PHP
- Capitalization
PHP - String Capitalization
Functions
If you've ever wanted to
manipulate the capitalization of
your PHP strings, then this lesson
will be quite helpful to you. PHP
has three primary capitalization
related functions: strtoupper,
strtolower and ucwords. The
function names are pretty
self-explanatory, but why they are
useful in programming might be new
to you.
Converting a String to Upper
Case - strtoupper
The strtoupper function takes
one argument, the string you want
converted to upper case and
returns the converted string. Only
letters of the alphabet are
changed, numbers will remain the
same.
Code:
|
$originalString = "String
Capitalization 1234"; $upperCase
=
strtoupper($originalString);echo
"Old string - $originalString
<br />";echo "New String - $upperCase"; |
Display:
Old string - String
Capitalization 1234
New String - STRING
CAPITALIZATION 1234 |
One might use this function to
increase emphasis of a important
point or in a title. Another time
it might be used with a font that
looks very nice with all caps to
fit the style of the web page
design.
A more technical reason would
be to convert two strings you are
comparing to see if they are
equal. By converting them to the
same capitalization you remove the
possibility that they won't match
simply because of different
capitalizations.
Converting a String to Lower
Case - strtolower
The strtolower function also
has one argument: the string that
will be converted to lower case.
Code
|
$originalString = "String
Capitalization 1234"; $lowerCase
=
strtolower($originalString);echo
"Old string - $originalString
<br />";echo "New String - $lowerCase"; |
Display:
Old string - String
Capitalization 1234
New String - string
capitalization 1234 |
Capitalizing the First Letter
- ucwords
Titles of various media types
often capitalize the first letter
of each word and PHP has a
time-saving function that will do
just this.
Code:
|
$titleString = "a title that
could use some hELP"; $ucTitleString
= ucwords($titleString);echo
"Old title - $titleString <br
/>";echo "New title - $ucTitleString"; |
Display:
Old title - a title that could
use some hELP
New title - A Title That Could
Use Some HELP |
Notice that the last word "hELP"
did not have the capitalization
changed on the letters that
weren't first, they remained
capitalized. If you want to ensure
that only the first letter is
capitalized in each word of your
title, first use the strtolower
function and then the ucwords
function.
Code
|
$titleString = "a title that
could use some hELP"; $lowercaseTitle
=
strtolower($titleString);$ucTitleString
=
ucwords($lowercaseTitle);echo
"Old title - $titleString <br
/>";echo "New title - $ucTitleString"; |
Display:
Old title - a title that could
use some hELP
New title - A Title That Could
Use Some Help |
| 
