Pattern matching

[Rainrider]

I want to shorten mob names from say "Sun Weaver Archer" to "S. W. Archer". I use

string.gsub(name, "%s?(.[\128-\191]*)%S+%s", "%1. ")

which I found in an addon I use, but must admit I don't understand how it works. What is the .[\128-\191] part supposed to mean? '.' stands for a single character and the next part is a range of ascii codes from 128 to 191. I found out this is to make it work for non-English languages, as it doesn't work if I use

string.gsub(name, "%s?(%S)%S+%s", "%1. ")

.

The other problem I have is when I run this for name = "Echo of a Pandaren Monk", it would return "E. o. aP. Monk" (no space between a and P.). How would I fix this.

Would appreciate some explanations about this.

[Phanx]

See here:
http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=46497

Since that thread is about the same thing, any replies should be posted there, so the discussion stays in one place.

[Rainrider]

Thanks for the pointer, Phanx. I only searched for "pattern matching" and the like and so I haven't found the other threat. I'll post there then.