getPrep: Isolate Family Name Prepositions

In LimaRAF/plantR: Managing Species Records from Biological Collections

Isolate Family Name Prepositions

Description

This function isolates and removes (optional) last name prepositions (i.e. 'da' in 'da Silva') from multiple people's names, if present.

Usage

getPrep(
  x,
  preps = NULL,
  add.preps = TRUE,
  rm.prep = FALSE,
  output = "matrix",
  format = "last_init_prep",
  lower = FALSE
)

Arguments

x	a name string, a vector of names or a two-column matrix or data.frame, containing the last name in the first column and other names in the second.
preps	a vector with the name prepositions to be isolated. Defaults to some common prepositions in Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, and Dutch family names (see Details).
add.preps	logical. Should the vector of name prepositions provided in 'preps' be concatenated with plantR defaults or be used separately? Default to TRUE (concatenate prepositions).
rm.prep	logical. Should the preposition be removed? Default to FALSE.
output	character. Should the names be returned as a vector of standardized names or organized as a matrix? Default to "matrix".
format	character. Format of the output vector of names The default ("last_init") is the TDWG standard, but the inverse format can also be chosen ("init_last").
lower	logical. Should the preposition be converted to lower cases or returned as provided? Default to FALSE.

Details

By default, the function uses the plantR default list of common name prepositions (argument 'preps' = NULL). But users can use their own list of prepositions or a combination of both (argument 'add.preps' = TRUE; the default). To inspect the plantR default list of family name prepositions, please check the internal object 'namePreps'.

The function assumes that prepositions can be at the start/end of the string for names in the 'Last name, First name(s)' format (e.g. "da Silva, Maria" or "Silva, Maria da"), separated by an space to the right/left from other names. Or it assumes that prepositions can be at the middle in the 'First name(s) Last name' format ('Maria da Silva'), separated by spaces in both sides.

In the case of a vector of names, the 'Last name, First name(s)' name format is prioritized over the 'First name(s) Last name' format while separating last from first names. In addition, only the prepositions in the last name are isolated and can be returned. Prepositions in middle names are silently excluded. Furthermore, the function makes a distinction between names that are all capitas ('DA SILVA') and names that have only unnabreviated initials all capitals ('DA Silva'). Only in the first case the search for the preposition is done; in the second case, capital letters are assumed to be initials of names.

Names can be provided as vectors of names or as a two-column matrix/data frame in which the last names are provided in the first column and other names in the second. Users can also chose the output format between "last_init_prep" or "last_init" (the default; e.g. "Silva, Maria A. Pereira"), "prep_last_init" (e.g. "da Silva, Maria A. Pereira") or "init_last" (e.g. "Maria A. Pereira (da) Silva"), using the argument format.

Value

A vector or a matrix containing the names provided in x with the name prepositions isolated from the last name.

Author(s)

Renato A. F. de Lima

Examples

names <- c("Silva, Maria A. Pereira da", "Silva, Maria A. Pereira Da",
"da Silva, Maria A. Pereira", "ter Braak, Hans", "Braak, Hans ter",
"Silva, Maria A. Pereirada", "Braak, Hanster", "Maria A. Pereira da Silva",
"Hans ter Braak", "Maria A. Pereirada Silva", "Hanster Braak", "da Silva",
"Silva")

## Not run: 
getPrep("Maria da Silva")
getPrep(names)
getPrep(names, output = "vector")
getPrep(names, output = "vector", format = "prep_last_init")
getPrep(names, output = "vector", format = "init_last")

## End(Not run)

LimaRAF/plantR documentation built on Jan. 1, 2023, 10:18 a.m.