README

This is the name parser and standardizer for the datacommons project.
It now supports politician, individual and organization names.

Installation
============

Installation is easy:

    pip install name-cleaver

Usage
=====

Basic usage is the same for each type of name, just import the relevant NameCleaver class from one of:

* `PoliticianNameCleaver`
* `IndividualNameCleaver`
* `OrganizationNameCleaver`

Example:

    from name_cleaver import PoliticianNameCleaver
    smith = PoliticianNameCleaver('Smith, Robert J').parse()
    
    smith.first => "Robert"
    smith.middle => "J."
    smith.last => "Smith"

    print str(smith) => "Robert J. Smith"

Usage as above can usually be expected to return a Name object, but is not guaranteed to not throw an exception if NameCleaver is given unexpected input or otherwise can't figure out what to do with a name. You can look for and handle Name Cleaver's `UnparseableNameException` class. If you don't want to deal with handling exceptions, NameCleaver has a safe mode:

    smith = PoliticianNameCleaver('Smith, Robert J').parse(safe=True)

In safe mode, if NameCleaver encounters an exception or doesn't come up with a fully-formed name, it will return the original input string.