Regex Remove articles from title - the, an, a

Question

I need a regular expression that will match the first letter of a song title without articles like "the", "an", "a". I'm writing a custom import script for Mediatomb which uses javascript. I need to be able to put songs in alphabetical folders.

Example: "Panama.mp3" would be in folder "P", "The Gambler.mp3" would be in folder "G"

Answer 1

Not sure what flavour of regex you're using but there are: non-capture groups you miught be able to use it like this:

(?:(the |a |an ))([a-zA-Z])

Capture the 3rd group and that should always be the first letter (excluding the "the, a, an,...".

Edit: Meant to say capture the SECOND group for that first letter. Also make sure you run this case-insensitive. And get a good regular expression test tool (I like Expresso, but there's others).

Edit2: made some refinements ;) (?:(the|a|an) +)?([a-zA-Z0-9])

Answer 2

Thanks to the answer above, this is what I came up with. Let me know if there's any way to improve upon it.

(?:(the |a |an ))*(\S{1})(\S*)

Answer 3

var myregexp = /^(?:(?:the|a|an)\s+)?(\S)/i;
var match = myregexp.exec(subject);
if (match != null) {
    result = match[1];
} else {
    result = "";
}