Thanks for the deeper explanation.  Learned something.
The Ways of the Engine can be mysterious. 

On Tuesday, October 10, 2023 at 4:30:37 PM UTC-7 Bruce Van Allen wrote:

> Hmm, that carat ^ should have been under the spacebar space.
>
> Anyway, to further explain: at first the regex engine will indeed match 
> that spacebar space with the dot ‘.’. But then it comes to the actual 
> spacebar space in the pattern, but there isn’t one left, so the regex 
> engine backs up, matches the dot to the last character before the space, 
> matches the space, and moves on.
>
> — Bruce
>
> _bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz_ca_
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Oct 10, 2023, at 4:25 PM, Bruce Van Allen <[email protected]> wrote:
> > 
> > That ‘.’ doesn’t match the space character between first and last 
> because that space character is in the pattern.
> > 
> > ([A-Z])([a-z]+.) ([A-Z][a-z]+.)
> > ^
> > 
> > So that ‘.’ would just be matching the last character of the first name.
> > 
> > HTH
> > 
> > — Bruce
> > 
> > _bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz_ca_
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > On Oct 10, 2023, at 4:20 PM, Tim A <[email protected]> wrote:
> > 
> > ([AZ])([az]+.) ([AZ][az]+.)
> > 
> > [a-z]+’ so this will match all the lower case letters in the first name
> > 
> > The ‘.’ just adds one more character, and isn’t needed." - but here 
> would match the presumed space character between First and Last name
> > 
> > ... So why does then successfully match the space character as demanded 
> by the regular expression? Hasn't it been "used up" by the period?
> > 
> > 
> > On Tuesday, October 10, 2023 at 2:41:42 PM UTC-7 Bruce Van Allen wrote:
> > The ‘+’ is quantifying a character class '[a-z]’. 
> > 
> > ‘[a-z]+’ (without the quotes) means one or more characters in the range 
> ‘a’ to ‘z’. 
> > 
> > The ‘.’ just adds one more character, and isn’t needed. 
> > 
> > And Tim is correct that there’s no fourth capture, so the ‘\4' is 
> meaningless. 
> > 
> > — Bruce 
> > 
> > _bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz_ca_ 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >> On Oct 10, 2023, at 1:09 PM, Tim A <[email protected]> wrote: 
> >> 
> >> Find: ([A-Z])([a-z]+.) ([A-Z][a-z]+.) 
> >> Replace: \1\3\4 
> >> Why the "+."? Isn't the space between first and last name all that is 
> needed? 
> >> And what is \4 mean with only three captures? 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> On Monday, October 9, 2023 at 12:10:04 PM UTC-7 Benjamin Irwin wrote: 
> >> That's cool but I had to move one of the periods inside the ")" as 
> follows. 
> >> 
> >> Find: ([A-Z])([a-z]+.) ([A-Z][a-z]+.) 
> >> 
> >> Replace: \1\3\4 
> >> 
> >> On Monday, October 9, 2023 at 10:46:48 AM UTC-4 Kjetil Rå Hauge wrote: 
> >> Try this: 
> >> - Click Case sensitive and Grep 
> >> - Find: "([A-Z])([a-z]+.) ([A-Z][a-z]+)." 
> >> - Replace: "\1\3\4 " 
> >> ________________________________________ 
> >> From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of 
> Bill Walker <[email protected]> 
> >> Sent: 09 October 2023 04:32 
> >> To: BBEdit Talk 
> >> Subject: Change First Name SPACE Last Name to First Initial Last Name 
> >> 
> >> Example: Change John Doe to JDoe 
> >> 
> >> -- 
> >> 
> >> -- 
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>
> > 
> > 
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>

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