the McBain type problems (but not O'Brien) by using ^([A-z]*) ([A-z]*) in the match field, but that didn't solve everything...
Putting ^([A-z]*) ([A-z]*) ([A-z]*) in the Match field and 3/, 1/ 2/ in the replace field further allowed the proper renaming of the "John William Smith" type names to "Smith, John William", but now the 2-field names did not get processed (ie, John Smith remained John Smith).
Other problem names include those with initials followed by periods (H. G. Wells did not rename, while H G Wells DID give Wells, H G...), George R R Martin produced R, George R (I'm guessing THAT one could be fixed by adding another " ([A-z]*)" in the Match field and changing the Replace field to "4/, 1/ 2/ 3"
I'm thinking it should be fairly simple to modify the expression(s) in the Match field to allow non-alphabetic characters to be included (such as the period after an initial, apostrophe such as in O'Brien, or other special characters in the name that are valid in file-names), however I am not familiar with how to do this.
The other point I would like help with is how to modify the Match field expression and the Replace field expression to allow processing of names of 2, 3, 4 or even more parts at the same time. (such as John Smith, John William Smith, John william Randell Smith, etc... I COULD do it by writing separate rules for each grouping of names and applying each rule to only the names it would work with, but I would much rather a single rule that could take multiple-part names into account in one sweep to avoid having to search through all the names to select only those the rule would apply to, and possibly selecting some that could get mangled if wrongly selrcted...). Essentially, I want to be able to take the surname and move it to the beginning of the file/folder name, while leaving everything else intact.
Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.
...
Since posting this request, I have done further experimentation and solved (?) several of the issues I was enquiring about.
I have changed the expression used to ([A-z.'-]*). This allows me to work with names such as O'Brien, McDonald, and Mary-Janice as single fields, and also allows processing of initials followed by periods (such as in H. G. Wells).
I have further saved as "favorites" the following:
#1 Name swap 2.bru
Match: ^([A-z.'-]*) ([A-z.'-]*)
Replace: \2, \1
#2 Name swap 3.bru
Match: ^([A-z.'-]*) ([A-z.'-]*) ([A-z.'-]*)
Replace: \2, \1
#3 Name swap 4.bru
Match: ^([A-z.'-]*) ([A-z.'-]*) ([A-z.'-]*) ([A-z.'-]*)
Replace: \2, \1
I still, however, need to apply these one at a time, AND in reverse order, (otherwise, if I applied #1 first, the result would be any file/folder name containing more than 2 fields would be truncated to having only 2, such as H. G. Wells giving G., H., Mary Janice Davidson giving Janice, Mary and George R R Martin giving R, George) and any names whose format falls outside those covered still either do not get processed or get corrupted (such as Tatiana de Rosnay results in Rosnay, Tatiana de and Robert Hans van Gulik gives Gulik, Robert Hans van).
So, STILL looking for a little help fine-tuning this project!
