- PHP ucfirst
- Introduction to the PHP ucfirst() function
- PHP ucfirst() function example
- Dealing with multibyte characters
- Summary
- strtoupper
- Parameters
- Return Values
- Changelog
- Examples
- Notes
- See Also
- User Contributed Notes 16 notes
- How to Convert String and Uppercase First Letter in PHP: A Comprehensive Guide
- ucfirst() Function
- strtoupper() Function
- ucwords() Function
- Related Functions
- Helpful Points
- Other PHP examples for converting strings and capitalizing the first letter
- Conclusion
- Frequently Asked Questions — FAQs
- What is the difference between ucfirst() and ucwords() functions in PHP?
- Can I use the same function to convert a string to uppercase and lowercase in PHP?
- How can I handle unexpected output while working with strings in PHP?
- How can I improve the efficiency of string manipulation in PHP?
- What are binary-safe functions in PHP?
- How can I convert only the first character of a string to lowercase in PHP?
PHP ucfirst
Summary: in this tutorial, you’ll learn how to use the PHP ucfirst() function to make the first alphabetic character uppercase.
Introduction to the PHP ucfirst() function
The ucfirst() function accepts a string and returns a new string with the first character converted to uppercase if that character is alphabetic.
Here’s the syntax of the ucfirst() function:
ucfirst ( string $string ) : string
Code language: PHP (php)
The ucfirst() function use the current locale to determine which character is alphabetic.
PHP ucfirst() function example
The following example uses the ucfirst() function to convert the first characters of the first name and last name to uppercase:
$first_name = 'john'; $last_name = 'doe' echo ucfirst($first_name) . ' ' . ucfirst($last_name);
Code language: PHP (php)
John Doe
Code language: PHP (php)
Dealing with multibyte characters
The ucfirst() doesn’t support multibyte strings. To return a new string with the first character converted to uppercase, you can use the following mb_ucfirst() function:
function mb_ucfirst($str) < return mb_strtoupper(mb_substr($str, 0, 1)) . mb_substr($str, 1); >
Code language: PHP (php)
First, get the first character of the $str using the mb_substr() function and convert it to uppercase using the mb_strtoupper() function:
mb_strtoupper(mb_substr($str, 0, 1))
Code language: PHP (php)
Then, concatenate the uppercase character with the remaining characters in the string:
mb_strtoupper(mb_substr($str, 0, 1)) . mb_substr($str, 1);
Code language: PHP (php)
The following example uses the ucfirst() to convert the first letter of the string äbtissin to uppercase:
$title = 'äbtissin'; echo ucfirst($title); // doesn't work
Code language: PHP (php)
äbtissin
Code language: PHP (php)
However, it doesn’t work as expected. Because in the default “C” locale characters, the ucfirst() function doesn’t convert character like umlaut-a ( ä ).
The following uses the mb_ucfirst() function instead:
$title = 'äbtissin'; echo mb_ucfirst($title);
Code language: PHP (php)
Äbtissin
Code language: PHP (php)
Summary
- Use the ucfirst() function to returns a string with the first alphabetic character converted to uppercase.
strtoupper
Returns string with all ASCII alphabetic characters converted to uppercase.
Bytes in the range «a» (0x61) to «z» (0x7a) will be converted to the corresponding uppercase letter by subtracting 32 from each byte value.
This can be used to convert ASCII characters within strings encoded with UTF-8, since multibyte UTF-8 characters will be ignored. To convert multibyte non-ASCII characters, use mb_strtoupper() .
Parameters
Return Values
Returns the uppercased string.
Changelog
Version | Description |
---|---|
8.2.0 | Case conversion no longer depends on the locale set with setlocale() . Only ASCII characters will be converted. |
Examples
Example #1 strtoupper() example
$str = «Mary Had A Little Lamb and She LOVED It So» ;
$str = strtoupper ( $str );
echo $str ; // Prints MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB AND SHE LOVED IT SO
?>?php
Notes
Note: This function is binary-safe.
See Also
- strtolower() — Make a string lowercase
- ucfirst() — Make a string’s first character uppercase
- ucwords() — Uppercase the first character of each word in a string
- mb_strtoupper() — Make a string uppercase
User Contributed Notes 16 notes
One might think that setting the correct locale would do the trick with for example german umlauts, but this is not the case. You have to use mb_strtoupper() instead:
setlocale ( LC_CTYPE , ‘de_DE.UTF8’ );
echo strtoupper ( ‘Umlaute äöü in uppercase’ ); // outputs «UMLAUTE äöü IN UPPERCASE»
echo mb_strtoupper ( ‘Umlaute äöü in uppercase’ , ‘UTF-8’ ); // outputs «UMLAUTE ÄÖÜ IN UPPERCASE»
Here is how to make the character in upper case, except HTML-entities:
There is small kludge, however. Unfortunately I tired to find out the way how to exclude HTML-entity at the start of the line, so I have added 1 dummy character at the start of the text and removing it after the conversion.
something I myself first not thought about:
if there are any html entities (named entities) in your string, strtoupper will turn all letters within this entities to upper case, too. So if you want to manipulate a string with strtoupper it should contain only unicode entities (if ever).
When using UTF-8 and need to convert to uppercase with
special characters like the german ä,ö,ü (didn’t test for french,polish,russian but think it should work, too) try this:
function strtoupper_utf8($string) $string=utf8_decode($string);
$string=strtoupper($string);
$string=utf8_encode($string);
return $string;
>
If you only need to extend the conversion by the characters of a certain language, it’s possible to control this using an environment variable to change the locale:
It has been mentioned in a previous comment that all you need to do to let PHP’s strtoupper() do the conversion — instead of writing more or less complicated functions yourself — is to specify the locale in which you’re doing the case conversion:
It is important to note that setlocale() will silently fail if it can’t find the specified locale on your system, so *always* check its return value. Try different spellings: using «de_AT» as an example, there are various combinations that may or may not work for you: «de», «de_AT.utf8», «de_AT.iso-8859-1», «de_AT.latin1», «de_AT@euro», etc).
If you can’t find an appropriate locale setting, check your system configuration (locales are a system-wide setting, PHP gets them from the OS). On Windows, locales can be set from the Control Panel; on Linux it depends on your distribution. You can try «sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales» on Debian-based distros, or configure them manually. On Ubuntu Dapper, I had to copy entries over from /usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED to /var/lib/locales/supported.d/local, then do the dpkg-reconfigure.
After you’re done, restart the web server.
That said, there are special cases where you want to do the conversion manually. In German, for example, the letter ‘ß’ (szlig) only exists as a lower-case character, and so doesn’t get converted by strtoupper. The convential way to express a ‘ß’ in an uppercase string is «SS». This function will take care of this exception (for Latin1 and most of Latin9, at least):
define ( «LATIN1_UC_CHARS» , «ÀÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÐÑÒÓÔÕÖØÙÚÛÜÝ» );
define ( «LATIN1_LC_CHARS» , «àáâãäåæçèéêëìíîïðñòóôõöøùúûüý» );
function uc_latin1 ( $str ) $str = strtoupper ( strtr ( $str , LATIN1_LC_CHARS , LATIN1_UC_CHARS ));
return strtr ( $str , array( «ß» => «SS» ));
>
How to Convert String and Uppercase First Letter in PHP: A Comprehensive Guide
Learn how to use built-in PHP functions to convert strings to uppercase and capitalize the first letter of a string. Improve code efficiency and reduce errors with these helpful tips.
- ucfirst() Function
- strtoupper() Function
- ucwords() Function
- Related Functions
- Helpful Points
- Other PHP examples for converting strings and capitalizing the first letter
- Conclusion
- How do you change the first letter of a string to uppercase?
- How do you capitalize the first character of a string to uppercase and all other characters lowercase?
- How to convert a string to uppercase in PHP?
- Which function converts a string to all uppercase in PHP?
PHP is a versatile programming language that offers several string manipulation functions for formatting and processing strings. One common task is to convert the first letter of a string to uppercase, as well as convert entire strings to uppercase. In this article, we will explore how to use built-in PHP functions and related functions to accomplish these tasks.
ucfirst() Function
The ucfirst() function is used to capitalize only the first letter of a string. This function is useful when you want to format a string in a way that the first letter should be capitalized.
$string = "hello world"; $string = ucfirst($string); echo $string; // "Hello world"
strtoupper() Function
The strtoupper() function is used to convert all characters of a string to uppercase. This function is useful when you want to convert an entire string to uppercase.
$string = "hello world"; $string = strtoupper($string); echo $string; // "HELLO WORLD"
ucwords() Function
The ucwords() function is used to capitalize the first letter of each word in a string. This function is useful when you want to format a string in a way that the first letter of each word should be capitalized.
$string = "hello world"; $string = ucwords($string); echo $string; // "Hello World"
Related Functions
PHP has several binary-safe string manipulation functions that are related to uppercase and lowercase string conversion functions. The strtolower() function is used to convert all characters of a string to lowercase. The lcfirst() function is used to convert only the first character of a string to lowercase.
$string = "HeLLo WoRLd"; $string = strtolower($string); echo $string; // "hello world" $string = lcfirst($string); echo $string; // "hello world"
Helpful Points
Here are some helpful points to keep in mind when working with string manipulation functions in php:
- PHP offers a variety of string manipulation functions that can be used for formatting and processing strings.
- Uppercasing and lowercasing strings can be useful for data validation and consistency.
- It’s important to be aware of binary-safe functions when working with strings.
- Understanding various string manipulation functions can improve code efficiency and reduce errors.
- It’s important to choose the right function for the desired result when manipulating strings.
- common issues with string manipulation include unexpected output and errors related to encoding.
Other PHP examples for converting strings and capitalizing the first letter
In Php as proof, string first letter uppercase php code sample
In Php as proof, first character uppercase php code sample
ucwords("hello world"); // Hello World ucfirst("hello world"); // Hello world
In Php , for instance, PHP ucfirst — Make a string’s first character uppercase code example
In Php , php capitalize first letter code sample
In Php , for instance, php uppercase first letter code sample
In Php , in particular, php string to uppercase code example
In Php case in point, uppercase php code sample
$my_string_in_uppercase = strtoupper($my_string);
In Php , for example, php function uppercase first letter code example
Conclusion
PHP provides built-in functions for converting strings to uppercase and capitalizing the first letter of a string. These functions are binary-safe and have related functions for converting strings to lowercase and capitalizing only the first letter of a string. Understanding these functions and related functions can improve code efficiency and reduce errors when working with strings in PHP.
In conclusion, working with strings in PHP is an essential task that requires careful consideration of the appropriate functions for the desired output. With the built-in string manipulation functions in PHP, developers can easily convert strings to uppercase, capitalize the first letter of a string, convert strings to lowercase, and even capitalize the first letter of each word in a string. By understanding these functions and related functions, developers can improve their code efficiency and reduce errors when working with strings in PHP.
Frequently Asked Questions — FAQs
What is the difference between ucfirst() and ucwords() functions in PHP?
The ucfirst() function capitalizes only the first letter of a string, while ucwords() function capitalizes the first letter of each word in a string.
Can I use the same function to convert a string to uppercase and lowercase in PHP?
No, you need to use different functions for converting a string to uppercase and lowercase in PHP. The strtoupper() function is used for converting strings to uppercase, while the strtolower() function is used for converting strings to lowercase.
How can I handle unexpected output while working with strings in PHP?
You can use PHP’s built-in error handling functions to handle unexpected output while working with strings in PHP. You can also use debugging tools like xdebug to identify and fix errors.
How can I improve the efficiency of string manipulation in PHP?
You can improve the efficiency of string manipulation in PHP by choosing the right function for the desired result, avoiding unnecessary function calls, and using binary-safe functions.
What are binary-safe functions in PHP?
Binary-safe functions in PHP are functions that can be used to manipulate strings that contain binary data. These functions are designed to handle strings that contain null bytes and other non-printable characters.
How can I convert only the first character of a string to lowercase in PHP?
To convert only the first character of a string to lowercase in PHP, you can use the lcfirst() function. This function converts only the first character of a string to lowercase, leaving the rest of the string unchanged.