ucwords

(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

ucwords — Uppercase the first character of each word in a string

Description

ucwords(string $string, string $separators = " \t\r\n\f\v"): string

Returns a string with the first character of each word in string capitalized, if that character is an ASCII character between "a" (0x61) and "z" (0x7a).

For this function, a word is a string of characters that are not listed in the separators parameter. By default, these are: space, horizontal tab, carriage return, newline, form-feed and vertical tab.

To do a similar conversion on multibyte strings, use mb_convert_case() with the MB_CASE_TITLE mode.

Parameters

string: The input string.
separators: The optional separators contains the word separator characters.

Return Values

Returns the modified string.

Changelog

Version	Description
8.2.0	Case conversion no longer depends on the locale set with setlocale(). Only ASCII characters will be converted.

Examples

Example #1 ucwords() example

<?php
$foo = 'hello world!';
$foo = ucwords($foo);             // Hello World!

$bar = 'HELLO WORLD!';
$bar = ucwords($bar);             // HELLO WORLD!
$bar = ucwords(strtolower($bar)); // Hello World!
?>

Example #2 ucwords() example with custom delimiter

<?php
$foo = 'hello|world!';
$bar = ucwords($foo);             // Hello|world!

$baz = ucwords($foo, "|");        // Hello|World!
?>

Example #3 ucwords() example with additional delimiters

<?php
$foo = "mike o'hara";
$bar = ucwords($foo);                 // Mike O'hara

$baz = ucwords($foo, " \t\r\n\f\v'"); // Mike O'Hara
?>

Notes

Note: This function is binary-safe.

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User Contributed Notes 28 notes

down

antoniomax at antoniomax dot com ¶

11 years ago

Para formatar nomes em pt-br:

<?php

    function titleCase($string, $delimiters = array(" ", "-", ".", "'", "O'", "Mc"), $exceptions = array("de", "da", "dos", "das", "do", "I", "II", "III", "IV", "V", "VI"))
    {
        /*
         * Exceptions in lower case are words you don't want converted
         * Exceptions all in upper case are any words you don't want converted to title case
         *   but should be converted to upper case, e.g.:
         *   king henry viii or king henry Viii should be King Henry VIII
         */
        $string = mb_convert_case($string, MB_CASE_TITLE, "UTF-8");
        foreach ($delimiters as $dlnr => $delimiter) {
            $words = explode($delimiter, $string);
            $newwords = array();
            foreach ($words as $wordnr => $word) {
                if (in_array(mb_strtoupper($word, "UTF-8"), $exceptions)) {
                    // check exceptions list for any words that should be in upper case
                    $word = mb_strtoupper($word, "UTF-8");
                } elseif (in_array(mb_strtolower($word, "UTF-8"), $exceptions)) {
                    // check exceptions list for any words that should be in upper case
                    $word = mb_strtolower($word, "UTF-8");
                } elseif (!in_array($word, $exceptions)) {
                    // convert to uppercase (non-utf8 only)
                    $word = ucfirst($word);
                }
                array_push($newwords, $word);
            }
            $string = join($delimiter, $newwords);
       }//foreach
       return $string;
    }

?>

Usage:

<?php
    $s = 'SÃO JOÃO DOS SANTOS';
    $v = titleCase($s); // 'São João dos Santos' 
?>

down

jmarois at ca dot ibm dot com ¶

14 years ago

My quick and dirty ucname (Upper Case Name) function.

<?php
//FUNCTION

function ucname($string) {
    $string =ucwords(strtolower($string));

    foreach (array('-', '\'') as $delimiter) {
      if (strpos($string, $delimiter)!==false) {
        $string =implode($delimiter, array_map('ucfirst', explode($delimiter, $string)));
      }
    }
    return $string;
}
?>
<?php
//TEST

$names =array(
  'JEAN-LUC PICARD',
  'MILES O\'BRIEN',
  'WILLIAM RIKER',
  'geordi la forge',
  'bEvErly CRuSHeR'
);
foreach ($names as $name) { print ucname("{$name}\n"); }

//PRINTS:
/*
Jean-Luc Picard
Miles O'Brien
William Riker
Geordi La Forge
Beverly Crusher
*/
?>

You can add more delimiters in the for-each loop array if you want to handle more characters.

down

NOSPAM dot php at my dot jrklein dot com ¶

4 years ago

Based on code sample originally posted by "Anonymous" on 2005-12-14. The /e modifier is no longer supported by preg_replace(). Rewritten to use preg_replace_callback() instead. Tested with PHP 7.3.

The function below will standardize the capitalization on people's names, addresses, and the titles of reports and essays . Adapt the lists in "$all_uppercase" and "$all_lowercase" to suit the data that you are working with.

function ucwords_title($string, $is_name = false) {
    // Exceptions to standard case conversion
    if ($is_name) {
        $all_uppercase = '';
        $all_lowercase = 'De La|De Las|Der|Van De|Van Der|Vit De|Von|Or|And';
    } else {
        // Addresses, essay titles ... and anything else
        $all_uppercase = 'Us|Ca|Mx|Po|Rr|Se|Sw|Ne|Nw';
        $all_lowercase = 'A|And|As|By|In|Of|Or|To';
    }
    $prefixes = 'Mac|Mc';
    $suffixes = "'S";

    // Trim whitespace and convert to lowercase
    $str = strtolower(trim($string));

    // Capitalize all first letters
    $str = preg_replace_callback('/\\b(\\w)/', function ($m) {
        return strtoupper($m[1]);
    }, $str);

    if ($all_uppercase) {
        // Capitalize acronyms and initialisms (e.g. PHP)
        $str = preg_replace_callback('/\\b(' . $all_uppercase . ')\\b/', function ($m) {
            return strtoupper($m[1]);
        }, $str);
    }
    if ($all_lowercase) {
        // Decapitalize short words (e.g. and)
        if ($is_name) {
            // All occurrences will be changed to lowercase
            $str = preg_replace_callback('/\\b(' . $all_lowercase . ')\\b/', function ($m) {
                return strtolower($m[1]);
            }, $str);
        } else {
            // First and last word will not be changed to lower case (i.e. titles)
            $str = preg_replace_callback('/(?<=\\W)(' . $all_lowercase . ')(?=\\W)/', function ($m) {
                return strtolower($m[1]);
            }, $str);
        }
    }
    if ($prefixes) {
        // Capitalize letter after certain name prefixes (e.g 'Mc')
        $str = preg_replace_callback('/\\b(' . $prefixes . ')(\\w)/', function ($m) {
            return $m[1] . strtoupper($m[2]);
        }, $str);
    }
    if ($suffixes) {
        // Decapitalize certain word suffixes (e.g. 's)
        $str = preg_replace_callback('/(\\w)(' . $suffixes . ')\\b/', function ($m) {
            return $m[1] . strtolower($m[2]);
        }, $str);
    }

    return $str;
}

// A name example
print ucwords_title("MARIE-LOU VAN DER PLANCK-ST.JOHN", true);
// Output: Marie-Lou van der Planc-St.John

// A title example
print ucwords_title("to be or not to be");
// Output: "To Be or Not to Be"

down

robert at broofa dot com ¶

15 years ago

Some recipes for switching between underscore and camelcase naming:



<?php

// underscored to upper-camelcase

// e.g. "this_method_name" -> "ThisMethodName"

preg_replace('/(?:^|_)(.?)/e',"strtoupper('$1')",$string);



// underscored to lower-camelcase

// e.g. "this_method_name" -> "thisMethodName"

preg_replace('/_(.?)/e',"strtoupper('$1')",$string);



// camelcase (lower or upper) to underscored

// e.g. "thisMethodName" -> "this_method_name"

// e.g. "ThisMethodName" -> "this_method_name"

strtolower(preg_replace('/([^A-Z])([A-Z])/', "$1_$2", $string));

?>



Of course these aren't 100% symmetric.  For example...

  * this_is_a_string -> ThisIsAString -> this_is_astring

  * GetURLForString -> get_urlfor_string -> GetUrlforString

down

almino dot melo at gmail dot com ¶

8 years ago

ucwords for human names in Brazil.
ucwords personalizada para nomes próprios brasileiros.

<?php
    /**
     * ucwords for human names in Brazil
     * Edit from http://php.net/manual/pt_BR/function.ucwords.php#112795
     * @param string $str
     * @param array $delimiters
     * @param array $exceptions Exceptions are words you don't want converted
     * @return string
     */
    function name($str, $delimiters = array(
        " ",
        "-",
        ".",
        "'",
        "O'",
        "Mc",
    ), $exceptions = array(
        "de",
        "do",
        "da",
        "dos",
        "das",
    )) {
        $result = '';

        foreach ($delimiters as $delimiter) {
            # If string has a delimiter
            if (strstr($str, $delimiter)) {

                $ucfirst = array();
                # Apply ucfirst to every word
                foreach (explode($delimiter, mb_strtolower($str)) as $word) {
                    $word = mb_convert_case($word, MB_CASE_TITLE);

                    # Working with exceptions
                    if (in_array(mb_strtoupper($word), $exceptions)) {
                        $word = mb_strtoupper($word);
                    } elseif (in_array(mb_strtolower($word), $exceptions)) {
                        $word = mb_strtolower($word);
                    } elseif (preg_match('/^M{0,4}(CM|CD|D?C{0,3})(XC|XL|L?X{0,3})(IX|IV|V?I{0,3})$/', mb_strtoupper($word))) {
                        # Is roman numerals? # http://stackoverflow.com/a/267405/437459
                        $word = mb_strtoupper($word);
                    }

                    $ucfirst[] = $word;
                }

                # string's first character uppercased
                $result = implode($delimiter, $ucfirst);
            }
        }

        return $result;
    }
?>

down

lev at phpfox dot com ¶

18 years ago

In the function ucsmart() posted by ieure at php dot net on 04-Dec-2005 11:57, I found a similar problem in this function to what he found in igua's.

<?php
function ucsmart($text)
{
   return preg_replace('/([^a-z]|^)([a-z])/e', '"$1".strtoupper("$2")',
                       strtolower($text));
}
?>

"igua's code adds a backslash in front of the first single quote for me. This doesn't alter the content in any way other than changing case."

Actually, it did end up changing the content for me (php 5.0.4) in the way that this function escapes a single quotation (apostrophe) in the MIDDLE of a word.

For example:

who's online?

Became:

Who\'s Online?

The fix is simple however, and merely requires fine-tuning the regular expression:

<?php
function ucsmart($text)
{
   return preg_replace('/([^a-z\']|^)([a-z])/e', '"$1".strtoupper("$2")',
                       strtolower($text));
}
?>

(note: while previewing this note before adding it, I am noticing php's website is not correctly displaying the change I made as I wrote it. After the first a-z in the expression, the single quotation should be escaped... If it isn't you will get a parse error! And apoligies if my text here is colored as php code; not my fault!)

This will not escape a single quotation mark which occurs in the middle of a word... Though, you may find that might need to add other characters inside the regular expression if you use other special characters inside your words and if you get funky output.

It's a great expression though! Simple, yet very powerful. Kudos!

down

kendsnyder at gmail dot com ¶

17 years ago

Here is a function to capitalize a last name, accounting for hyphens, apostrophes, "Mc" and "Mac":

<?php
function CapitalizeLastName($name) {
    $name = strtolower($name);
    $name = join("'", array_map('ucwords', explode("'", $name)));
    $name = join("-", array_map('ucwords', explode("-", $name)));
    $name = join("Mac", array_map('ucwords', explode("Mac", $name)));
    $name = join("Mc", array_map('ucwords', explode("Mc", $name)));
    return $name;
}
?>

I speed tested it against functions that used preg_replace() with an "e" modifier, preg_replace_callback(), and a character-by-character parsing.  Unexpectedly, this function using join(), array_map() and explode() was fastest.

down

blake at goinoutwest dot com ¶

16 years ago

Relating to the mb_ucwords() function posted by Anonymous.  In order for this to actually be multi-byte compliant, you would also need to use mb_substr() and mb_strlen() instead of substr and strlen respectively.

Here it is corrected and extended even further to allow multiple word separators and a list of exceptions to correct after title casing. It's a bit tedious and inelegant, but things frequently are when dealing with human languages.

function mb_ucwords($str) {
    $exceptions = array();
    $exceptions['Hp'] = 'HP';
    $exceptions['Ibm'] = 'IBM';
    $exceptions['Gb'] = 'GB';
    $exceptions['Mb'] = 'MB';
    $exceptions['Cd'] = 'CD';
    $exceptions['Dvd'] = 'DVD';
    $exceptions['Usb'] = 'USB';
    $exceptions['Mm'] = 'mm';
    $exceptions['Cm'] = 'cm';
    //    etc.
    
    $separator = array(" ","-","+");
    
    $str = mb_strtolower(trim($str));
    foreach($separator as $s){
        $word = explode($s, $str);

        $return = "";
        foreach ($word as $val){
            $return .= $s . mb_strtoupper($val{0}) . mb_substr($val,1,mb_strlen($val)-1);
        }
        $str = mb_substr($return, 1);
    }

    foreach($exceptions as $find=>$replace){
        if (mb_strpos($return, $find) !== false){
            $return = str_replace($find, $replace, $return);
        }
    }
    return mb_substr($return, 1);
}

down

ahmet363 at gmail dot com ¶

13 years ago

Turkish character with the ucwords function...

<?php
function ucwords_tr($gelen){

  $sonuc='';

  $kelimeler=explode(" ", $gelen);

  foreach ($kelimeler as $kelime_duz){

    $kelime_uzunluk=strlen($kelime_duz);
    $ilk_karakter=mb_substr($kelime_duz,0,1,'UTF-8');

    if($ilk_karakter=='Ç' or $ilk_karakter=='ç'){

      $ilk_karakter='Ç';

    }elseif ($ilk_karakter=='Ğ' or $ilk_karakter=='ğ') {

      $ilk_karakter='Ğ';

    }elseif($ilk_karakter=='I' or $ilk_karakter=='ı'){

      $ilk_karakter='I';

    }elseif ($ilk_karakter=='İ' or $ilk_karakter=='i'){

      $ilk_karakter='İ';

    }elseif ($ilk_karakter=='Ö' or $ilk_karakter=='ö'){

      $ilk_karakter='Ö';

    }elseif ($ilk_karakter=='Ş' or $ilk_karakter=='ş'){

      $ilk_karakter='Ş';

    }elseif ($ilk_karakter=='Ü' or $ilk_karakter=='ü'){

      $ilk_karakter='Ü';

    }else{

      $ilk_karakter=strtoupper($ilk_karakter);

    }

    $digerleri=mb_substr($kelime_duz,1,$kelime_uzunluk,'UTF-8');
    $sonuc.=$ilk_karakter.kucuk_yap($digerleri).' ';

  }

  $son=trim(str_replace('  ', ' ', $sonuc));
  return $son;

}

function kucuk_yap($gelen){

  $gelen=str_replace('Ç', 'ç', $gelen);
  $gelen=str_replace('Ğ', 'ğ', $gelen);
  $gelen=str_replace('I', 'ı', $gelen);
  $gelen=str_replace('İ', 'i', $gelen);
  $gelen=str_replace('Ö', 'ö', $gelen);
  $gelen=str_replace('Ş', 'ş', $gelen);
  $gelen=str_replace('Ü', 'ü', $gelen);
  $gelen=strtolower($gelen);

  return $gelen;
}

echo ucwords_tr('ŞEKardi ŞEMŞİYE ĞELENÖ ÖMER'); // Şekardi Şemşiye Ğelenö Ömer
echo ucwords_tr('şEKER iMSAK şÖLEN'); // Şeker İmsak Şölen

down

hrvoj3e at gmail dot com ¶

11 years ago

UTF-8 Title Case that works for me even with hyphens involved!

$str = 'ĐaaČaa-AAAaaa, BBbb';

$str = mb_convert_case($str, MB_CASE_TITLE, "UTF-8");

echo($str): 'Đaačaa-Aaaaaa, Bbbb'

down

Luca Borrione luca -a email -d c_o_m ¶

12 years ago

Features:

- multi byte compatible

- handles multiple delimiters



<?php

function ucwords_specific ($string, $delimiters = '', $encoding = NULL)

{

    if ($encoding === NULL) { $encoding = mb_internal_encoding();}



    if (is_string($delimiters))

    {

        $delimiters =  str_split( str_replace(' ', '', $delimiters));

    }



    $delimiters_pattern1 = array();

    $delimiters_replace1 = array();

    $delimiters_pattern2 = array();

    $delimiters_replace2 = array();

    foreach ($delimiters as $delimiter)

    {

        $uniqid = uniqid();

        $delimiters_pattern1[]   = '/'. preg_quote($delimiter) .'/';

        $delimiters_replace1[]   = $delimiter.$uniqid.' ';

        $delimiters_pattern2[]   = '/'. preg_quote($delimiter.$uniqid.' ') .'/';

        $delimiters_replace2[]   = $delimiter;

    }



    // $return_string = mb_strtolower($string, $encoding);

    $return_string = $string;

    $return_string = preg_replace($delimiters_pattern1, $delimiters_replace1, $return_string);



    $words = explode(' ', $return_string);



    foreach ($words as $index => $word)

    {

        $words[$index] = mb_strtoupper(mb_substr($word, 0, 1, $encoding), $encoding).mb_substr($word, 1, mb_strlen($word, $encoding), $encoding);

    }



    $return_string = implode(' ', $words);



    $return_string = preg_replace($delimiters_pattern2, $delimiters_replace2, $return_string);



    return $return_string;

}

?>



Params:

1. string: The string being converted

2. delimiters: a string with all wanted delimiters written one after the other e.g. "-'"

3. encoding: Is the character encoding. If it is omitted, the internal character encoding value will be used.



Example Usage:

<?php

mb_internal_encoding('UTF-8');

$string = "JEAN-PAUL d'artagnan şŠ-òÀ-éÌ hello - world";

echo ucwords_specific( mb_strtolower($string, 'UTF-8'), "-'");

?>



Output:

Jean-Paul D'Artagnan Şš-Òà-Éì Hello - World

down

strazds at gmail dot com ¶

16 years ago

ucwords for UTF-8 strings:



<?php

function mb_ucwords($str) {

    $str = mb_convert_case($str, MB_CASE_TITLE, "UTF-8");

    return ($str);

}

?>

down

Q1712 at online dot ms ¶

17 years ago

ucwords() only excepts whitespace in front of a word, although some chars like '"' or '(' normally have no space between them and the following word:
<?php
$title = 'ELVIS "THE KING" PRESLEY - (LET ME BE YOUR) TEDDY BEAR';
echo ucwords(strtolower($title));
?>
prints: Elvis "the King" Presley - (let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear

To avoid this i use a small function adding and deleting blanks behind these chars, and using ucwords() in between:

<?php
function my_ucwords($string)
  { 
    $noletters='"([/'; //add more if u need to
    for($i=0; $i<strlen($noletters); $i++)
      $string = str_replace($noletters[$i], $noletters[$i].' ', $string);
    $string=ucwords($string);
    for($i=0; $i<strlen($noletters); $i++)
      $string = str_replace($noletters[$i].' ', $noletters[$i], $string);
    return $string;
  }

$title = 'ELVIS "THE KING" PRESLEY - (LET ME BE YOUR) TEDDY BEAR';
echo my_ucwords(strtolower($title));
?>

prints: Elvis "The King" Presley - (Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear

down

Anonymous ¶

22 years ago

This seems to be what people want:



function uc_all($string) {

    $temp = preg_split('/(\W)/', $string, -1, PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE );

    foreach ($temp as $key=>$word) {

        $temp[$key] = ucfirst(strtolower($word));

    }

    return join ('', $temp);

}



[ed note: fixed the code to be correct]

down

Anonymous ¶

18 years ago

"ieure at php dot net", your idea is pure poetry!

The function below will standardize the capitalization on people's names and the titles of reports and essays . You may need to adapt the lists in "$all_uppercase" and "$all_lowercase" to suit the data that you are working with.

function my_ucwords($str, $is_name=false) {
   // exceptions to standard case conversion
   if ($is_name) {
       $all_uppercase = '';
       $all_lowercase = 'De La|De Las|Der|Van De|Van Der|Vit De|Von|Or|And';
   } else {
       // addresses, essay titles ... and anything else
       $all_uppercase = 'Po|Rr|Se|Sw|Ne|Nw';
       $all_lowercase = 'A|And|As|By|In|Of|Or|To';
   }
   $prefixes = 'Mc';
   $suffixes = "'S";

   // captialize all first letters
   $str = preg_replace('/\\b(\\w)/e', 'strtoupper("$1")', strtolower(trim($str)));

   if ($all_uppercase) {
       // capitalize acronymns and initialisms e.g. PHP
       $str = preg_replace("/\\b($all_uppercase)\\b/e", 'strtoupper("$1")', $str);
   }
   if ($all_lowercase) {
       // decapitalize short words e.g. and
       if ($is_name) {
           // all occurences will be changed to lowercase
           $str = preg_replace("/\\b($all_lowercase)\\b/e", 'strtolower("$1")', $str);
       } else {
           // first and last word will not be changed to lower case (i.e. titles)
           $str = preg_replace("/(?<=\\W)($all_lowercase)(?=\\W)/e", 'strtolower("$1")', $str);
       }
   }
   if ($prefixes) {
       // capitalize letter after certain name prefixes e.g 'Mc'
       $str = preg_replace("/\\b($prefixes)(\\w)/e", '"$1".strtoupper("$2")', $str);
   }
   if ($suffixes) {
       // decapitalize certain word suffixes e.g. 's
       $str = preg_replace("/(\\w)($suffixes)\\b/e", '"$1".strtolower("$2")', $str);
   }
   return $str;
}

// A name example
print my_ucwords("MARIE-LOU VAN DER PLANCK-ST.JOHN", true);
// Output: Marie-Lou van der Planc-St.John

// A title example
print my_ucwords("to be or not to be");
// Output: "To Be or Not to Be"

down

barnaby ritchley at exeye dot co dot uk ¶

17 years ago

A very easy way to convert to title case:

function titleCase($string)
     {
     return ucwords(strtolower($string));
     }

$myString = "SOME TEXT";

echo titleCase($myString);

//will print, "My Text"

down

ganzales at inbox dot ru ¶

4 years ago

<?php
function mb_ucwords($string, $delimiter = ' (-"[') {
    $result = $upper = '';
    for ($i = 0; $i < mb_strlen($string); $i++) {
        $letter = mb_substr($string, $i, 1);
        $result .= $upper || $i == 0 ? mb_convert_case($letter, MB_CASE_TITLE) : $letter;
        $upper = ($i + 1) < mb_strlen($string) && mb_strpos($delimiter, $letter) !== false ? 1 : 0;
    }
    return $result;
}
?>

down

Alex Milkovskyi ¶

9 years ago

Convert string to in camel-case, useful for class name patterns:
<?php
/**
   * Convert string to in camel-case, useful for class name patterns.
   *
   * @param $string
   *   Target string.
   *
   * @return string
   *   Camel-case string.
   */
function toCamelCase($string){
    $string = str_replace('-', ' ', $string);
    $string = str_replace('_', ' ', $string);
    $string = ucwords(strtolower($string));
    $string = str_replace(' ', '', $string);
    return $string;
}
?>

Example:
toCamelCase(make_mE camel-case pLEase) will return:
MakeMeCamelCasePlease

down

Alex ¶

16 years ago

A modified sentenceNormalizer by gregomm
 
Features:
1- Removes duplicated question marks, exclamations and periods
2- Capitalize first letter of a sentence.
3- Split sentences not only with "." but also with "?" and "!"
4- Puts a white space at the end of each sentence
5- Retains newlines

--removed from orginal function--
undestand the meaning of "¡" and "¿" in languages like spanish.
undestand the htmlentitity version of this simbols.
--removed from orginal function--

<?php
function sentenceNormalizer($sentence_split) {
    $sentence_split = preg_replace(array('/[!]+/','/[?]+/','/[.]+/'),
                                   array('!','?','.'),$sentence_split);        
    
    $textbad = preg_split("/(\!|\.|\?|\n)/", $sentence_split,-1,PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE);
    $newtext = array();
    $count = sizeof($textbad);
    
    foreach($textbad as $key => $string) {
        if (!empty($string)) {
            $text = trim($string, ' ');
            $size = strlen($text);
            
            if ($size > 1){     
                $newtext[] = ucfirst(strtolower($text));
            }
                elseif ($size == 1) {
                    $newtext[] = ($text == "\n") ? $text : $text . ' ';
                }      
        }
    }
    
    return implode($newtext);
}
?>

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-1

@manzoorwanijk ¶

6 years ago

for PHP < 5.4.32 with $delimiters

function _ucwords( $str, $delimiters = " \t\r\n\f\v" ) {

    $delims = preg_split( '//u', $delimiters, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY );

    foreach ( $delims as $delim ) {
        
        if ( false !== strpos( $str, $delim ) ) {

            $str = implode( $delim, array_map( 'ucfirst', explode( $delim, $str ) ) );
        }
    }

    return $str;
}

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qeremy [atta] gmail [dotta] com ¶

12 years ago

A proper Turkish solution;



<?php

function ucfirst_turkish($str) {

    $tmp = preg_split("//u", $str, 2, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);

    return mb_convert_case(

        str_replace("i", "İ", $tmp[0]), MB_CASE_TITLE, "UTF-8").

        $tmp[1];

}



function ucwords_turkish($str) {

    return preg_replace("/(\\w+)/ue", "ucfirst_turkish('\\\\1').'$2'", $str);

}



$str = "iyilik güzelLİK şeker ";

echo ucwords($str) ."\\n";   // Iyilik GüzelLİK şeker 

echo ucwords_turkish($str); // İyilik GüzelLİK Şeker 

?>

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haijerome at gmail dot com ¶

13 years ago

Thanks a lot brother.

I tested it with a few variations. It works perfectly. Its really great and simple usage of the existing functions. It would be glad to all PHP folks and good to PHP if these kind of functions will be in PHP library on upcoming releases.

<?php 

$name1 = "mark-yves robert";
$name2 = "mark-yves robert-bryan";

echo '<br/>Name 1 (mark-yves robert) =>'.
ucwordspecific($name1,'-'); //returns Mark-Yves Robert

echo '<br/>Name 2 (mark-yves robert-bryan) 

=>'.ucwordspecific($name2,'-'); 
//returns Mark-Yves Robert-Bryan

function ucwordspecific($str,$delimiter){
$delimiter_space = '- ';
return str_replace($delimiter_space,$delimiter,ucwords

(str_replace($delimiter,$delimiter_space,$str)));
}

?>

Proud to be a PHP enthusiast always :-)

down

Greg S ¶

15 years ago

I did the same thing as Catalin, but for French names.



Here's what I'm doing :



For each word (not considering the single-quote as a word boundary character) :

- Put the word in lower case

- If the word is "de", return, else, put the first letter in upper-case

- See if the second character of the word is a single-quote

- Yes ? Put the next char in upper case

- And if the char before the single quote is D, put it back to lower case (-> d)



This complies with the French rules for capitalization in names.



Sample results :

-d'Afoo Bar

-de Foo Bar

-O'Foo Bar

-Foo'bar



<?php

function my_ucwords($s) {

        $s = preg_replace_callback("/(\b[\w|']+\b)/s", fixcase_callback, $s);

        

        return $s;         

        

    }

    

    function fixcase_callback($word) {



        $word = $word[1];

        

        $word = strtolower($word);

        

        if($word == "de")

            return $word;

        

        $word = ucfirst($word);

        

        if(substr($word,1,1) == "'") {

            if(substr($word,0,1) == "D") {

                $word = strtolower($word);

            }

            $next = substr($word,2,1);

            $next = strtoupper($next);

            $word = substr_replace($word, $next, 2, 1);

        }

        

        return $word;

    }

?>

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Ismet Togay ¶

18 years ago

Response to arif:

We do not need that long functions. In order to make ucwords() worked properly in Turkish words that contain speacial characters, we can use the following command in our php codes:

setlocale(LC_ALL, 'tr_TR');

This will set locale to Turkish.

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deepdene at email dot com ¶

22 years ago

A function knowing about name case (i.e. caps on McDonald etc)

function name_case($name)
{
    $newname = strtoupper($name[0]);    
    for ($i=1; $i < strlen($name); $i++) 
    { 
        $subed = substr($name, $i, 1);     
        if (((ord($subed) > 64) && (ord($subed) < 123)) || 
            ((ord($subed) > 48) && (ord($subed) < 58))) 
        { 
            $word_check = substr($name, $i - 2, 2);
            if (!strcasecmp($word_check, 'Mc') || !strcasecmp($word_check, "O'")) 
            {
                $newname .= strtoupper($subed);  
            }
            else if ($break) 
            { 
                
                $newname .= strtoupper($subed); 
            } 
            else       
            { 
                $newname .= strtolower($subed); 
            } 
             $break=0; 
        }
        else
        { 
            // not a letter - a boundary 
             $newname .= $subed; 
            $break=1; 
        }
    }    
    return $newname;
}

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neil at no-spam-ents24 dot com ¶

23 years ago

The code posted above by Joerg Krause only works for a string which ends with one of the delimiters. A possible fix is:



<?php

$text = "What?No delimiters,shit happens here.this solves all problems."; 

preg_match_all("/(\w+[,. ?])+/U", $text, $words); 

preg_match("/(\w+)$/", $text, $lastword);

$words[0][] = $lastword;

foreach($words[0] as $part) $uwords[] = ucfirst($part); 

$text = implode("", $uwords); 

echo $text;

?>

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-1

Florian ¶

9 years ago

to convert first letters in a firstname like: "jean-pierre" to "Jean-Pierre":

I simply replace the '-' with a vertical tabulation, because the ucwords() function replace the letter just after it.

so, I use the sentence:
$result=str_replace(chr(11),'-',ucwords(strtolower(str_replace('-',chr(11),$firstname))));

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-2

Lech ¶

9 years ago

This will correct capitalisation in names taking note of special capitalisation for Mc..., Mac..., and O'... Other special cases, of which I am not aware, can be added easily.

This is just a slight improvement on "deepdene at email dot com"'s name_case function... Thank you for original function.

<?php

function name_case($name) {
    if( !$name ) return $name;
    $newname = strtoupper($name[0]);
    $break = false;
    for( $i=1; $i<strlen($name); ++$i ) {
      $subed = substr($name, $i, 1);
      if( ord($subed) > 64 && ord($subed) < 123 || ord($subed) > 48 && ord($subed) < 58 ) {
        if( $break ) {
          $newname .= strtoupper($subed);
        }
        elseif( $i > 1 && in_array(substr($newname, $i-2, 2), array('Mc', 'O\'')) || $i > 2 && in_array(substr($newname, $i-3, 3), array('Mac')) ) {
          $newname .= strtoupper($subed); 
        }
        else {
          $newname .= strtolower($subed);
        }
        $break = false;
      }
      else {
        // not a letter - a boundary
        $newname .= $subed;
        $break = true;
      }
    }   
    return $newname;

?>

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ucwords

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