README

An easy to use name parser with advanced and configurable anonymization options.

Inspired by the European Union's GDPR, this library is very useful for performing mandatory personal data anonymization.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

PHP 7.2+
Composer

Installing

Simply install the composer package:

composer require wwwd3v/name-parser-and-anonymizer

Then, at some point in your code, 'new up' a NameParserAndAnonymizer class instance:

use Wwwd3v\NameParserAndAnonymizer\NameParserAndAnonymizer;

//...

$parser = new NameParserAndAnonymizer();

Parsing and anonymizing names

Simple names

It is trivial to parse a simple name:

$name = $parser->parse('John Steinbeck');

$name->getFirstName(); // 'John
$name->getLastName();  // 'Steinbeck'

(string) $name;        // 'John Steinbeck'

Anonymizing names is then very simple:

$name = $parser->parse('John Steinbeck')->anonymize();

$name->getFirstName(); // 'John
$name->getLastName();  // 'S.'

(string) $name;        // 'John S.'

Compound names

Middle names are parsed out and grouped in an array:

$name = $parser->parse('John Ronald Reuel Tolkien');

$name->getFirstName();   // 'John
$name->getMiddleNames(); // ['Ronald', 'Reuel']
$name->getLastName();    // 'Tolkien'

(string) $name;        // 'John Ronald Reuel Tolkien'

As a part of the anonymization process, the middle names are dropped:

$name = $parser->parse('John Ronald Reuel Tolkien')->anonymize();

$name->getFirstName();   // 'John
$name->getMiddleNames(); // []
$name->getLastName();    // 'T.'

(string) $name;        // 'John T.'

Optionally, you can decide to keep or anonymize the middle names (rather than to discard them):

$name = $parser->parse('John Ronald Reuel Tolkien')->anonymize([
    'middleNames' => 'keep',
]);

(string) $name; // 'John Ronald Reuel T.'

$name = $parser->parse('John Ronald Reuel Tolkien')->anonymize([
    'middleNames' => 'anonymize',
]);

(string) $name; // 'John R. R. T.'

Edge cases

Excessive whitespace

All the excessive whitespace is automatically removed. The resulting string representation of a parsed name always consists of names divided by a single space character:

$name = $parser->parse(' John   Ronald    Reuel           Tolkien  ');

$name->getFirstName();   // 'John
$name->getMiddleNames(); // ['Ronald', 'Reuel']
$name->getLastName();    // 'Tolkien'

(string) $name;        // 'John Ronald Reuel Tolkien'

Running the tests

Simply run the local phpunit:

./vendor/bin/phpunit

Contributing

Just open an issue. We will decide on the implementation details and polish up the pull request together.

Versioning

We use SemVer for versioning. For the versions available, see the tags on this repository.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE.md file for details

Acknowledgments

European Union

wwwd3v / name-parser-and-anonymizer

Maintainers

Details