What's my middle name?

Question

Note: The winning answer will be selected on 4/12/17 the current winner is Jolf, 1 byte.

I'm surprised that we haven't had a what's my middle name challenge on this site yet. I did alot of searching but found nothing. If this is a dup, please flag it as such.

Your challenge

Parse a string that looks like Jo Jean Smith and return Jean.

Test cases

Input: Samantha Vee Hills
Output: Vee

Input: Bob Dillinger
Output: (empty string or newline)

Input: John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt
Output: Jacob Jingleheimer

Input: Jose Mario Carasco-Williams
Output: Mario

Input: James Alfred Van Allen
Output: Alfred Van 

(That last one is incorrect technically, but fixing that would be too hard.)

Notes:

• Names will always have at least 2 space-separated parts, with unlimited middle names between them or can be a list/array of strings.
• Names may contain the alphabet (case-insensitive) and - (0x2d)
• You may output a trailing newline.
• You may require input to have a trailing newline.
• Input from STDIN, a function parameter, or command-line argument is allowed, but hard-coding it in is not allowed.
• Standard loopholes forbidden.
• Output may be function return value, STDOUT, STDERR, etc.
• Trailing spaces/newlines/tabs in the output are allowed.
• Any questions? Comment below!

This is code-golf, so the shortest anwser in bytes wins!

Answer 1

Ohm, 2 bytes (CP437)

Accepts and returns a list of strings.

()

Explanation:

()   Main wire, arguments: a

(    Remove the first element of a
 )   ...and then the last element of that
     Implicit output

Answer 2

Vim, 6 5 bytes

dW$BD

Try it online!

(outputs with a trailing space)

Since Vim is reverse-compatible with V, I have included a TIO link for V.

Explanation

dW                      " Delete up to the next word (removes the first name)
$                       " Go to the end of the line
B                       " Go back one word
D                       " Delete it

Answer 3

Python, 24 bytes

lambda n:n.split()[1:-1]

Try it online string input!

Input Format: string

Python 2, 16 bytes

lambda n:n[1:-1]

Try it online list input!

Input Format: List

Answer 4

Brain-Flak, 133 bytes

{{}((((()()()()){}){}){}[{}](<()>)){{}{}(<(())>)}{}}{}{({}<>)<>}<>{{}((((()()()()){}){}){}[{}](<()>)){{}{}(<(())>)}{}}{}{({}<>)<>}<>

Try it online!

132 bytes of code, plus 1 byte for the -c flag which allows ASCII input and output.

Unfortunately, this contains lots of duplicated code, but it would be really difficult to reuse. I'll look into it later. Here's an explanation:

#While True
{
    #Pop
    {}

    #Not equals 32
    ((((()()()()){}){}){}[{}](<()>)){{}{}(<(())>)}{}

#Endwhile
}

#Pop the 0
{}

#Reverse Stack
{({}<>)<>}<>

#While True
{
    #Pop
    {}

    #Not equals 32
    ((((()()()()){}){}){}[{}](<()>)){{}{}(<(())>)}{}

#Endwhile
}

#Pop the 0
{}

#Reverse Stack
{({}<>)<>}<>

Answer 5

05AB1E, 2 bytes

¦¨

Try it online!

If outputting a list of middle names isn't allowed, I'll change it.

Answer 6

Haskell, 23, 17 9 bytes

init.tail

Takes and returns a list of strings. Try it online!

Drop first string, drop last string.

Edit: @Generic Display Name noted, that the input can be a list of strings, which saved 6 bytes.

Edit II: return list of strings instead of a single string

Answer 7

Mathematica, 10 bytes

Rest@*Most

An unnamed function that accepts and returns a list of strings.

Rest discards the the last element, Most discards the first element, @* is function composition. Swapping Rest and Most or using right-composition /* instead would also work. This beats indexing via #[[2;;-2]]& by one byte.

Answer 8

Brain-Flak, 86 bytes

(()()){({}[()]<{{}((((()()()()){}){}){}[{}](<()>)){{}{}(<(())>)}{}}{}{({}<>)<>}<>>)}{}

Try it online!

Most of this code comes from this answer. If you like my solution you should upvote that one as well.

#Push 2
(()())

#Loop twice
{({}[()]<

  #While not a space
  {
      #Pop
      {}

      #Not equals 32
      ((((()()()()){}){}){}[{}](<()>)){{}{}(<(())>)}{}

  #Endwhile
  }

  #Pop the 0
  {}

  #Reverse Stack
  {({}<>)<>}<>

#End loop twice
>)}{}

Answer 9

AWK, 17 10 bytes

Saved 7 bytes thanks to @steve!

$NF=$1=x;1

Try it online!

Explanation:

$NF=    set last word to
$1=     set first word to
x       an empty variable, ie empty string
1       default action, ie print everything

Answer 10

Java 7, 74 bytes

String f(String s){return s.substring(s.indexOf(' '),s.lastIndexOf(' '));}

Java 8, 49 bytes

s->s.substring(s.indexOf(' '),s.lastIndexOf(' '))

Function which identifies the first occurrence of the space character and the last one and extracts the middle. The resulting string is prefixed by a space character (at the time of the posting, OP hasn't clarified if leading spaces are allowed), which can be eliminated by adding .trim() to the code for an extra cost of 7 bytes.

Compared to C#, Java has the advantage of specifying the end index instead of sub-string length, which brings down the byte count.

Answer 11

JavaScript (ES6), 22 bytes

Takes and outputs an array of strings.

([_,...a])=>a.pop()&&a

Test cases

let f =

([_,...a])=>a.pop()&&a

console.log(f(["Samantha", "Vee", "Hills"]))
console.log(f(["Bob", "Dillinger"]))
console.log(f(["John", "Jacob", "Jingleheimer", "Schmidt"]))
console.log(f(["Jose", "Mario", "Carasco-Williams"]))

String version (27 bytes)

Takes and outputs a string. The output string is either a single space if no middle name was found, or the middle names with leading and trailing spaces.

s=>(/ .* /.exec(s)||' ')[0]

let f =

s=>(/ .* /.exec(s)||' ')[0]

console.log(f("Samantha Vee Hills"))
console.log(f("Bob Dillinger"))
console.log(f("John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt"))
console.log(f("Jose Mario Carasco-Williams"))

Answer 12

Groovy, 19 bytes

{it.split()[1..-2]}

Explanation:

{        
 it                  all closures have an implicit argument called "it"
   .split()          splits by spaces by default. Returns an array of words
           [1..-2]   take the whole array from the second index (1) to the penultimate index (-2). Implicitly return
                  }

A closure / anonymous function

Answer 13

Jolf, 1 byte

€

Gets the inside of the input. Try it here!

Answer 14

Perl 5, 27 18 bytes

Need to run with -n option.

/ (.+) /&&print$1

Try it online!

Wanted to do something similar in sed first, but, unfortunately, it doesn't support non-greedy quantifier. It is needed in case middle name is more than one word.

Edit

-9 bytes thanks to Dada.

Non-greedy quantifier is not needed anymore, among with some other things.

Answer 15

PHP, 37 Bytes

<?=join(" ",array_slice($argv,2,-1));

-4 bytes for an output as array

print_r(array_slice($argv,2,-1));

PHP, 42 Bytes

echo trim(trim($argn,join(range("!",z))));

PHP, 50 Bytes

echo preg_filter("#(^[^\s]+ |[^\s]+$)#","",$argn);

Answer 16

sed, 21 19 17 15 bytes + -E

new:

idea thanks to @user41805

-2 thanks to @xigoi

-2 thanks to @ user41805

s/^\S+ |\S+$//g

old:

-1 thanks to @user41805

s/\S+ ((.+ )*).+/\1/

Try it online!

Answer 17

Retina, 11 bytes

^\S+ |\S+$

Try it online!

Matches the first word (including the space after it) and the last word, and removes both of them.

If I/O can be a linefeed-separated list, it can be done in 8 bytes instead:

A1`
G-2`

Try it online!

Answer 18

Javascript (ES6) 49 16 bytes

Edit:

a=>a.slice(1,-1)

Try it online!

ungolfed:

function(name) {
  return a.slice(1, -1); //start at the second item and end at the second to last item
};

I forgot some of the simple properties of slice, and that the input can be an array. Thanks to @Neil and @fəˈnɛtɪk I was able to remove 27 bytes. Still not really competing.

Original:

This isn't really competing but here's a Javascript solution:

a=>{a=a.split(' ');return a.slice(1, a.length-1)}

This creates an anonymous function equal to:

function(name) {
  let name = name.split(' '); //first middle last -> [first, middle, last]
  return name.slice(1, name.length - 1); //get the second item to the second to last item in the array.
}

How I golfed it

This is a pretty simple golf. I turned the function into an arrow function. Then I "minified" the code. This included renaming name into a single character(a in this case) and removing the let decloration of the variable.

Snippet

var a=b=>b.slice(1,-1)

//example code

let form = document.querySelector('#form'),
    input = document.querySelector('#input'),
    result = document.querySelector('#result');

form.addEventListener('submit', (event) => {
  event.preventDefault();
  let value = input.value.split` `;
  result.textContent = a(value).join(' ');
});

<link href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.7/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet"/>
<form id="form">
  <div class="input-group">
    <input id="input" class="form-control" />
    <div class="input-group-btn">
      <button class="btn btn-primary">Submit</button>
    </div>
  </div>
</form>

<p id="result"></p>

Hope this helps anyone who is stuck on the challenge.

Answer 19

Arn, 4 bytes

†Û⁺%

Try it!

Explained

Unpacked: .{.}

_ Variable initialized to STDIN; implied
  .{ Take
    .} Then drop
         Output implicit

Strings are split on spaces if any or ever character if there are non (when casted to an array).

Answer 20

Husk, ⁶ 4 bytes

;htw

Try it online!

-2 bytes from Zgarb.

Answer 21

Röda, 9 bytes

{_[1:-1]}

Try it online!

Not a very interesting solution. Takes a list from the stream and returns the middle names.

21 bytes and I/O:

{[(_/" ")[1:-1]&" "]}

Try it online!

This uses / (split) and & (join).

Answer 22

Jelly, 2 bytes

ḊṖ

Try it online!

This works as a non-inline link (i.e. function), not a full program.

'John','Jacob','Jingleheimer','Schmidt' → 'Jacob','Jingleheimer'

As a full program, it would be 3 bytes: ḊṖK, which prints a space-separated middle name.

Answer 23

Pyth, 2 bytes

Pt

Online interpreter

Answer 24

C#, 67 bytes

s=>s.Substring(s.IndexOf(' ')+1,s.LastIndexOf(' ')-s.IndexOf(' '));

Anonymous function which identifies the first occurrence of the space character and the last one and extracts the middle. It also extracts a trailing space, which can be removed at the cost of 2 bytes.

Full program with test cases:

using System;

namespace WhatsMyMiddleName
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Func<string, string> f =
            s=>s.Substring(s.IndexOf(' ')+1,s.LastIndexOf(' ')-s.IndexOf(' '));

            Console.WriteLine(f("Jo Jean Smith"));          // "Jean"
            Console.WriteLine(f("Samantha Vee Hills"));     // "Vee"
            Console.WriteLine(f("Bob Dillinger"));          // ""
            Console.WriteLine(f("John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt"));// "Jacob Jingleheimer"
            Console.WriteLine(f("Jose Mario Carasco-Williams"));    // "Mario"
            Console.WriteLine(f("James Alfred Van Allen")); // "Alfred Van"
        }
    }
}

Answer 25

Kotlin, 39 bytes

s.filterIndexed{i,j->i!=0&&i!=s.size-1}

Try it online!

i.e.

s.filterIndexed{ index, value -> index != 0 && index != (s.size - 1) }

Answer 26

VBA, 69 bytes

Sub m(n)
f=InStr(1,n," ")
Debug.?Mid(n,f+1,InStrRev(n," ")-f)
End Sub

Answer 27

Grime, 6 bytes

<\ 0\ 

Try it online! Note the trailing space.

Explanation

        Match a substring S that satisfies:
<       S is contained in a string of the form
 \      a space
   0    then S
    \   then another space.

This matches a substring that's surrounded by spaces. By default, Grime prints the longest match it finds (without the spaces). If no match exists, nothing is printed.

Answer 28

R, 30 27 22 bytes

Current solution due to user11599!

head(scan(,''),-1)[-1]

Takes input from stdin, returns each middle name as a separate string. Returns character() in the case of no middle name; that is, a vector of class character of length 0.

Explanation:

Read stdin into a list of strings, separated by spaces

     scan(,'')

Remove the last element. head returns the first n elements of a list, with n defaulting to 6. If n is -1 it returns all but the last element.

head(scan(,''),-1)

Now, remove the first element of this list.

head(scan(,''),-1)[-1]

This yields the middle name(s).

Answer 29

Ruby, 24 13 bytes

p ARGV[1..-2]

Saved 11 bytes thanks to Piccolo pointing out that array-like output is allowed.

Takes the name as separate command line arguments, e.g.:

$ ruby script.rb John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt

or

$ ruby -e 'p ARGV[1..-2]' John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt

---

Previous code (outputs a proper string):

puts ARGV[1..-2].join" "

Answer 30

Golang, 152 81 bytes

import ."strings"
func f(x string)[]string{var k=Fields(x);return k[1:len(k)-1];}

It takes input as "Samantha Vee Hills" (with double quotes) and return the middle name to the stdout.

Try it Online!

Edit: @Dada, note that the "function as answer is allowed" shorten my code 71 bytes. a big thanks!