a merge name function

[NicolasBelloy]

Is it possible to merge name depending on the formatting in the the imported file ? ex : Doe, J = Doe, John

[erickpeirson]

Yes, we could do something like that. Right now, full-names and initial-names are stored separately. In v0.7 (coming very soon), it's something like:

>>> paper.authors_init
[('MCMURRICH', 'J P'),...]
>>> paper.authors_full
[('MCMURRICH', 'JAMES PLAYFAIR'),...]

Since WoS is inconsistent in whether it records include author full names, some papers have authors_full and others don't. The authors property will return the value of authors_full if it's available; otherwise, it returns authors_init.

>>> paper.authors
[('MCMURRICH', 'JAMES PLAYFAIR'),...]
>>> del paper.authors_full
>>> paper.authors    # authors_full is no longer available.
[('MCMURRICH', 'J P'),...]

So there are quite a few things that we could do to match full-name and initial-name representations, depending on the use-case. Here are some places we could do the matching:

• When we index a Corpus by authors;
• In network-building methods that evaluate author names (e.g. coauthors);
• ???

Could you say more about the use-cases that you have in mind? That might help us hone in on a good solution. Thanks for your help!