split into sentences with preg_split

[mark1491]

I am trying to split a string into sentences with preg_split, but I would like it to not split initials.
Examples:

Mark H. Doolittle is my name. What is yours. ( I don't want it to split the middle initial, but want to split after 'name')

The company is is called H.R. Block. They are a good company. ( I don't want it to split after 'H', 'R')

Here is the code i have, but it causes a split at every period. can someone help me out, im not good a regex yet.

[PHP]$sentences = preg_split ("/[.?!]+/", $data);[/PHP]

[ronverdonk]

That is quite difficult to distinguish. Example: what would such an expresssion do with sentences like

That is for you and I. But not for him.

No expression can distinguish between you "Mark H. Doolittle" and "and I. But".

Ronald

[Atli]

I cant see a simple solution to this either.

For this to work, the code would have to be able to distinguish between the end of line periods and those used for other purposes, such as names and numbers.

Your code would have to be able to recognize all possible uses of a period and decide whether or not it really is the end of a line.
Honestly, I doubt that is "doable"... (I would say possible, but nothing is "impossible" ;P)

[mark1491]

That is quite difficult to distinguish. Example: what would such an expresssion do with sentences like

That is for you and I. But not for him.

No expression can distinguish between you "Mark H. Doolittle" and "and I. But".

Ronald

I understand that there will definitely be some problems, but most likely the only one letter word that would fall at the end of a sentence would be "I" like in your example:

That is for you and I. But not for him.

I'll figure that out later, but for now is there anyway you could show me how i would do a preg_split that would:

not split any "." that came after a single character instance of 'a-zA-Z', but then split the rest of the "." that did not follow that rule