Converting string with html styling ags to title case

Question

I'm using this function to convert text to title case:

function strtotitle($title) {

 $smallwordsarray = array( 'of','a','the','and','an','or','nor','but','is','if','then','else','when', 'at','from','by','on','off','for','in','to','into','with','it', 'as' );

  // Split the string into separate words
  $words = explode(' ', $title);

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

   // If this word is the first, or it's not one of our small words, capitalise it
   // with ucwords().
   if ($key == 0 or !in_array($word, $smallwordsarray))
    $words[$key] = ucwords($word);
   }

   // Join the words back into a string
   $newtitle = implode(' ', $words);

   return $newtitle;
}

The issue is that if text is bold, italic etc then the function does not work and will not title case the word.

For example: "This is a simple sentence" will be converted to "This is a Simple Sentence". But "This is a simple sentence" will be converted to "This is a simple Sentence".

Any help greatly appreciated.

what do you mean by "title case"? Did you mean "Camel Case"? — Funk Forty Niner, Jun 25 '17 at 16:18
Title case means that the first letter of each word is capitalised, except for certain small words, such as articles and short prepositions. — NewJenk, Jun 25 '17 at 16:19
the term is "Camel Case" then, not "title case", as a quick FYI ;-) — Funk Forty Niner, Jun 25 '17 at 16:19
do a `strip_tags` first, then foreach the words and make them ucfirst after that replace them in original — DarkBee, Jun 25 '17 at 16:19
@Fred-ii- Camel case is actually "JumpOnFence" and title case is "Jump on Fence". — WizardCoder, Jun 25 '17 at 16:35
Replace `in_array($word, $smallwordsarray)` with `in_array(strip_tags($word), $smallwordsarray)` — Andreas, Jun 25 '17 at 16:38
@Fred-ii- Yes that is a type of camel....... FYI you might want to check these links out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel_case, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/title_case. — WizardCoder, Jun 25 '17 at 16:43
@Fred-ii- I'm glad I could help. Let me know if you have any other terminology you want explaining. — WizardCoder, Jun 25 '17 at 16:47
Your $smallwordsarray has a few odd entries. _is_ is a verb, and verbs are always capitalized in title case. The same goes for pronouns (_it_). _if_, _then_, _else_ and _when_ are also usually capitalized. — Ubik, Jun 25 '17 at 21:34
Your algorithm will fail if one of your small words is not used as a preposition or article and should thus be capitalized (_The A to Z of Mathematics_). — Ubik, Jun 25 '17 at 21:43

cirosomma · Answer 1 · 2017-06-25T16:46:21.360

If you are talking about HTML tags and you want to save it, you can use this implementation:

<?php
  /* Your old string */
  $string = "<b>asd</b>";

  /* Remove html code */
  $old = strip_tags($string);
  /* Upper case the first letter */
  $new = ucfirst($old);

  /* Replace old word to new word in $string */
  $real = str_replace($old,$new,$string);

  /* Here the new string and the old string */
  echo $real." ".$string;
?>

So the solution in your code looks like :

function strtotitle($title) {

     $smallwordsarray = array(     'of','a','the','and','an','or','nor','but','is','if','then','else','when', 'at','from','by','on','off','for','in','to','into','with','it', 'as' );

     // Split the string into separate words
     $words = explode(' ', $title);

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

        // If this word is the first, or it's not one of our small words, capitalise it
        // with ucwords().
        if ($key == 0 or !in_array(strip_tags($word), $smallwordsarray)) {
             $old = strip_tags($word);
             $new = ucfirst($old);
             $words[key] = str_replace($old,$new,$word);
        }
     }

     // Join the words back into a string
     $newtitle = implode(' ', $words);

     return $newtitle;
}

Yes. Just ignoring html tags. Then you have to reuse html tags for formatting the words. — cirosomma, Jun 25 '17 at 19:16

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 25 '17 at 16:41

<?php 
function strtotitle($title) {
    $smallwordsarray = array( 'of','a','the','and','an','or','nor','but','is','if','then','else','when', 'at','from','by','on','off','for','in','to','into','with','it', 'as' );
    $words = $temp = explode(' ', strip_tags($title));

    foreach ($temp as $key => $word) {
        if ($key == 0 or !in_array($word, $smallwordsarray)) $temp[$key] = ucwords($word);
    }

    foreach($words as $index => $word) $title = str_replace($word, $temp[$index], $title);
    return $title;
}

var_dump(strtotitle('This is a simple sentence'));
var_dump(strtotitle('This is a <b>simple</b> <i>sentence</i>'));

score -1 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 25 '17 at 16:45

You could use strip_tags this way:

function strtotitle($title) {

  $smallwordsarray = array( 'of','a','the','and','an','or','nor','but','is','if','then','else','when', 'at','from','by','on','off','for','in','to','into','with','it', 'as' );

  // Remove HTML tags
  $titleWithoutTags = strip_tags($title);

  // Split the string into separate words
  $words = explode(' ', $titleWithoutTags);

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

   // If this word is the first, or it's not one of our small words, capitalise it
   // with ucwords().
   if ($key == 0 or !in_array($word, $smallwordsarray))
    $words[$key] = ucwords($word);
   }

   // Join the words back into a string
   $newtitle = implode(' ', $words);

   return $newtitle;
}

Converting string with html styling ags to title case

3 Answers3