Php characters to uppercase. Convert first letters to uppercase (upper case) - PHP

PHP is good with a variety of native language functions. However, in some cases it is necessary to add the missing functionality. This is especially noticeable when working with string conversion functions and various encodings.

For example, ucfirst is a function that converts the first character of a string to uppercase. It would seem that there should be no problems, but when working with Cyrillic, such a conversion does not occur. This also applies to the ucwords function - it converts the first character of each word in the string to uppercase.

There are no problems with English alphabet characters:

"; //converts to uppercase the first character of each word in the string echo ucwords($str); ?>

test string test string

But there are problems with Cyrillic:

"; //converts to uppercase the first character of each word in the string echo ucwords($str); ?>

test string test string

For PHP, there are typical cases when functions "badly" or do not work with Cyrillic at all. Some functions with the mb prefix solve problems with the Cyrillic alphabet. For example, mb_strtolower - lowercase string. Unlike strtolower() , whether a character is a letter is determined based on the properties of the Unicode character.

To solve the problem, let's define a function mb_ucfirst(string str [, string encoding]) that will process Unicode characters.

To convert the first character of each word in a string to uppercase, just use mb_convert_case in MB_CASE_TITLE mode.

Converts the characters of a string to lowercase.

Syntax:

Stringstrtolower(stringstr);

Converts a string to lowercase. Returns the translation result.

It should be noted that if the locale is set incorrectly, the function will produce, to put it mildly, strange results when working with Cyrillic letters.

$str = "HeLLo World"; $str = strtolower($str); echo $str; // print hello world

strtoupper

Converts the given string to upper case.

Syntax:

String strtoupper(string str);

Converts a string to uppercase. Returns the result of the transformation. This function works well with English letters, but it can be weird with Russian letters.

$str = "Hello World"; $str = strtoupper($str); echo $str; // print HELLO WORLD

ucfirst

Converts the first character of a string to uppercase.

Syntax:

String ucfirst(string str);

Returns a string whose first character is capitalized.

$str = "hello world"; $str = ucfirst($str); echo $str; // print Hello world

ucwords

Converts the first character of each word in a string to uppercase.

Syntax:

String ucwords(string str);

Returns a string with the first character of each word in the string capitalized.

A word here means a section of a line preceded by a space character: space, new line, page feed, carriage return, horizontal and vertical tabs.

Cyrillic characters may not be converted correctly.

$str = "hello world"; $str = ucfirst($str); echo $str; // print Hello World

11 years ago

Note that mb_strtolower() is very SLOW, if you have a database connection, you may want to use it to convert your strings to lower case. Even latin1/9 (iso-8859-1/15) and other encodings are possible.

Have a look at my simple benchmark:

$text = "Lörem ipßüm dölör ßit ämet, cönßectetüer ädipißcing elit. Sed ligülä. Präeßent jüßtö tellüß, grävidä eü, tempüß ä, mättiß nön, örci. Näm qüiß lörem. Näm äliqüet elit ßed elit. Phäßellüß venenätiß jüßtö eget enim. Dönec nißl. Pröin mättiß venenätiß jüßtö. Sed äliqüäm pörtä örci. Cräß elit nißl, cönvälliß qüiß, tincidünt ät, vehicülä äccümßän, ödiö. Sed möleßtie. Etiäm mölliß feügiät elit. Veßtibülüm änte ipßüm primiß in fäücibüß örci lüctüß et ültriceß pößüere cübiliä Cüräe; Mäecenäß nön nüllä.";

// mb_strtolower()
$timeMB = microtime(true);

For($i = 0 ; $i< 30000 ; $i ++)
$lower = mb_strtolower(" $text /no-cache- $i " );

$timeMB = microtime (true ) - $timeMB ;

// MySQL lower()
$timeSQL = microtime(true);

mysql_query("set names latin1");
for($i = 0 ; $i< 30000 ; $i ++) {
$r = mysql_fetch_row (mysql_query ("select lower(" $text /no-cache- $i ")" ));
$lower = $r[ 0 ];
}

$timeSQL = microtime(true ) - $timeSQL ;

echo "mb: " . sprintf("%.5f" , $timeMB ). "sec.
" ;
echo "sql: " . sprintf("%.5f" , $timeSQL ). "sec.
" ;

// Result on my notebook:
// mb: 11.50642 sec.
// sql: 5.44143 sec.

?>

7 years ago

Please, note that when using with UTF-8 mb_strtolower will only convert upper case characters to lower case which are marked with the Unicode property "Upper case letter" ("Lu"). However, there are also letters such as "Letter numbers" (Unicode property "Nl") that also have lower case and upper case variants. These characters will not be converted be mb_strtolower!

Example:
The Roman letters Ⅰ, Ⅱ, Ⅲ, ..., Ⅿ (UTF-8 code points 8544 through 8559) also exist in their respective lower case variants ⅰ, ⅱ, ⅲ, ..., ⅿ (UTF-8 code points 8560 through 8575) and should, in my opinion, also be converted by mb_strtolower, but they are not!

Big internet-companies (like Google) do match both variants as semantically equal (since the representations only differ in case).

Since I was not finding any proper solution in the internet on how to map all UTF8-strings to their lowercase counterpart in PHP, I offer the following hard-coded extended mb_strtolower function for UTF-8 strings:

The function wraps the existing function mb_strtolower() and additionally replaces uppercase UTF8-characters for which there is a lowercase representation. Since there is no proper Unicode uppercase and lowercase character-table in the internet that I was able to find, I checked the first million UTF8-characters against the Google-search and -KeywordTool and identified the following 78 characters as uppercase-characters, not being replaced by mb_strtolower, but having a UTF8 lowercase counterpart.

//the numbers in the in-line-comments display the characters" Unicode code-points (CP).
function strtolower_utf8_extended ($utf8_string )
{
$additional_replacements = array
("Dž" => "dž" // 453 -> 454
, "Lj" => "lj" // 456 -> 457
, "Nj" => "nj" // 459 -> 460
, "Dz" => "dz" // 498 -> 499
, "Ϸ" => "ϸ" // 1015 -> 1016
, "Ϲ" => "ϲ" // 1017 -> 1010
, "Ϻ" => "ϻ" // 1018 -> 1019
, "ᾈ" => "ᾀ" // 8072 -> 8064
, "ᾉ" => "ᾁ" // 8073 -> 8065
, "ᾊ" => "ᾂ" // 8074 -> 8066
, "ᾋ" => "ᾃ" // 8075 -> 8067
, "ᾌ" => "ᾄ" // 8076 -> 8068
, "ᾍ" => "ᾅ" // 8077 -> 8069
, "ᾎ" => "ᾆ" // 8078 -> 8070
, "ᾏ" => "ᾇ" // 8079 -> 8071
, "ᾘ" => "ᾐ" // 8088 -> 8080
, "ᾙ" => "ᾑ" // 8089 -> 8081
, "ᾚ" => "ᾒ" // 8090 -> 8082
, "ᾛ" => "ᾓ" // 8091 -> 8083
, "ᾜ" => "ᾔ" // 8092 -> 8084
, "ᾝ" => "ᾕ" // 8093 -> 8085
, "ᾞ" => "ᾖ" // 8094 -> 8086
, "ᾟ" => "ᾗ" // 8095 -> 8087
, "ᾨ" => "ᾠ" // 8104 -> 8096
, "ᾩ" => "ᾡ" // 8105 -> 8097
, "ᾪ" => "ᾢ" // 8106 -> 8098
, "ᾫ" => "ᾣ" // 8107 -> 8099
, "ᾬ" => "ᾤ" // 8108 -> 8100
, "ᾭ" => "ᾥ" // 8109 -> 8101
, "ᾮ" => "ᾦ" // 8110 -> 8102
, "ᾯ" => "ᾧ" // 8111 -> 8103
, "ᾼ" => "ᾳ" // 8124 -> 8115
, "ῌ" => "ῃ" // 8140 -> 8131
, "ῼ" => "ῳ" // 8188 -> 8179
, "Ⅰ" => "ⅰ" // 8544 -> 8560
, "Ⅱ" => "ⅱ" // 8545 -> 8561
, "Ⅲ" => "ⅲ" // 8546 -> 8562
, "Ⅳ" => "ⅳ" // 8547 -> 8563
, "Ⅴ" => "ⅴ" // 8548 -> 8564
, "Ⅵ" => "ⅵ" // 8549 -> 8565
, "Ⅶ" => "ⅶ" // 8550 -> 8566
, "Ⅷ" => "ⅷ" // 8551 -> 8567
, "Ⅸ" => "ⅸ" // 8552 -> 8568
, "Ⅹ" => "ⅹ" // 8553 -> 8569
, "Ⅺ" => "ⅺ" // 8554 -> 8570
, "Ⅻ" => "ⅻ" // 8555 -> 8571
, "Ⅼ" => "ⅼ" // 8556 -> 8572
, "Ⅽ" => "ⅽ" // 8557 -> 8573
, "Ⅾ" => "ⅾ" // 8558 -> 8574
, "Ⅿ" => "ⅿ" // 8559 -> 8575
, "Ⓐ" => "ⓐ" // 9398 -> 9424
, "Ⓑ" => "ⓑ" // 9399 -> 9425
, "Ⓒ" => "ⓒ" // 9400 -> 9426
, "Ⓓ" => "ⓓ" // 9401 -> 9427
, "Ⓔ" => "ⓔ" // 9402 -> 9428
, "Ⓕ" => "ⓕ" // 9403 -> 9429
, "Ⓖ" => "ⓖ" // 9404 -> 9430
, "Ⓗ" => "ⓗ" // 9405 -> 9431
, "Ⓘ" => "ⓘ" // 9406 -> 9432
, "Ⓙ" => "ⓙ" // 9407 -> 9433
, "Ⓚ" => "ⓚ" // 9408 -> 9434
, "Ⓛ" => "ⓛ" // 9409 -> 9435
, "Ⓜ" => "ⓜ" // 9410 -> 9436
, "Ⓝ" => "ⓝ" // 9411 -> 9437
, "Ⓞ" => "ⓞ" // 9412 -> 9438
, "Ⓟ" => "ⓟ" // 9413 -> 9439
, "Ⓠ" => "ⓠ" // 9414 -> 9440
, "Ⓡ" => "ⓡ" // 9415 -> 9441
, "Ⓢ" => "ⓢ" // 9416 -> 9442
, "Ⓣ" => "ⓣ" // 9417 -> 9443
, "Ⓤ" => "ⓤ" // 9418 -> 9444
, "Ⓥ" => "ⓥ" // 9419 -> 9445
, "Ⓦ" => "ⓦ" // 9420 -> 9446
, "Ⓧ" => "ⓧ" // 9421 -> 9447
, "Ⓨ" => "ⓨ" // 9422 -> 9448
, "Ⓩ" => "ⓩ" // 9423 -> 9449
, "𐐦" => "𐑎" // 66598 -> 66638
, "𐐧" => "𐑏" // 66599 -> 66639
);

$utf8_string = mb_strtolower($utf8_string , "UTF-8" );

$utf8_string = strtr ($utf8_string , $additional_replacements );

Return $utf8_string ;
) //strtolower_utf8_extended()

Case Change Functions

strtolower

Converts the characters of a string to lowercase.

Syntax:

string strtolower(string str);

Converts a string to lowercase. Returns the translation result.

It should be noted that if the locale is set incorrectly, the function will produce, to put it mildly, strange results when working with Cyrillic letters.

$str = "HeLLo World";

$str = strtolower($str);

// print hello world

strtoupper

Converts the given string to upper case.

Syntax:

stringstrtoupper(stringstr);

Converts a string to uppercase. Returns the result of the transformation. This function works well with English letters, but it can be weird with Russian letters.

$str = "Hello World";

$str = strtoupper($str);

// print HELLO WORLD

Converts the first character of a string to uppercase.

Syntax:

string ucfirst(string str);

Returns a string whose first character is capitalized.

$str = "hello world";

$str = ucfirst($str);

// print Hello world

Converts the first character of each word in a string to uppercase.

Syntax:

string ucwords(string str);

Returns a string with the first character of each word in the string capitalized.

A word here means a section of a line preceded by a space character: space, new line, page feed, carriage return, horizontal and vertical tabs.

Cyrillic characters may not be converted correctly.

$str = "hello world";

$str = ucfirst($str);

// print Hello World