How to capitalize the first character of each word

Question

Is there a function built into Java that capitalizes the first character of each word in a String, and does not affect the others?

Examples:

• jon skeet -> Jon Skeet
• miles o'Brien -> Miles O'Brien (B remains capital, this rules out Title Case)
• old mcdonald -> Old Mcdonald*

*(Old McDonald would be find too, but I don't expect it to be THAT smart.)

A quick look at the Java String Documentation reveals only toUpperCase() and toLowerCase(), which of course do not provide the desired behavior. Naturally, Google results are dominated by those two functions. It seems like a wheel that must have been invented already, so it couldn't hurt to ask so I can use it in the future.

Answer 1

The following method converts all the letters into upper/lower case, depending on their position near a space or other special chars.

public static String capitalizeString(String string) {
  char[] chars = string.toLowerCase().toCharArray();
  boolean found = false;
  for (int i = 0; i < chars.length; i++) {
    if (!found && Character.isLetter(chars[i])) {
      chars[i] = Character.toUpperCase(chars[i]);
      found = true;
    } else if (Character.isWhitespace(chars[i]) || chars[i]=='.' || chars[i]=='\'') { // You can add other chars here
      found = false;
    }
  }
  return String.valueOf(chars);
}

Answer 2

String toBeCapped = "i want this sentence capitalized";

String[] tokens = toBeCapped.split("\\s");
toBeCapped = "";

for(int i = 0; i < tokens.length; i++){
    char capLetter = Character.toUpperCase(tokens[i].charAt(0));
    toBeCapped +=  " " + capLetter + tokens[i].substring(1);
}
toBeCapped = toBeCapped.trim();

Answer 3

I'm using the following function. I think it is faster in performance.

public static String capitalize(String text){
    String c = (text != null)? text.trim() : "";
    String[] words = c.split(" ");
    String result = "";
    for(String w : words){
        result += (w.length() > 1? w.substring(0, 1).toUpperCase(Locale.US) + w.substring(1, w.length()).toLowerCase(Locale.US) : w) + " ";
    }
    return result.trim();
}

Answer 4

The short and precise way is as follows:

String name = "test";

name = (name.length() != 0) ?name.toString().toLowerCase().substring(0,1).toUpperCase().concat(name.substring(1)): name;

--------------------
Output
--------------------
Test
T 
empty
--------------------

It works without error if you try and change the name value to the three of values. Error free.

Answer 5

This one works for the surname case...

With different types of separators, and it keeps the same separator:

• jean-frederic --> Jean-Frederic

• jean frederic --> Jean Frederic

The code works with the GWT client side.

public static String capitalize (String givenString) {
    String Separateur = " ,.-;";
    StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer(); 
    boolean ToCap = true;
    for (int i = 0; i < givenString.length(); i++) {
        if (ToCap)              
            sb.append(Character.toUpperCase(givenString.charAt(i)));
        else
            sb.append(Character.toLowerCase(givenString.charAt(i)));

        if (Separateur.indexOf(givenString.charAt(i)) >=0) 
            ToCap = true;
        else
            ToCap = false;
    }          
    return sb.toString().trim();
}  

Answer 6

This might be useful if you need to capitalize titles. It capitalizes each substring delimited by " ", except for specified strings such as "a" or "the". I haven't ran it yet because it's late, should be fine though. Uses Apache Commons StringUtils.join() at one point. You can substitute it with a simple loop if you wish.

private static String capitalize(String string) {
    if (string == null) return null;
    String[] wordArray = string.split(" "); // Split string to analyze word by word.
    int i = 0;
lowercase:
    for (String word : wordArray) {
        if (word != wordArray[0]) { // First word always in capital
            String [] lowercaseWords = {"a", "an", "as", "and", "although", "at", "because", "but", "by", "for", "in", "nor", "of", "on", "or", "so", "the", "to", "up", "yet"};
            for (String word2 : lowercaseWords) {
                if (word.equals(word2)) {
                    wordArray[i] = word;
                    i++;
                    continue lowercase;
                }
            }
        }
        char[] characterArray = word.toCharArray();
        characterArray[0] = Character.toTitleCase(characterArray[0]);
        wordArray[i] = new String(characterArray);
        i++;
    }
    return StringUtils.join(wordArray, " "); // Re-join string
}