Merge pull request #281 from derek73/fix/265-arabic-comma

Recognize Arabic and fullwidth CJK comma as name-part delimiters

Author: derek73

docs/release_log.rst

@@ -1,5 +1,9 @@
 Release Log
 ===========
+* 1.4.0 - Unreleased
+
+    - Fix the ``"Lastname, Firstname"`` comma format not being recognized when the input uses the Arabic comma ``،`` (U+060C, the standard comma in Arabic/Persian/Urdu text) or the fullwidth CJK comma ``，`` (U+FF0C) instead of the ASCII comma: both variants now also split the format and no longer leak into the parsed output (closes #265)
+
 * 1.3.1 - July 11, 2026
 
     - Fix invisible Unicode bidirectional control characters (LRM/RLM/ALM, the embedding/override marks, and the isolates U+2066–U+2069) surviving parsing and sticking to ``first``/``last``/etc., so a copy-pasted right-to-left name silently failed equality and dedup. They are now stripped in preprocessing like emoji; disable via ``CONSTANTS.regexes.bidi = False`` (closes #266)

nameparser/config/__init__.py

@@ -590,8 +590,9 @@ class Constants:
     ``None`` (no additional splitting beyond the standard comma split).
 
     Note: setting this to ``","`` or ``", "`` has no additional effect —
-    the full name is already split on bare commas first, and each resulting
-    part is stripped of surrounding whitespace before this step runs.
+    the full name is already split on comma characters first (including the
+    Arabic ``،`` and fullwidth ``，`` variants), and each resulting part is
+    stripped of surrounding whitespace before this step runs.
 
     The delimiter is only applied to parts once they've been identified as
     a suffix group, so it never leaks into a first- or middle-name part. For

nameparser/config/regexes.py

@@ -29,6 +29,10 @@
     "bidi": re_bidi,
     "phd": re.compile(r'\s(ph\.?\s+d\.?)', re.I),
     "space_before_comma": re.compile(r'\s+,'),
+    # ASCII comma plus its Arabic (U+060C) and fullwidth CJK (U+FF0C)
+    # counterparts, used to split "Last, First" format and to strip a
+    # trailing comma before parsing (#265).
+    "commas": re.compile(r'[,،，]'),
     "east_slavic_patronymic": re.compile(
         r'(ovich|ovna|evich|evna|ichna|ilyich|kuzmich|lukich|fomich|fokich)$',
         re.I,

nameparser/parser.py

@@ -923,7 +923,7 @@ def _apply_full_name(self, value: str | bytes, *, stacklevel: int) -> None:
     def collapse_whitespace(self, string: str) -> str:
         # collapse multiple spaces into single space
         string = self.C.regexes.spaces.sub(" ", string.strip())
-        if string.endswith(","):
+        if string and self.C.regexes.commas.fullmatch(string[-1]):
             string = string[:-1]
         return string
 
@@ -1195,8 +1195,14 @@ def parse_full_name(self) -> None:
 
         self._full_name = self.collapse_whitespace(self._full_name)
 
-        # break up full_name by commas
-        parts = [x.strip() for x in self._full_name.split(",")]
+        # break up full_name by commas. A missing "commas" key in a custom
+        # regexes dict falls back to RegexTupleManager's EMPTY_REGEX, whose
+        # .split() matches between every character rather than not
+        # splitting at all -- guard against that so a custom regexes dict
+        # that omits "commas" disables the comma split instead of shattering
+        # the name into single characters.
+        commas = self.C.regexes.commas
+        parts = [x.strip() for x in (commas.split(self._full_name) if commas.pattern else [self._full_name])]
         self._had_comma = len(parts) > 1
 
         log.debug("full_name: %s", self._full_name)

tests/test_comma_variants.py

@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+from nameparser import HumanName
+from nameparser.config import Constants
+from nameparser.config.regexes import REGEXES
+
+from tests.base import HumanNameTestBase
+
+
+class HumanNameCommaVariantsTests(HumanNameTestBase):
+    """Non-ASCII comma characters should split "Last, First" the same as ',' (#265)."""
+
+    def test_arabic_comma_splits_lastname_format(self) -> None:
+        hn = HumanName("سلمان، محمد")
+        self.m(hn.first, "محمد", hn)
+        self.m(hn.last, "سلمان", hn)
+
+    def test_fullwidth_comma_splits_lastname_format(self) -> None:
+        hn = HumanName("Smith，John")
+        self.m(hn.first, "John", hn)
+        self.m(hn.last, "Smith", hn)
+
+    def test_arabic_comma_does_not_pollute_output(self) -> None:
+        hn = HumanName("سلمان، محمد")
+        self.assertNotIn("،", hn.last)
+        self.assertNotIn("،", str(hn))
+
+    def test_trailing_arabic_comma_stripped(self) -> None:
+        # matches ASCII behavior: a single word with a trailing comma has
+        # nothing after the comma, so it's a bare name, not "Last,"
+        hn = HumanName("سلمان،")
+        self.m(hn.first, "سلمان", hn)
+
+    def test_custom_regexes_without_commas_key_does_not_shatter_name(self) -> None:
+        # A custom regexes dict that omits "commas" entirely must not fall
+        # back to RegexTupleManager's EMPTY_REGEX default for splitting --
+        # re.compile('').split(...) matches between every character, which
+        # explodes any name into single-char pieces instead of leaving it
+        # unsplit (the EMPTY_REGEX convention elsewhere in this codebase
+        # means "feature disabled", not "split on every character").
+        # With comma splitting disabled, "Smith, John" is tokenized like any
+        # other no-comma input (word tokenizing drops the punctuation),
+        # yielding a plain first/last pair -- not the inverted "Last, First"
+        # reading, and definitely not single-character pieces.
+        custom = {k: v for k, v in REGEXES.items() if k != 'commas'}
+        c = Constants(regexes=custom)
+        hn = HumanName("Smith, John", constants=c)
+        self.m(hn.first, "Smith", hn)
+        self.m(hn.last, "John", hn)