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<trimucwords>
Last updated: Thu, 19 May 2005

ucfirst

(PHP 3, PHP 4, PHP 5)

ucfirst -- Make a string's first character uppercase

Description

string ucfirst ( string str )

Returns a string with the first character of str capitalized, if that character is alphabetic.

Note that 'alphabetic' is determined by the current locale. For instance, in the default "C" locale characters such as umlaut-a (ä) will not be converted.

Example 1. ucfirst() example

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

$bar = 'HELLO WORLD!';
$bar = ucfirst($bar);            // HELLO WORLD!
$bar = ucfirst(strtolower($bar)); // Hello world!
?>

See also strtolower(), strtoupper(), and ucwords().



User Contributed Notes
ucfirst
12-Mar-2005 07:11
Ah, the last code were spoiled, here is the fixed one:

<?php

function uc_first($str){
  
$str[0] = strtr($str,
  
"abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz".
  
"\x9C\x9A\xE0\xE1\xE2\xE3".
  
"\xE4\xE5\xE6\xE7\xE8\xE9".
  
"\xEA\xEB\xEC\xED\xEE\xEF".
  
"\xF0\xF1\xF2\xF3\xF4\xF5".
  
"\xF6\xF8\xF9\xFA\xFB\xFC".
  
"\xFD\xFE\xFF",
  
"ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ".
  
"\x8C\x8A\xC0\xC1\xC2\xC3\xC4".
  
"\xC5\xC6\xC7\xC8\xC9\xCA\xCB".
  
"\xCC\xCD\xCE\xCF\xD0\xD1\xD2".
  
"\xD3\xD4\xD5\xD6\xD8\xD9\xDA".
  
"\xDB\xDC\xDD\xDE\x9F");
   return
$str;
}

?>

So, this function changes also other letters into uppercase, ucfirst() does only change: a-z to: A-Z.
12-Mar-2005 12:15
This function changes also other letters into uppercase, ucfirst() does only change: a-z to: A-Z.

<?php

function uc_first($str){
  
$str[0] = strtr($str, "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzœšàáâãäåæçèéêëìíîïðñòóôõöøùúûüýþÿ", "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZŒŠÀÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÐÑÒÓÔÕÖØÙÚÛÜÝÞŸ");
   return
$str;
}

?>
Stig-Arne Grönroos
25-Dec-2004 12:46
This function does not work as expected with characters from non-English alphabets (I only tested it with scandinavian letters, åäö => ÅÄÖ). It leaves them as lowercase.

Someone already commented that the function doesn't work on html entities, which is somewhat understandable. This bug however takes place before I convert the strings to html.
steven at tux dot appstate dot edu
21-Jun-2004 02:14
Note: the return for this function changed in versions 4.3 when a string is passed of length 0.  In <4.2 false is returned and in >4.3 a string of length 0 is returned.

Example:

$name = ucfirst("");
var_dump($name);

$name = ucfirst("owen");
var_dump($name);

Results for <4.2:
bool(false) string(4) "Owen"

Results for >4.3:
string(0) "" string(4) "Owen"
Ami Hughes (ami at mistress dot name)
07-Apr-2004 10:34
In the event you sort of need multiple delimiters to apply the same action to, you can preg_replace this "second delimiter" enveloping it with your actual delimiter.
 
A for instance, would be if you wanted to use something like Lee's FormatName function in an input box designed for their full name as this script was only designed to check the last name as if it were the entire string.  The problem is that you still want support for double-barreled names and you still want to be able to support the possibility that if the second part of the double-barreled name starts with "mc", that it will still be formatted correctly.

This example does a preg_replace that surrounds the separator with your actual delimiter.  This is just a really quick alternative to writing some bigger fancier blah-blah function.  If there's a shorter, simpler way to do it, feel free to inform me.  (Emphasis on shorter and simpler because that was the whole point of this.) :D

Here's the example.  I've removed Lee's comments as not to confuse them with my own.

<?php

  
function FormatName($name=NULL)
   {
       if (empty(
$name))
           return
false;

      
$name = strtolower($name);
      
$name = preg_replace("[\-]", " - ",$name); // Surround hyphens with our delimiter so our strncmp is accurate
      
if (preg_match("/^[a-z]{2,}$/i",$name))  // Simple preg_match if statement
      
{
          
          
$names_array = explode(' ',$name);  // Set the delimiter as a space.
  
          
for ($i = 0; $i < count($names_array); $i++)
           {
               if (
strncmp($names_array[$i],'mc',2) == 0 || ereg('^[oO]\'[a-zA-Z]',$names_array[$i]))
               {
                  
$names_array[$i][2] = strtoupper($names_array[$i][2]);
               }
              
$names_array[$i] = ucfirst($names_array[$i]);
              
           }
  
          
$name = implode(' ',$names_array);
          
$name = preg_replace("[ \- ]", "-",$name); //  Remove the extra instances of our delimiter
          
return ucwords($name);
          
       }
   }

?>
lazaro_tolentino at hotmail dot com
01-Apr-2004 03:16
this is a advance ucfirst function, for upper especifics words, with config in array of seperator
/**
 * @return string
 * @param string $str frase que passará pelo parce
 * @desc Pega uma frase e devolve a mesma com as palavras com suas
 * maiusculas  obedecendo um criterio configurado no array $string_sep
 *
 * @since 2004-04-01 15:04 adicionado a variavel $tring_sep que é um
 * array contendo todos os separadores a serem usados
*/
function str_upper_lower($str)
{
   /**
   * array contendo todos os separadores
   */
   $string_sep=array(' ','-','/','_','.');
   /**
   * coloca todas as palavras com letras minusculas
   */
   $str=strtolower($str);
  
   /**
   * testa todos os separadores
   */
   for ($i=0;$i<count($string_sep);$i++)
   {
       $sep=$string_sep[$i];
       /**
       * separa a frase usando os separador atual
       */
       $array_words = explode($sep, $str);
      
       /**
       * variavel que conterá o valor temporario
       */
       $tmp_str = '';
       $i2=0;
       foreach ($array_words as $word)
       {
           /**
           * se a quantidade de caracteres for maior que dois, ou se conter ponto,
           *  devolve upper da primeira letra
           */
           $tmp_str .=(strlen($word)>2 || strpos($word,'.')?ucfirst($word):$word);
           /**
           * não adiciona o separador no fim de strings
           */
           if ($i2<count($array_words)-1)
           {
               $tmp_str .= $sep;
           }
           $i2++;
       }
       $str = $tmp_str;
   }
   return $str;
}
Lee Benson
05-Mar-2004 04:37
Here's a function I threw together when needing to validate name entries (both first name and last name).

This allows simple formatting for names prefixed with "Mc" (like McDonald, McCulloch, etc) and names prefixed with O (like O'Reilly, O'Conner, etc)..

It also allows double-barrelled names to be formatted correctly, in the Smith-Jones way.

Here's the function...

<?php

  
function FormatName($name=NULL) {
      
      
/* Formats a first or last name, and returns the formatted
       version */
      
      
if (empty($name))
           return
false;
          
      
// Initially set the string to lower, to work on it
      
$name = strtolower($name);
          
      
// Run through and uppercase any multi-barrelled names

      
$names_array = explode('-',$name);

       for (
$i = 0; $i < count($names_array); $i++) {
          
          
// "McDonald", "O'Conner"..
          
if (strncmp($names_array[$i],'mc',2) == 0 || ereg('^[oO]\'[a-zA-Z]',$names_array[$i])) {
          
$names_array[$i][2] = strtoupper($names_array[$i][2]);
  
           }
          
          
// Always set the first letter to uppercase, no matter what
          
$names_array[$i] = ucfirst($names_array[$i]);
          
       }

      
// Piece the names back together
      
$name = implode('-',$names_array);

      
// Return upper-casing on all missed (but required) elements of the $name var
      
return ucwords($name);
      
   }

?>

If you have any other "rules" to follow for international/foreign naming rules, you can add them to the foreach loop, and it should still follow all of the other rules.

It's a quick fix, but it seems to do the job nicely.

Examples...

<?php

$name
= "o'cONNER-MCdOnAld";
echo
FormatName($name);

?>

Returns: O'Conner-McDonald
04-Mar-2004 11:46
Of course ucfirst() will _not_ convert html entities such as &uuml; (u-Umlaut as ü) to &Uuml; which would represent Ü.
bkimble at ebaseweb dot com
08-Jun-2003 07:02
Here is a handy function that makes the first letter of everything in a sentence upercase. I used it to deal with titles of events posted on my website ... I've added exceptions for uppercase words and lowercase words so roman numeral "IV" doesn't get printed as "iv" and words like "a" and "the" and "of" stay lowercase.

function RemoveShouting($string)
{
 $lower_exceptions = array(
       "to" => "1", "a" => "1", "the" => "1", "of" => "1"
 );
                                    
 $higher_exceptions = array(
       "I" => "1", "II" => "1", "III" => "1", "IV" => "1",
       "V" => "1", "VI" => "1", "VII" => "1", "VIII" => "1",
       "XI" => "1", "X" => "1"
 );

 $words = split(" ", $string);
 $newwords = array();
 
 foreach ($words as $word)
 {
       if (!$higher_exceptions[$word])
               $word = strtolower($word);
       if (!$lower_exceptions[$word])
               $word = ucfirst($word);
         array_push($newwords, $word);
 
 }
      
 return join(" ", $newwords); 
}

<trimucwords>
 Last updated: Thu, 19 May 2005
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Last updated: Thu May 19 17:35:34 2005 CDT