Is there a way to extract initials from macro containing a name with latex? - latex

Question

I am writing a cv class, and want to extract the cvauthor initials. I have declare a macro in a .cls file that should contains the author name, after getting it, i want to split it according to a certain separator and gets the first letters of each sub-string. Here is what I did, but still getting an error message.
myclass.cls
\ProvidesClass{resumecv}[2020/09/12 CV class]
\LoadClass{article}
\NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e}
\RequirePackage{xstring}
\RequirePackage{soul}
\RequirePackage[absolute, overlay]{textpos}
\sodef\myspace{}{.1em}{0.5em plus0.5em}{2em plus.1em minus.1em} % User-defined letter spacing
\newcommand{\cvauthor}[1]{\renewcommand{\cvauthor}{\textsc{\myspace{#1}}}}
\newcommand{\FirstInitial}{}
\newcommand{\SecondInitial}{}
\newcommand*{\ExtractInitials}[1]{%
\StrRemoveBraces{#1}[\FirstInit]%
\StrChar{\FirstInit}{1}[\FirstInit]
\renewcommand{\FirstInitial}{\FirstInit}
\StrBehind{#1}{ }[\second]%
\StrRemoveBraces{\second}[\SecondInit]%
\StrChar{\SecondInit}{1}[\SecondInitial]
}
\newcommand*{\makeskeleton}{
\begin{textblock}{20}(0,0)
\ifthenelse{\equal{\cvauthor}{}}{}{
%\Huge\textcolor{darkYellow}{\textbf{\cvauthor}}
% \renewcommand{\name}{\cvauthor}
% \name
\ExtractInitials{\cvauthor}
\FirstInitial
\SecondInitial
}
\end{textblock}
}
my-resume.tex
\documentclass[a4paper,11pt]{myclass}
\cvauthor{John Smith} %%% whant to extract J and S
\begin{document}
\makeskeleton
\end{document}
Error
! Use of \TP#textblock doesn't match its definition.
\text#command #1->\def \reserved#a {
#1}\ifx \reserved#a \#empty \let \check#...
l.5 \makeskeleton
?
Need somebody's help.

Answer 1

ifthen package is missing
\ExtractInitials fails because \cvauthor saves the name with all the formatting like small caps etc. An easy workaround is to define a macro that just saves the plain name
please keep in mind that your \ExtractInitials will fail in many cases: more than two name parts, names with prefix etc. Instead of reinventing the wheel, have a look at biblatex which is very good at parsing all kinds of names
\ProvidesClass{myclass}[2020/09/12 CV class]
\LoadClass{article}
\NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e}
\RequirePackage{xstring}
\RequirePackage{soul}
\RequirePackage[absolute, overlay]{textpos}
\RequirePackage{ifthen}
\sodef\myspace{}{.1em}{0.5em plus0.5em}{2em plus.1em minus.1em} % User-defined letter spacing
\newcommand{\cvauthor}[1]{\newcommand{\mycvauthor}{#1}\renewcommand{\cvauthor}{\textsc{\myspace{#1}}}}
\newcommand{\FirstInitial}{}
\newcommand{\SecondInitial}{}
\newcommand*{\ExtractInitials}[1]{%
\StrRemoveBraces{#1}[\FirstInit]%
\StrChar{\FirstInit}{1}[\FirstInit]
\renewcommand{\FirstInitial}{\FirstInit}
\StrBehind{#1}{ }[\second]%
\StrRemoveBraces{\second}[\SecondInit]%
\StrChar{\SecondInit}{1}[\SecondInitial]
}
\newcommand*{\makeskeleton}{
\begin{textblock}{20}(0,0)
\ifthenelse{\equal{\cvauthor}{}}{}{
%\Huge\textcolor{darkYellow}{\textbf{\cvauthor}}
% \renewcommand{\name}{\cvauthor}
% \name
\ExtractInitials{\mycvauthor}
\FirstInitial
\SecondInitial
}
\end{textblock}
}