Convert a Sentence to InitCap / camel Case / Proper Case

Question

I have made this code. I want a small regexp for this.

String.prototype.capitalize = function() {
    return this.charAt(0).toUpperCase() + this.slice(1);
} 
String.prototype.initCap = function () {
    var new_str = this.split(' '),
        i,
        arr = [];
    for (i = 0; i < new_str.length; i++) {
        arr.push(initCap(new_str[i]).capitalize());
    }
    return arr.join(' ');
}
alert("hello world".initCap());

Fiddle

What i want

"hello world".initCap() => Hello World

"hEllo woRld".initCap() => Hello World

my above code gives me solution but i want a better and faster solution with regex

score 23 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 06 '20 at 13:52

23

You can try:

Converting the entire string to lowercase
Then use replace() method to convert the first letter to convert first letter of each word to upper case

str = "hEllo woRld";
String.prototype.initCap = function () {
   return this.toLowerCase().replace(/(?:^|\s)[a-z]/g, function (m) {
      return m.toUpperCase();
   });
};
console.log(str.initCap());

edited Oct 06 '20 at 13:52

nmak18

1,059
8
24

answered Nov 08 '13 at 16:03

anubhava

761,203
64
569
643

2

Brother you are very fast on keys and accurate too .I tried your code [DEMO](http://jsfiddle.net/cse_tushar/rf3GJ/4/) – Tushar Gupta - curioustushar Nov 08 '13 at 16:06

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 04 '18 at 22:04

If you want to account for names with an apostrophe/dash or if a space could potentially be omitted after a period between sentences, then you might want to use \b (beg or end of word) instead of \s (whitespace) in your regular expression to capitalize any letter after a space, apostrophe, period, dash, etc.

str = "hEllo billie-ray o'mALLEY-o'rouke.Please come on in.";
String.prototype.initCap = function () {
   return this.toLowerCase().replace(/(?:^|\b)[a-z]/g, function (m) {
      return m.toUpperCase();
   });
};
alert(str.initCap());

OUTPUT: Hello Billie-Ray O'Malley-O'Rouke.Please Come On In.

...but accept that you'll never be 100% correct. All bets are off when you get into people's names. I know someone whose last-name (family-name) when written properly, is `d'Ellerba` but it almost always comes out as `D'Ellerba` or `D'ellerba` or `Dellerba` -- when searching I also found someone named `Dell'Erba` — Stephen P, Aug 29 '18 at 21:13

Bishnu Paudel · Answer 3 · 2019-08-09T00:50:41.900

1

str="hello";
init_cap=str[0].toUpperCase() + str.substring(1,str.length).toLowerCase();

alert(init_cap);

where str[0] gives 'h' and toUpperCase() function will convert it to 'H' and rest of the characters in the string are converted to lowercase by toLowerCase() function.

edited Aug 09 '19 at 00:50

answered Dec 20 '17 at 22:44

Bishnu Paudel

2,083
1
21
39

2

It seems you misunderstood the requirement e.g. your solution will output `Hello world how are you` for `hEllo woRld how aRe you` whereas it is supposed to output `Hello World How Are You`. – Arvind Kumar Avinash Apr 06 '21 at 05:02

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 23 '22 at 12:36

1

Shorter version

const initcap = (str: string) => str[0].toUpperCase() + str.substring(1).toLowerCase();

answered Dec 23 '22 at 12:36

Danil Suhomlinov

31
3

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 07 '22 at 00:57

If you need to support diacritics, here is a solution:

function initCap(value) {
  return value
    .toLowerCase()
    .replace(/(?:^|[^a-zØ-öø-ÿ])[a-zØ-öø-ÿ]/g, function (m) {
      return m.toUpperCase();
    });
}

initCap("Voici comment gérer les caractères accentués, c'est très utile pour normaliser les prénoms !")

OUTPUT: Voici Comment Gérer Les Caractères Accentués, C'Est Très Utile Pour Normaliser Les Prénoms !

Convert a Sentence to InitCap / camel Case / Proper Case

5 Answers5