uppercase first character in a variable with bash

Question

I want to uppercase just the first character in my string with bash   foo  bar      uppercase first character  echo  foo    should print  Bar

User · Accepted Answer

foo    tr    lower       upper     lt  lt  lt    foo 0 1    foo 1

User · Answer

This one worked for me   Searching for all  php file in the current directory   and replace the first character of each filename to capital letter   e g   test php      Test php  for f in  php   do mv   f      sed  s     u amp     lt  lt  lt    f      done

User · Answer

foo  bar     foo  echo   foo 0 1    tr    a-z     A-Z     foo 1    echo  foo Bar

User · Answer

Using awk only  foo  uNcapItalizedstrIng  echo  foo   awk   print toupper substr  0 0 1  tolower substr  0 2

User · Answer

just for fun here you are    foo  bar        echo  foo   awk    1 toupper substr  1 0 1  substr  1 2  1    or echo   foo     or echo  foo   head -c 1   tr  a-z   A-Z   echo  foo   tail -c  2   or echo   foo 1    sed -e  s     B amp

User · Answer

It can be done in pure bash with bash-3 2 as well     First  get the first character  fl   foo 0 1     Safety check  it must be a letter     if      fl      a-z      then       Now  obtain its octal value using printf  builtin       ord   printf   o      fl           Fun fact   a-z  maps onto 0141  0172   A-Z  is 0101  0132        We can use decimal  - 40  to get the expected result      ord     ord - 40           Finally  map the new value back to a character      fl   printf   b       ord   fi  echo    fl   foo 1

User · Answer

Not exactly what asked but quite helpful  declare -u foo  When the variable is assigned a value  all lower-case characters are converted to upper-case   foo bar echo  foo BAR   And the opposite  declare -l foo  When the variable is assigned a value  all upper-case characters are converted to lower-case   foo BAR echo  foo bar

User · Answer

first-letter-to-lower              str             space              for i in            do                 if   -z   echo  i   grep  the  of  with                      then                         str  str   echo   i 0 1    tr    A-Z     a-z     i 1  space                   else                         str  str  i  space                  fi         done         echo  str   first-letter-to-upper-xc              v-first-letter-to-upper   xclip -selection clipboard   first-letter-to-upper              str             space              for i in            do                 if   -z   echo  i   grep  the  of  with                      then                         str  str   echo   i 0 1    tr    a-z     A-Z     i 1  space                   else                         str  str  i  space                  fi         done         echo  str     first-letter-to-lower-xc            v-first-letter-to-lower   xclip -selection clipboard

User · Answer

One way with bash  version 4     foo bar echo    foo      prints   Bar

User · Answer

One way with sed   echo    echo   foo    sed  s     u amp        Prints   Bar

User · Answer

Here is the  native  text tools way      bin bash  string  abcd  first  echo  string cut -c1 tr  a-z   A-Z   second  echo  string cut -c2-  echo  first second

User · Answer

Alternative and clean solution for both Linux and OSX  it can also be used with bash variables  python -c  print   abc   capitalize       returns Abc

User · Answer

This works too     FooBar baz  echo   FooBar    FooBar 0 1      gt  Baz   FooBar baz  echo   FooBar    FooBar 1 1      gt  bAz   FooBar baz  echo   FooBar    FooBar 2 2      gt  baZ   And so on   Sources    Bash Manual  Shell Parameter Expansion Full Bash Guide  Parameters Bash Hacker s Wiki Parameter Expansion   Inroductions Tutorials    Cyberciti biz  8  Convert to upper to lower case or vice versa  Opensource com  An introduction to parameter expansion in Bash

User · Answer

To capitalize first word only   foo  one two three  foo    foo    echo  foo      One two three     To capitalize every word in the variable   foo  one two three  foo    foo     without quotes foo    foo       echo  foo      One Two Three      works in bash 4

User · Answer

What if the first character is not a letter  but a tab  a space  and a escaped double quote   We d better test it until we find a letter  So   S         foo bar    N 0 until      S  N 1        alpha        do N    N 1   done  F  echo   S  N 1    tr   lower     upper     F  echo   S  N 1    sed -E -e  s    u amp      other option F  echo   S  N 1  F  echo   F   pure Bash solution to  upper  echo   F   S    N 1     without garbage echo      S 0    N     F   S    N 1        garbage preserved  Foo bar     Foo bar

[bash] uppercase first character in a variable with bash

Examples related to bash