From: "David A. Black" <dblack@...>
Date: 2005-10-08T08:09:27+09:00
Subject: Re: Code for title-casing (US) snail addresses?

Hi --

On Sat, 8 Oct 2005, rpardee@gmail.com wrote:

> And thanks again!
>
> If I can beg your indulgence a bit further... I'm having trouble
> elaborating this so it does the right thing for street names like
> 'McGrath'.  The simpler version is:
>
> def prettify(address)
>   abbreviations  = %w(PO NE NW SE SW)
>   prefixes2      = %w(Mc O' D')
>   prefixes3      = %w(Mac)
>   address.gsub!(/(\d)([A-Z]+)/) { $1 + $2.downcase }
>   address.gsub(/[A-Z]+/) do |w|
>      # abbreviations.include?(w) ? w :  w.capitalize
>      if abbreviations.include?(w) then
>         w
>      else
>         w.capitalize
>      end
>   end
> end
>
> Which works admirably, except it gives back "Mcgrath", rather than
> "McGrath".
>
> I *thought* I'd be able to tack a second Array.include? on there, like
> so:
>
> def prettify(address)
>   abbreviations  = %w(PO NE NW SE SW)
>   prefixes2      = %w(Mc O' D')
>   prefixes3      = %w(Mac)
>   address.gsub!(/(\d)([A-Z]+)/) { $1 + $2.downcase }
>   address.gsub(/[A-Z]+/) do |w|
>      # abbreviations.include?(w) ? w :  w.capitalize
>      if abbreviations.include?(w) then
>         w
>      else
>         w.capitalize

That whole if statement is a no-op: you don't actually change w, and
you don't return anything.

>      end
>      if prefixes2.include?(w[0..1]) then
>         w[2..2] = w[2..2].upcase
>      end

if's return nil on failure.  So when this doesn't happen, the return
value of the whole block will be nil, which will be interpolated as an
empty string.

>   end
> end
>
> But when I do that, calls like prettify("20 E MCGRAW ST") just return
> "20"
>
> I've read over the gsub docs, but don't see why the above does not work
> as expected.  Anybody got a clue for me?

See notes above, and also see if this helps:

   def prettify(address)
     abbreviations  = %w(PO NE NW SE SW)
     prefixes2      = %w(Mc O' D')
     prefixes3      = %w(Mac)
     address.gsub!(/\d[A-Z]+/) {|w| w.downcase }
     address.gsub(/[A-Z]+/) do |w|
       w.capitalize! unless abbreviations.include?(w)
       w[2..2] = w[2..2].upcase if prefixes2.include?(w[0..1])
       w
     end
   end

(Note that last 'w', which ensures that w is the return value of the
block.)

I look forward to seeing how you'll handle people named de Forest who
live in Delaware :-)


David

-- 
David A. Black
dblack@wobblini.net