"Eric VIALLE" <eric@club-competence.net> wrote in message
news:bdu8ah$5ud$1@news-reader1.wanadoo.fr...
> Hello
>
> I'm going to expose you my problem about regular expressions.
> I have a list of first names and last names at each line of a text:
>
> $content="Bill Clinton
> George W Bush
> Jacques Chirac
> John Fitzgerald Kennedy
> Danny De Vito";
>
> I would like to find the last name of John.
>
> I made this function, but it works only if the last name is one word
>
> if ( eregi("John+([a-zA-Z-])+\n", $content, $reg ) )
> {
> $identite = $reg[0];
> print ">Identity: $identite<BR>";
> }
>
> I would like to have the text between John and the next \n
>
> Regards, and thanks for your help,
>
> Eric Vialle
>
>
>
>

Try this pattern: "John([a-zA-Z ])+\n"
Note the space inside the square brackets (after 'Z').
or more generally: "[a-zA-Z] ([a-zA-Z ])+\n".
Use \- in the last class [ ] to account for hyphenated last-names.
NB: I haven't tested this - use at your own risk!

Ru