Problems with names (was Re: list sort question)

[Aahz Maruch]

In article <8rlr4e$6av$1 at nnrp1.deja.com>,
Bill Tolbert  <coolbill at my-deja.com> wrote:
>
>I was asked today to sort a list of names and email addresses by last
>name. I ended up with a list of tuples:
>
>[('Bill Tolbert', 'bill_tolbert at bigfoot.com'), ('Tom Hogan',
>'TH at bigfoot.com'), ('Test Zebra', 'tz at email.com'), ('Three Level Name',
>'tln at email.com')]

Side note: if your names truly are stored like this, it is literally not
possible to sort correctly.  Take, for example, the name "Patrick
Nielsen Hayden"; the last name is "Nielsen Hayden".  One should always
store the last name and first name separately.  In addition, one should
permit fields other than the last name to be NULL, to deal with people
like me (my legal name is just "Aahz").
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