Editing WoW:API GetUnitName

{{framexmlfunc|FrameXML/UnitFrame.lua}}


<!-- Describe the purpose of the function, exhausting detail can be saved for a later section -->
Returns the name and realm of the specified unit.

<!-- List return values and arguments as well as function name, follow Blizzard usage convention for args -->
 name = GetUnitName(unit, showServerName)


== Parameters ==
=== Arguments ===
<!-- List each argument, together with its type -->
:("unit", showServerName)

:;unit : String - The [[API TYPE UnitId|UnitId]] to query (e.g. "player", "party2", "pet", "target" etc.)
:;showServerName : Boolean - If true, append " - [server name]" to ''name'' if it's available or FOREIGN_SERVER_LABEL (" (*)" on enUS locale) if nil or false.

=== Returns ===
:;name : A formatted string based on the return values of [[API_UnitName|UnitName]](unit).

==Example==
 print(GetUnitName("target"))

===Result===
 Print "Bob" if Bob is your target and is on your server or "Bob - Server Name" if Bob is your target and is from a different server.

'''NOTE:''' GetUnitName returns different results based upon the string passed to it. It is very important to be aware of this, especially if you are using UnitName as a variable.

Example:  Let's get the UnitName of a hunter that you have targeted in a battleground from Darkspear server,  and the same hunter from an event caught in the combat log.

 --Target Bob
 UN = GetUnitName("target", true);
 print (UN); -- ''Result is "BobTheHunter - Darkspear"''
 -- In event handler for COMBAT_LOG_EVENT_UNFILTERED
 local pattern = "_DAMAGE";
 local comEvent = select(2, ...);
 local start = string.find(comEvent, pattern);
 --continue working with 'damage' 
 if start then
   local damage, overkill = select(15, ...);
   sourceGUID, killer, killerFlag, _, destGUID, victim, vicFlag = select(4, ...);
   -- for example, we just killed this hunter Bob
   UN = GetUnitName(victim, true);
   print(UN); -- ''Result is "BobTheHunter-Darkspear"''
 end


Note the differences in strings, namely the white space. I would strongly suggest running all results from GetUnitName() through a function of some sort to ensure the results are what is expected. However, make sure this is only player names, or you will end up with 'Stormwind-Guard' for example (which is invalid, of course).

Example - get unit name in the format of 'Name-Server' for your target.

 --check the unitGUID to get the type of unit
 local guid = UnitGUID(UN);
 local B = tonumber(guid:sub(5,5), 16);
 local maskedB = B % 8; -- x % 8 has the same effect as x & 0x7 on numbers <= 0xf
 
 -- strip spaces out of a player 'name - server' string
 if (maskedB == 0) then
  UN = SpaceStripper(GetUnitName("target", true); 
 --  otherwise, just use the name as returned
 else
  UN = GetUnitName("target", false);
 end

 --strip the spaces here, and return the new string
 function SpaceStripper(str)
  if str ~= nil then
   res=split(str, ' - ');
   local count = 0;
   for _ in pairs(res) do count = count + 1 end  		
    if (count == 1) then res2 = res[1]; 
    else
     res2 = res[1]..'-'..res[3];	
     if (count > 3) then
      for i = 4, count, 1 do res2 = res2..res[i]; end
     end
    end 
   end
   return res2;
 end

 -- split function
 -- http://lua-users.org/wiki/SplitJoin
 function split(str, pat)
   local t = {}  -- NOTE: use {n = 0} in Lua-5.0
   local fpat = "(.-)" .. pat
   local last_end = 1
   local s, e, cap = str:find(fpat, 1)
   while s do
    if s ~= 1 or cap ~= "" then
     table.insert(t,cap)
    end
      last_end = e+1
      s, e, cap = str:find(fpat, last_end)
   end
   if last_end <= #str then
      cap = str:sub(last_end)
      table.insert(t, cap)
   end
   return t
 end

Now using the above code, you will have a consistently formatted result from GetUnitName().

==Details==
See [[API_UnitName#Details|UnitName]] for more details.