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

BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));   

System.out.println("Enter the sentence : ");

try
{
    String str = br.readLine();
    char[] str1 = new char[str.length()];

    for(int i=0; i<str.length(); i++)
    {
        str1[i] = Character.toLowerCase(str.charAt(i));
    }

    str1[0] = Character.toUpperCase(str1[0]);
    for(int i=0;i<str.length();i++)
    {
        if(str1[i] == ' ')
        {                   
            str1[i+1] =  Character.toUpperCase(str1[i+1]);
        }
        System.out.print(str1[i]);
    }
}
catch(Exception e)
{
    System.err.println("Error: " + e.getMessage());
}

Answer 2

Using org.apache.commons.lang.StringUtils makes it very simple.

capitalizeStr = StringUtils.capitalize(str);

Answer 3

If you prefer Guava...

String myString = ...;

String capWords = Joiner.on(' ').join(Iterables.transform(Splitter.on(' ').omitEmptyStrings().split(myString), new Function<String, String>() {
    public String apply(String input) {
        return Character.toUpperCase(input.charAt(0)) + input.substring(1);
    }
}));

Answer 4

public static String toTitleCase(String word){
    return Character.toUpperCase(word.charAt(0)) + word.substring(1);
}

public static void main(String[] args){
    String phrase = "this is to be title cased";
    String[] splitPhrase = phrase.split(" ");
    String result = "";

    for(String word: splitPhrase){
        result += toTitleCase(word) + " ";
    }
    System.out.println(result.trim());
}

Answer 5

Use:

    String text = "jon skeet, miles o'brien, old mcdonald";

    Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("\\b([a-z])([\\w]*)");
    Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(text);
    StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer();
    while (matcher.find()) {
        matcher.appendReplacement(buffer, matcher.group(1).toUpperCase() + matcher.group(2));
    }
    String capitalized = matcher.appendTail(buffer).toString();
    System.out.println(capitalized);

Answer 6

If you're only worried about the first letter of the first word being capitalized:

private String capitalize(final String line) {
   return Character.toUpperCase(line.charAt(0)) + line.substring(1);
}