THanks, John, I'm sure you're right actually. So I've just written my
matching function like this:

(lambda (f) (string-match (concat "\\\(" fname "\\\)\\\([^[:alnum:]]\\\)*"
lname) f))

and if that has a nil result:

(lambda (f) (string-match (concat "\\\(" nname "\\\)\\\([^[:alnum:]]\\\)*"
lname) f))

That seems to work pretty well so far.  And as you suggest, I've written a
simple function that calls read-file-name for org-attach-attach in the
appropriate directory -- though it' s extremely simple, it makes manual
attachment much quicker when my brain starts to get foggy from grading
papers.

On Fri, Dec 2, 2016 at 8:55 AM, John Kitchin <jkitchin@andrew.cmu.edu>
wrote:

> I would not do that if I were you. The fuzzy match might inadvertently
> send feed back to the wrong student. I would fall back to some manual
> attachment if you do not find an exact match, e.g. using helm or ivy to
> select the files for attachment, perhaps sorted and matched using their
> fuzzy algorithms.
>
>
>
> Matt Price writes:
>
> > I have just done something I'm very excited about.  Given a directory
> name
> > (the variable ~assignment~ in this case) and a list of student info,
> search
> > through the directory for files whose names contain the student names,
> and
> > attach those to newly created subtrees.
> >
> > Before now, manually attaching those files has been a real pain, so it's
> > great to have this automated! However, sometimes the name I have on file
> > doesn't quite match the submitted name. In particular, my Chinese
> students
> > usually have an English first name that we use in class, and a
> > transliterated Chinese personal name that is used in official documents
> > (like my class list).  I would like to first try to match the whole name,
> > and if that fails, attempt some kind of "fuzzy" match of the name. I'm
> not
> > sure the best way to go about it.
> >
> > Any suggestions? Here is, I think, the relevant section of code (I can
> post
> > the wider context if that would be helpful). Thanks!
> >
> > Matt
> >
> > (mapcar (lambda (stu)
> >                           (let ((name (car stu))
> >                                 (email (cdr stu))
> >                                 )
> >                             (insert (format "\n** %s" name))
> >                             (org-todo 'todo)
> >                             (org-set-property "MAIL_TO" email)
> >                             (org-set-property "MAIL_SUBJECT"
> >                                               (format "Comments on %s
> > Assignment (%s)"
> >
> > (mwp-org-get-parent-headline) name ))
> >                             ;; try to attach files, if possible
> >                             (condition-case nil
> >                                 (let* (( afiles (directory-files
> > assignment  nil name)))
> >                                   (if afiles
> >                                       (dolist (f afiles)
> >                                         (org-attach-attach (concat
> > (file-name-directory (buffer-file-name)) assignment "/" f) ))
> >                                     (message "No files match name of %s"
> > name)))
> >                               (error (message "Unable to attach file
> > belonging to student")))
> >                             (save-excursion
> >                               (org-mark-subtree)
> >                               (org-cycle nil))
> >                             )) students)
>
>
> --
> Professor John Kitchin
> Doherty Hall A207F
> Department of Chemical Engineering
> Carnegie Mellon University
> Pittsburgh, PA 15213
> 412-268-7803
> @johnkitchin
> http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu
>