I have a table that was imported as all UPPER CASE and I would like to turn it into Proper Case. What script have any of you used to complete this?
This question is related to
sql
sql-server
uppercase
title-case
The answer is
I know the devil is in the detail (especially where people's personal data is concerned), and that it would be very nice to have properly capitalised names, but the above kind of hassle is why the pragmatic, time-conscious amongst us use the following:
SELECT UPPER('Put YoUR O'So oddLy casED McWeird-nAme von rightHERE here')
In my experience, people are fine seeing THEIR NAME ... even when it's half way through a sentence.
Refer to: the Russians used a pencil!
I am a little late in the game, but I believe this is more functional and it works with any language, including Russian, German, Thai, Vietnamese etc. It will make uppercase anything after ' or - or . or ( or ) or space (obviously :).
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[fnToProperCase]( @name nvarchar(500) )
RETURNS nvarchar(500)
AS
BEGIN
declare @pos int = 1
, @pos2 int
if (@name <> '')--or @name = lower(@name) collate SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CS_AS or @name = upper(@name) collate SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CS_AS)
begin
set @name = lower(rtrim(@name))
while (1 = 1)
begin
set @name = stuff(@name, @pos, 1, upper(substring(@name, @pos, 1)))
set @pos2 = patindex('%[- ''.)(]%', substring(@name, @pos, 500))
set @pos += @pos2
if (isnull(@pos2, 0) = 0 or @pos > len(@name))
break
end
end
return @name
END
GO
Just learned about InitCap().
Here is some sample code:
SELECT ID
,InitCap(LastName ||', '|| FirstName ||' '|| Nvl(MiddleName,'')) AS RecipientName
FROM SomeTable
This worked in SSMS:
Select Jobtitle,
concat(Upper(LEFT(jobtitle,1)), SUBSTRING(jobtitle,2,LEN(jobtitle))) as Propercase
From [HumanResources].[Employee]
Here is another variation I found on the SQLTeam.com Forums @ http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=47718
create FUNCTION PROPERCASE
(
--The string to be converted to proper case
@input varchar(8000)
)
--This function returns the proper case string of varchar type
RETURNS varchar(8000)
AS
BEGIN
IF @input IS NULL
BEGIN
--Just return NULL if input string is NULL
RETURN NULL
END
--Character variable declarations
DECLARE @output varchar(8000)
--Integer variable declarations
DECLARE @ctr int, @len int, @found_at int
--Constant declarations
DECLARE @LOWER_CASE_a int, @LOWER_CASE_z int, @Delimiter char(3), @UPPER_CASE_A int, @UPPER_CASE_Z int
--Variable/Constant initializations
SET @ctr = 1
SET @len = LEN(@input)
SET @output = ''
SET @LOWER_CASE_a = 97
SET @LOWER_CASE_z = 122
SET @Delimiter = ' ,-'
SET @UPPER_CASE_A = 65
SET @UPPER_CASE_Z = 90
WHILE @ctr <= @len
BEGIN
--This loop will take care of reccuring white spaces
WHILE CHARINDEX(SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1), @Delimiter) > 0
BEGIN
SET @output = @output + SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1)
SET @ctr = @ctr + 1
END
IF ASCII(SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1)) BETWEEN @LOWER_CASE_a AND @LOWER_CASE_z
BEGIN
--Converting the first character to upper case
SET @output = @output + UPPER(SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1))
END
ELSE
BEGIN
SET @output = @output + SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1)
END
SET @ctr = @ctr + 1
WHILE CHARINDEX(SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1), @Delimiter) = 0 AND (@ctr <= @len)
BEGIN
IF ASCII(SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1)) BETWEEN @UPPER_CASE_A AND @UPPER_CASE_Z
BEGIN
SET @output = @output + LOWER(SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1))
END
ELSE
BEGIN
SET @output = @output + SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1)
END
SET @ctr = @ctr + 1
END
END
RETURN @output
END
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER OFF
GO
SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
Recently had to tackle this and came up with the following after nothing quite hit everything I wanted. This will do an entire sentence, cases for special word handling. We also had issues with single character 'words' that a lot of the simpler methods handle but not the more complicated methods. Single return variable, no loops or cursors either.
CREATE FUNCTION ProperCase(@Text AS NVARCHAR(MAX))
RETURNS NVARCHAR(MAX)
AS BEGIN
DECLARE @return NVARCHAR(MAX)
SELECT @return = COALESCE(@return + ' ', '') + Word FROM (
SELECT CASE
WHEN LOWER(value) = 'llc' THEN UPPER(value)
WHEN LOWER(value) = 'lp' THEN UPPER(value) --Add as many new special cases as needed
ELSE
CASE WHEN LEN(value) = 1
THEN UPPER(value)
ELSE UPPER(LEFT(value, 1)) + (LOWER(RIGHT(value, LEN(value) - 1)))
END
END AS Word
FROM STRING_SPLIT(@Text, ' ')
) tmp
RETURN @return
END
Is it too late to go back and get the un-uppercased data?
The von Neumann's, McCain's, DeGuzman's, and the Johnson-Smith's of your client base may not like the result of your processing...
Also, I'm guessing that this is intended to be a one-time upgrade of the data? It might be easier to export, filter/modify, and re-import the corrected names into the db, and then you can use non-SQL approaches to name fixing...
The link I posted above is a great option that addresses the main issue: that we can never programmatically account for all cases (Smith-Jones, von Haussen, John Smith M.D.), at least not in an elegant manner. Tony introduces the concept of an exception / break character to deal with these cases. Anyways, building on Cervo's idea (upper all lower chars preceded by space), the replace statements could be wrapped up in a single table based replace instead. Really, any low/up character combination could be inserted into @alpha and the statement would not change:
declare @str nvarchar(8000)
declare @alpha table (low nchar(1), up nchar(1))
set @str = 'ALL UPPER CASE and SOME lower ÄÄ ÖÖ ÜÜ ÉÉ ØØ CC ÆÆ'
-- stage the alpha (needs number table)
insert into @alpha
-- A-Z / a-z
select nchar(n+32),
nchar(n)
from dbo.Number
where n between 65 and 90 or
n between 192 and 223
-- append space at start of str
set @str = lower(' ' + @str)
-- upper all lower case chars preceded by space
select @str = replace(@str, ' ' + low, ' ' + up)
from @Alpha
select @str
Is it too late to go back and get the un-uppercased data?
The von Neumann's, McCain's, DeGuzman's, and the Johnson-Smith's of your client base may not like the result of your processing...
Also, I'm guessing that this is intended to be a one-time upgrade of the data? It might be easier to export, filter/modify, and re-import the corrected names into the db, and then you can use non-SQL approaches to name fixing...
This worked in SSMS:
Select Jobtitle,
concat(Upper(LEFT(jobtitle,1)), SUBSTRING(jobtitle,2,LEN(jobtitle))) as Propercase
From [HumanResources].[Employee]
I know this is late post in this thread but, worth looking. This function works for me ever time. So thought of sharing it.
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[fnConvert_TitleCase] (@InputString VARCHAR(4000) )
RETURNS VARCHAR(4000)
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE @Index INT
DECLARE @Char CHAR(1)
DECLARE @OutputString VARCHAR(255)
SET @OutputString = LOWER(@InputString)
SET @Index = 2
SET @OutputString = STUFF(@OutputString, 1, 1,UPPER(SUBSTRING(@InputString,1,1)))
WHILE @Index <= LEN(@InputString)
BEGIN
SET @Char = SUBSTRING(@InputString, @Index, 1)
IF @Char IN (' ', ';', ':', '!', '?', ',', '.', '_', '-', '/', '&','''','(')
IF @Index + 1 <= LEN(@InputString)
BEGIN
IF @Char != ''''
OR
UPPER(SUBSTRING(@InputString, @Index + 1, 1)) != 'S'
SET @OutputString =
STUFF(@OutputString, @Index + 1, 1,UPPER(SUBSTRING(@InputString, @Index + 1, 1)))
END
SET @Index = @Index + 1
END
RETURN ISNULL(@OutputString,'')
END
Test calls:
select dbo.fnConvert_TitleCase(Upper('ÄÄ ÖÖ ÜÜ ÉÉ ØØ CC ÆÆ')) as test
select dbo.fnConvert_TitleCase(upper('Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. – Napoleon hill')) as test
Results:
It would make sense to maintain a lookup of exceptions to take care of The von Neumann's, McCain's, DeGuzman's, and the Johnson-Smith's.
If you can enable the CLR in SQL Server (requires 2005 or later) then you could create a CLR function that uses the TextInfo.ToTitleCase built-in function which would allow you to create a culture-aware way of doing this in only a few lines of code.
Borrowed and improved on @Richard Sayakanit answer. This handles multiple words. Like his answer, this doesn't use any UDFs, only built-in functions (STRING_SPLIT and STRING_AGG) and it's pretty fast. STRING_AGG requires SQL Server 2017 but you can always use the STUFF/XML trick. Won't handle every exception but can work great for many requirements.
SELECT StateName = 'North Carolina'
INTO #States
UNION ALL
SELECT 'Texas'
;WITH cteData AS
(
SELECT
UPPER(LEFT(value, 1)) +
LOWER(RIGHT(value, LEN(value) - 1)) value, op.StateName
FROM #States op
CROSS APPLY STRING_SPLIT(op.StateName, ' ') AS ss
)
SELECT
STRING_AGG(value, ' ')
FROM cteData c
GROUP BY StateName
Copy and paste your data into MS Word and use built in text-conversion to "Capitalize Each Word". Compare against your original data to address exceptions. Can't see any way around manually sidestepping "MacDonald" and "IBM" type exceptions but this was how I got it done FWIW.
Borrowed and improved on @Richard Sayakanit answer. This handles multiple words. Like his answer, this doesn't use any UDFs, only built-in functions (STRING_SPLIT and STRING_AGG) and it's pretty fast. STRING_AGG requires SQL Server 2017 but you can always use the STUFF/XML trick. Won't handle every exception but can work great for many requirements.
SELECT StateName = 'North Carolina'
INTO #States
UNION ALL
SELECT 'Texas'
;WITH cteData AS
(
SELECT
UPPER(LEFT(value, 1)) +
LOWER(RIGHT(value, LEN(value) - 1)) value, op.StateName
FROM #States op
CROSS APPLY STRING_SPLIT(op.StateName, ' ') AS ss
)
SELECT
STRING_AGG(value, ' ')
FROM cteData c
GROUP BY StateName
I think you will find that the following is more efficient:
IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.ProperCase') IS NOT NULL
DROP FUNCTION dbo.ProperCase
GO
CREATE FUNCTION dbo.PROPERCASE (
@str VARCHAR(8000))
RETURNS VARCHAR(8000)
AS
BEGIN
SET @str = ' ' + @str
SET @str = REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE( @str, ' a', ' A'), ' b', ' B'), ' c', ' C'), ' d', ' D'), ' e', ' E'), ' f', ' F'), ' g', ' G'), ' h', ' H'), ' i', ' I'), ' j', ' J'), ' k', ' K'), ' l', ' L'), ' m', ' M'), ' n', ' N'), ' o', ' O'), ' p', ' P'), ' q', ' Q'), ' r', ' R'), ' s', ' S'), ' t', ' T'), ' u', ' U'), ' v', ' V'), ' w', ' W'), ' x', ' X'), ' y', ' Y'), ' z', ' Z')
RETURN RIGHT(@str, LEN(@str) - 1)
END
GO
The replace statement could be cut and pasted directly into a SQL query. It is ultra ugly, however by replacing @str with the column you are interested in, you will not pay a price for an implicit cursor like you will with the udfs thus posted. I find that even using my UDF it is much more efficient.
Oh and instead of generating the replace statement by hand use this:
-- Code Generator for expression
DECLARE @x INT,
@c CHAR(1),
@sql VARCHAR(8000)
SET @x = 0
SET @sql = '@str' -- actual variable/column you want to replace
WHILE @x < 26
BEGIN
SET @c = CHAR(ASCII('a') + @x)
SET @sql = 'REPLACE(' + @sql + ', '' ' + @c+ ''', '' ' + UPPER(@c) + ''')'
SET @x = @x + 1
END
PRINT @sql
Anyway it depends on the number of rows. I wish you could just do s/\b([a-z])/uc $1/, but oh well we work with the tools we have.
NOTE you would have to use this as you would have to use it as....SELECT dbo.ProperCase(LOWER(column)) since the column is in uppercase. It actually works pretty fast on my table of 5,000 entries (not even one second) even with the lower.
In response to the flurry of comments regarding internationalization I present the following implementation that handles every ascii character relying only on SQL Server's Implementation of upper and lower. Remember, the variables we are using here are VARCHAR which means that they can only hold ASCII values. In order to use further international alphabets, you have to use NVARCHAR. The logic would be similar but you would need to use UNICODE and NCHAR in place of ASCII AND CHAR and the replace statement would be much more huge....
-- Code Generator for expression
DECLARE @x INT,
@c CHAR(1),
@sql VARCHAR(8000),
@count INT
SEt @x = 0
SET @count = 0
SET @sql = '@str' -- actual variable you want to replace
WHILE @x < 256
BEGIN
SET @c = CHAR(@x)
-- Only generate replacement expression for characters where upper and lowercase differ
IF @x = ASCII(LOWER(@c)) AND @x != ASCII(UPPER(@c))
BEGIN
SET @sql = 'REPLACE(' + @sql + ', '' ' + @c+ ''', '' ' + UPPER(@c) + ''')'
SET @count = @count + 1
END
SET @x = @x + 1
END
PRINT @sql
PRINT 'Total characters substituted: ' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(255), @count)
Basically the premise of the my method is trading pre-computing for efficiency. The full ASCII implementation is as follows:
IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.ProperCase') IS NOT NULL
DROP FUNCTION dbo.ProperCase
GO
CREATE FUNCTION dbo.PROPERCASE (
@str VARCHAR(8000))
RETURNS VARCHAR(8000)
AS
BEGIN
SET @str = ' ' + @str
SET @str = REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(@str, ' a', ' A'), ' b', ' B'), ' c', ' C'), ' d', ' D'), ' e', ' E'), ' f', ' F'), ' g', ' G'), ' h', ' H'), ' i', ' I'), ' j', ' J'), ' k', ' K'), ' l', ' L'), ' m', ' M'), ' n', ' N'), ' o', ' O'), ' p', ' P'), ' q', ' Q'), ' r', ' R'), ' s', ' S'), ' t', ' T'), ' u', ' U'), ' v', ' V'), ' w', ' W'), ' x', ' X'), ' y', ' Y'), ' z', ' Z'), ' š', ' Š'), ' œ', ' Œ'), ' ž', ' Ž'), ' à', ' À'), ' á', ' Á'), ' â', ' Â'), ' ã', ' Ã'), ' ä', ' Ä'), ' å', ' Å'), ' æ', ' Æ'), ' ç', ' Ç'), ' è', ' È'), ' é', ' É'), ' ê', ' Ê'), ' ë', ' Ë'), ' ì', ' Ì'), ' í', ' Í'), ' î', ' Î'), ' ï', ' Ï'), ' ð', ' Ð'), ' ñ', ' Ñ'), ' ò', ' Ò'), ' ó', ' Ó'), ' ô', ' Ô'), ' õ', ' Õ'), ' ö', ' Ö'), ' ø', ' Ø'), ' ù', ' Ù'), ' ú', ' Ú'), ' û', ' Û'), ' ü', ' Ü'), ' ý', ' Ý'), ' þ', ' Þ'), ' ÿ', ' Ÿ')
RETURN RIGHT(@str, LEN(@str) - 1)
END
GO
Here is a version that uses a sequence or numbers table rather than a loop. You can modify the WHERE clause to suite your personal rules for when to convert a character to upper case. I have just included a simple set that will upper case any letter that is proceeded by a non-letter with the exception of apostrophes. This does how ever mean that 123apple would have a match on the "a" because "3" is not a letter. If you want just white-space (space, tab, carriage-return, line-feed), you can replace the pattern '[^a-z]' with '[' + Char(32) + Char(9) + Char(13) + Char(10) + ']'.
CREATE FUNCTION String.InitCap( @string nvarchar(4000) ) RETURNS nvarchar(4000) AS
BEGIN
-- 1. Convert all letters to lower case
DECLARE @InitCap nvarchar(4000); SET @InitCap = Lower(@string);
-- 2. Using a Sequence, replace the letters that should be upper case with their upper case version
SELECT @InitCap = Stuff( @InitCap, n, 1, Upper( SubString( @InitCap, n, 1 ) ) )
FROM (
SELECT (1 + n1.n + n10.n + n100.n + n1000.n) AS n
FROM (SELECT 0 AS n UNION SELECT 1 UNION SELECT 2 UNION SELECT 3 UNION SELECT 4 UNION SELECT 5 UNION SELECT 6 UNION SELECT 7 UNION SELECT 8 UNION SELECT 9) AS n1
CROSS JOIN (SELECT 0 AS n UNION SELECT 10 UNION SELECT 20 UNION SELECT 30 UNION SELECT 40 UNION SELECT 50 UNION SELECT 60 UNION SELECT 70 UNION SELECT 80 UNION SELECT 90) AS n10
CROSS JOIN (SELECT 0 AS n UNION SELECT 100 UNION SELECT 200 UNION SELECT 300 UNION SELECT 400 UNION SELECT 500 UNION SELECT 600 UNION SELECT 700 UNION SELECT 800 UNION SELECT 900) AS n100
CROSS JOIN (SELECT 0 AS n UNION SELECT 1000 UNION SELECT 2000 UNION SELECT 3000) AS n1000
) AS Sequence
WHERE
n BETWEEN 1 AND Len( @InitCap )
AND SubString( @InitCap, n, 1 ) LIKE '[a-z]' /* this character is a letter */
AND (
n = 1 /* this character is the first `character` */
OR SubString( @InitCap, n-1, 1 ) LIKE '[^a-z]' /* the previous character is NOT a letter */
)
AND (
n < 3 /* only test the 3rd or greater characters for this exception */
OR SubString( @InitCap, n-2, 3 ) NOT LIKE '[a-z]''[a-z]' /* exception: The pattern <letter>'<letter> should not capatolize the letter following the apostrophy */
)
-- 3. Return the modified version of the input
RETURN @InitCap
END
I think you will find that the following is more efficient:
IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.ProperCase') IS NOT NULL
DROP FUNCTION dbo.ProperCase
GO
CREATE FUNCTION dbo.PROPERCASE (
@str VARCHAR(8000))
RETURNS VARCHAR(8000)
AS
BEGIN
SET @str = ' ' + @str
SET @str = REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE( @str, ' a', ' A'), ' b', ' B'), ' c', ' C'), ' d', ' D'), ' e', ' E'), ' f', ' F'), ' g', ' G'), ' h', ' H'), ' i', ' I'), ' j', ' J'), ' k', ' K'), ' l', ' L'), ' m', ' M'), ' n', ' N'), ' o', ' O'), ' p', ' P'), ' q', ' Q'), ' r', ' R'), ' s', ' S'), ' t', ' T'), ' u', ' U'), ' v', ' V'), ' w', ' W'), ' x', ' X'), ' y', ' Y'), ' z', ' Z')
RETURN RIGHT(@str, LEN(@str) - 1)
END
GO
The replace statement could be cut and pasted directly into a SQL query. It is ultra ugly, however by replacing @str with the column you are interested in, you will not pay a price for an implicit cursor like you will with the udfs thus posted. I find that even using my UDF it is much more efficient.
Oh and instead of generating the replace statement by hand use this:
-- Code Generator for expression
DECLARE @x INT,
@c CHAR(1),
@sql VARCHAR(8000)
SET @x = 0
SET @sql = '@str' -- actual variable/column you want to replace
WHILE @x < 26
BEGIN
SET @c = CHAR(ASCII('a') + @x)
SET @sql = 'REPLACE(' + @sql + ', '' ' + @c+ ''', '' ' + UPPER(@c) + ''')'
SET @x = @x + 1
END
PRINT @sql
Anyway it depends on the number of rows. I wish you could just do s/\b([a-z])/uc $1/, but oh well we work with the tools we have.
NOTE you would have to use this as you would have to use it as....SELECT dbo.ProperCase(LOWER(column)) since the column is in uppercase. It actually works pretty fast on my table of 5,000 entries (not even one second) even with the lower.
In response to the flurry of comments regarding internationalization I present the following implementation that handles every ascii character relying only on SQL Server's Implementation of upper and lower. Remember, the variables we are using here are VARCHAR which means that they can only hold ASCII values. In order to use further international alphabets, you have to use NVARCHAR. The logic would be similar but you would need to use UNICODE and NCHAR in place of ASCII AND CHAR and the replace statement would be much more huge....
-- Code Generator for expression
DECLARE @x INT,
@c CHAR(1),
@sql VARCHAR(8000),
@count INT
SEt @x = 0
SET @count = 0
SET @sql = '@str' -- actual variable you want to replace
WHILE @x < 256
BEGIN
SET @c = CHAR(@x)
-- Only generate replacement expression for characters where upper and lowercase differ
IF @x = ASCII(LOWER(@c)) AND @x != ASCII(UPPER(@c))
BEGIN
SET @sql = 'REPLACE(' + @sql + ', '' ' + @c+ ''', '' ' + UPPER(@c) + ''')'
SET @count = @count + 1
END
SET @x = @x + 1
END
PRINT @sql
PRINT 'Total characters substituted: ' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(255), @count)
Basically the premise of the my method is trading pre-computing for efficiency. The full ASCII implementation is as follows:
IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.ProperCase') IS NOT NULL
DROP FUNCTION dbo.ProperCase
GO
CREATE FUNCTION dbo.PROPERCASE (
@str VARCHAR(8000))
RETURNS VARCHAR(8000)
AS
BEGIN
SET @str = ' ' + @str
SET @str = REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(@str, ' a', ' A'), ' b', ' B'), ' c', ' C'), ' d', ' D'), ' e', ' E'), ' f', ' F'), ' g', ' G'), ' h', ' H'), ' i', ' I'), ' j', ' J'), ' k', ' K'), ' l', ' L'), ' m', ' M'), ' n', ' N'), ' o', ' O'), ' p', ' P'), ' q', ' Q'), ' r', ' R'), ' s', ' S'), ' t', ' T'), ' u', ' U'), ' v', ' V'), ' w', ' W'), ' x', ' X'), ' y', ' Y'), ' z', ' Z'), ' š', ' Š'), ' œ', ' Œ'), ' ž', ' Ž'), ' à', ' À'), ' á', ' Á'), ' â', ' Â'), ' ã', ' Ã'), ' ä', ' Ä'), ' å', ' Å'), ' æ', ' Æ'), ' ç', ' Ç'), ' è', ' È'), ' é', ' É'), ' ê', ' Ê'), ' ë', ' Ë'), ' ì', ' Ì'), ' í', ' Í'), ' î', ' Î'), ' ï', ' Ï'), ' ð', ' Ð'), ' ñ', ' Ñ'), ' ò', ' Ò'), ' ó', ' Ó'), ' ô', ' Ô'), ' õ', ' Õ'), ' ö', ' Ö'), ' ø', ' Ø'), ' ù', ' Ù'), ' ú', ' Ú'), ' û', ' Û'), ' ü', ' Ü'), ' ý', ' Ý'), ' þ', ' Þ'), ' ÿ', ' Ÿ')
RETURN RIGHT(@str, LEN(@str) - 1)
END
GO
If you know all the data is just a single word here's a solution. First update the column to all lower and then run the following
update tableName set columnName =
upper(SUBSTRING(columnName, 1, 1)) + substring(columnName, 2, len(columnName)) from tableName
On Server Server 2016 and newer, you can use STRING_SPLIT
with t as (
select 'GOOFYEAR Tire and Rubber Company' as n
union all
select 'THE HAPPY BEAR' as n
union all
select 'MONK HOUSE SALES' as n
union all
select 'FORUM COMMUNICATIONS' as n
)
select
n,
(
select ' ' + (
upper(left(value, 1))
+ lower(substring(value, 2, 999))
)
from (
select value
from string_split(t.n, ' ')
) as sq
for xml path ('')
) as title_cased
from t
Example
I know this is late post in this thread but, worth looking. This function works for me ever time. So thought of sharing it.
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[fnConvert_TitleCase] (@InputString VARCHAR(4000) )
RETURNS VARCHAR(4000)
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE @Index INT
DECLARE @Char CHAR(1)
DECLARE @OutputString VARCHAR(255)
SET @OutputString = LOWER(@InputString)
SET @Index = 2
SET @OutputString = STUFF(@OutputString, 1, 1,UPPER(SUBSTRING(@InputString,1,1)))
WHILE @Index <= LEN(@InputString)
BEGIN
SET @Char = SUBSTRING(@InputString, @Index, 1)
IF @Char IN (' ', ';', ':', '!', '?', ',', '.', '_', '-', '/', '&','''','(')
IF @Index + 1 <= LEN(@InputString)
BEGIN
IF @Char != ''''
OR
UPPER(SUBSTRING(@InputString, @Index + 1, 1)) != 'S'
SET @OutputString =
STUFF(@OutputString, @Index + 1, 1,UPPER(SUBSTRING(@InputString, @Index + 1, 1)))
END
SET @Index = @Index + 1
END
RETURN ISNULL(@OutputString,'')
END
Test calls:
select dbo.fnConvert_TitleCase(Upper('ÄÄ ÖÖ ÜÜ ÉÉ ØØ CC ÆÆ')) as test
select dbo.fnConvert_TitleCase(upper('Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. – Napoleon hill')) as test
Results:
If you're in SSIS importing data that has mixed cased and need to do a lookup on a column with proper case, you'll notice that the lookup fails where the source is mixed and the lookup source is proper. You'll also notice you can't use the right and left functions is SSIS for SQL Server 2008r2 for derived columns. Here's a solution that works for me:
UPPER(substring(input_column_name,1,1)) + LOWER(substring(input_column_name, 2, len(input_column_name)-1))
A slight modification to @Galwegian's answer - which turns e.g. St Elizabeth's into St Elizabeth'S.
This modification keeps apostrophe-s as lowercase where the s comes at the end of the string provided or the s is followed by a space (and only in those circumstances).
create function properCase(@text as varchar(8000))
returns varchar(8000)
as
begin
declare @reset int;
declare @ret varchar(8000);
declare @i int;
declare @c char(1);
declare @d char(1);
if @text is null
return null;
select @reset = 1, @i = 1, @ret = '';
while (@i <= len(@text))
select
@c = substring(@text, @i, 1),
@d = substring(@text, @i+1, 1),
@ret = @ret + case when @reset = 1 or (@reset=-1 and @c!='s') or (@reset=-1 and @c='s' and @d!=' ') then upper(@c) else lower(@c) end,
@reset = case when @c like '[a-za-z]' then 0 when @c='''' then -1 else 1 end,
@i = @i + 1
return @ret
end
It turns:
st elizabeth'sintoSt Elizabeth'so'keefeintoO'Keefeo'sullivanintoO'Sullivan
Others' comments that different solutions are preferable for non-English input remain the case.
If you know all the data is just a single word here's a solution. First update the column to all lower and then run the following
update tableName set columnName =
upper(SUBSTRING(columnName, 1, 1)) + substring(columnName, 2, len(columnName)) from tableName
I know the devil is in the detail (especially where people's personal data is concerned), and that it would be very nice to have properly capitalised names, but the above kind of hassle is why the pragmatic, time-conscious amongst us use the following:
SELECT UPPER('Put YoUR O'So oddLy casED McWeird-nAme von rightHERE here')
In my experience, people are fine seeing THEIR NAME ... even when it's half way through a sentence.
Refer to: the Russians used a pencil!
If you can enable the CLR in SQL Server (requires 2005 or later) then you could create a CLR function that uses the TextInfo.ToTitleCase built-in function which would allow you to create a culture-aware way of doing this in only a few lines of code.
Just learned about InitCap().
Here is some sample code:
SELECT ID
,InitCap(LastName ||', '|| FirstName ||' '|| Nvl(MiddleName,'')) AS RecipientName
FROM SomeTable
UPDATE titles
SET title =
UPPER(LEFT(title, 1)) +
LOWER(RIGHT(title, LEN(title) - 1))
I think you will find that the following is more efficient:
IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.ProperCase') IS NOT NULL
DROP FUNCTION dbo.ProperCase
GO
CREATE FUNCTION dbo.PROPERCASE (
@str VARCHAR(8000))
RETURNS VARCHAR(8000)
AS
BEGIN
SET @str = ' ' + @str
SET @str = REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE( @str, ' a', ' A'), ' b', ' B'), ' c', ' C'), ' d', ' D'), ' e', ' E'), ' f', ' F'), ' g', ' G'), ' h', ' H'), ' i', ' I'), ' j', ' J'), ' k', ' K'), ' l', ' L'), ' m', ' M'), ' n', ' N'), ' o', ' O'), ' p', ' P'), ' q', ' Q'), ' r', ' R'), ' s', ' S'), ' t', ' T'), ' u', ' U'), ' v', ' V'), ' w', ' W'), ' x', ' X'), ' y', ' Y'), ' z', ' Z')
RETURN RIGHT(@str, LEN(@str) - 1)
END
GO
The replace statement could be cut and pasted directly into a SQL query. It is ultra ugly, however by replacing @str with the column you are interested in, you will not pay a price for an implicit cursor like you will with the udfs thus posted. I find that even using my UDF it is much more efficient.
Oh and instead of generating the replace statement by hand use this:
-- Code Generator for expression
DECLARE @x INT,
@c CHAR(1),
@sql VARCHAR(8000)
SET @x = 0
SET @sql = '@str' -- actual variable/column you want to replace
WHILE @x < 26
BEGIN
SET @c = CHAR(ASCII('a') + @x)
SET @sql = 'REPLACE(' + @sql + ', '' ' + @c+ ''', '' ' + UPPER(@c) + ''')'
SET @x = @x + 1
END
PRINT @sql
Anyway it depends on the number of rows. I wish you could just do s/\b([a-z])/uc $1/, but oh well we work with the tools we have.
NOTE you would have to use this as you would have to use it as....SELECT dbo.ProperCase(LOWER(column)) since the column is in uppercase. It actually works pretty fast on my table of 5,000 entries (not even one second) even with the lower.
In response to the flurry of comments regarding internationalization I present the following implementation that handles every ascii character relying only on SQL Server's Implementation of upper and lower. Remember, the variables we are using here are VARCHAR which means that they can only hold ASCII values. In order to use further international alphabets, you have to use NVARCHAR. The logic would be similar but you would need to use UNICODE and NCHAR in place of ASCII AND CHAR and the replace statement would be much more huge....
-- Code Generator for expression
DECLARE @x INT,
@c CHAR(1),
@sql VARCHAR(8000),
@count INT
SEt @x = 0
SET @count = 0
SET @sql = '@str' -- actual variable you want to replace
WHILE @x < 256
BEGIN
SET @c = CHAR(@x)
-- Only generate replacement expression for characters where upper and lowercase differ
IF @x = ASCII(LOWER(@c)) AND @x != ASCII(UPPER(@c))
BEGIN
SET @sql = 'REPLACE(' + @sql + ', '' ' + @c+ ''', '' ' + UPPER(@c) + ''')'
SET @count = @count + 1
END
SET @x = @x + 1
END
PRINT @sql
PRINT 'Total characters substituted: ' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(255), @count)
Basically the premise of the my method is trading pre-computing for efficiency. The full ASCII implementation is as follows:
IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.ProperCase') IS NOT NULL
DROP FUNCTION dbo.ProperCase
GO
CREATE FUNCTION dbo.PROPERCASE (
@str VARCHAR(8000))
RETURNS VARCHAR(8000)
AS
BEGIN
SET @str = ' ' + @str
SET @str = REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(@str, ' a', ' A'), ' b', ' B'), ' c', ' C'), ' d', ' D'), ' e', ' E'), ' f', ' F'), ' g', ' G'), ' h', ' H'), ' i', ' I'), ' j', ' J'), ' k', ' K'), ' l', ' L'), ' m', ' M'), ' n', ' N'), ' o', ' O'), ' p', ' P'), ' q', ' Q'), ' r', ' R'), ' s', ' S'), ' t', ' T'), ' u', ' U'), ' v', ' V'), ' w', ' W'), ' x', ' X'), ' y', ' Y'), ' z', ' Z'), ' š', ' Š'), ' œ', ' Œ'), ' ž', ' Ž'), ' à', ' À'), ' á', ' Á'), ' â', ' Â'), ' ã', ' Ã'), ' ä', ' Ä'), ' å', ' Å'), ' æ', ' Æ'), ' ç', ' Ç'), ' è', ' È'), ' é', ' É'), ' ê', ' Ê'), ' ë', ' Ë'), ' ì', ' Ì'), ' í', ' Í'), ' î', ' Î'), ' ï', ' Ï'), ' ð', ' Ð'), ' ñ', ' Ñ'), ' ò', ' Ò'), ' ó', ' Ó'), ' ô', ' Ô'), ' õ', ' Õ'), ' ö', ' Ö'), ' ø', ' Ø'), ' ù', ' Ù'), ' ú', ' Ú'), ' û', ' Û'), ' ü', ' Ü'), ' ý', ' Ý'), ' þ', ' Þ'), ' ÿ', ' Ÿ')
RETURN RIGHT(@str, LEN(@str) - 1)
END
GO
On Server Server 2016 and newer, you can use STRING_SPLIT
with t as (
select 'GOOFYEAR Tire and Rubber Company' as n
union all
select 'THE HAPPY BEAR' as n
union all
select 'MONK HOUSE SALES' as n
union all
select 'FORUM COMMUNICATIONS' as n
)
select
n,
(
select ' ' + (
upper(left(value, 1))
+ lower(substring(value, 2, 999))
)
from (
select value
from string_split(t.n, ' ')
) as sq
for xml path ('')
) as title_cased
from t
Example
The link I posted above is a great option that addresses the main issue: that we can never programmatically account for all cases (Smith-Jones, von Haussen, John Smith M.D.), at least not in an elegant manner. Tony introduces the concept of an exception / break character to deal with these cases. Anyways, building on Cervo's idea (upper all lower chars preceded by space), the replace statements could be wrapped up in a single table based replace instead. Really, any low/up character combination could be inserted into @alpha and the statement would not change:
declare @str nvarchar(8000)
declare @alpha table (low nchar(1), up nchar(1))
set @str = 'ALL UPPER CASE and SOME lower ÄÄ ÖÖ ÜÜ ÉÉ ØØ CC ÆÆ'
-- stage the alpha (needs number table)
insert into @alpha
-- A-Z / a-z
select nchar(n+32),
nchar(n)
from dbo.Number
where n between 65 and 90 or
n between 192 and 223
-- append space at start of str
set @str = lower(' ' + @str)
-- upper all lower case chars preceded by space
select @str = replace(@str, ' ' + low, ' ' + up)
from @Alpha
select @str
A slight modification to @Galwegian's answer - which turns e.g. St Elizabeth's into St Elizabeth'S.
This modification keeps apostrophe-s as lowercase where the s comes at the end of the string provided or the s is followed by a space (and only in those circumstances).
create function properCase(@text as varchar(8000))
returns varchar(8000)
as
begin
declare @reset int;
declare @ret varchar(8000);
declare @i int;
declare @c char(1);
declare @d char(1);
if @text is null
return null;
select @reset = 1, @i = 1, @ret = '';
while (@i <= len(@text))
select
@c = substring(@text, @i, 1),
@d = substring(@text, @i+1, 1),
@ret = @ret + case when @reset = 1 or (@reset=-1 and @c!='s') or (@reset=-1 and @c='s' and @d!=' ') then upper(@c) else lower(@c) end,
@reset = case when @c like '[a-za-z]' then 0 when @c='''' then -1 else 1 end,
@i = @i + 1
return @ret
end
It turns:
st elizabeth'sintoSt Elizabeth'so'keefeintoO'Keefeo'sullivanintoO'Sullivan
Others' comments that different solutions are preferable for non-English input remain the case.
This function:
- "Proper Cases" all "UPPER CASE" words that are delimited by white space
- leaves "lower case words" alone
- works properly even for non-English alphabets
- is portable in that it does not use fancy features of recent SQL server versions
- can be easily changed to use NCHAR and NVARCHAR for unicode support,as well as any parameter length you see fit
- white space definition can be configured
CREATE FUNCTION ToProperCase(@string VARCHAR(255)) RETURNS VARCHAR(255)
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE @i INT -- index
DECLARE @l INT -- input length
DECLARE @c NCHAR(1) -- current char
DECLARE @f INT -- first letter flag (1/0)
DECLARE @o VARCHAR(255) -- output string
DECLARE @w VARCHAR(10) -- characters considered as white space
SET @w = '[' + CHAR(13) + CHAR(10) + CHAR(9) + CHAR(160) + ' ' + ']'
SET @i = 1
SET @l = LEN(@string)
SET @f = 1
SET @o = ''
WHILE @i <= @l
BEGIN
SET @c = SUBSTRING(@string, @i, 1)
IF @f = 1
BEGIN
SET @o = @o + @c
SET @f = 0
END
ELSE
BEGIN
SET @o = @o + LOWER(@c)
END
IF @c LIKE @w SET @f = 1
SET @i = @i + 1
END
RETURN @o
END
Result:
dbo.ToProperCase('ALL UPPER CASE and SOME lower ÄÄ ÖÖ ÜÜ ÉÉ ØØ CC ÆÆ')
-----------------------------------------------------------------
All Upper Case and Some lower Ää Öö Üü Éé Øø Cc Ææ
Here is a version that uses a sequence or numbers table rather than a loop. You can modify the WHERE clause to suite your personal rules for when to convert a character to upper case. I have just included a simple set that will upper case any letter that is proceeded by a non-letter with the exception of apostrophes. This does how ever mean that 123apple would have a match on the "a" because "3" is not a letter. If you want just white-space (space, tab, carriage-return, line-feed), you can replace the pattern '[^a-z]' with '[' + Char(32) + Char(9) + Char(13) + Char(10) + ']'.
CREATE FUNCTION String.InitCap( @string nvarchar(4000) ) RETURNS nvarchar(4000) AS
BEGIN
-- 1. Convert all letters to lower case
DECLARE @InitCap nvarchar(4000); SET @InitCap = Lower(@string);
-- 2. Using a Sequence, replace the letters that should be upper case with their upper case version
SELECT @InitCap = Stuff( @InitCap, n, 1, Upper( SubString( @InitCap, n, 1 ) ) )
FROM (
SELECT (1 + n1.n + n10.n + n100.n + n1000.n) AS n
FROM (SELECT 0 AS n UNION SELECT 1 UNION SELECT 2 UNION SELECT 3 UNION SELECT 4 UNION SELECT 5 UNION SELECT 6 UNION SELECT 7 UNION SELECT 8 UNION SELECT 9) AS n1
CROSS JOIN (SELECT 0 AS n UNION SELECT 10 UNION SELECT 20 UNION SELECT 30 UNION SELECT 40 UNION SELECT 50 UNION SELECT 60 UNION SELECT 70 UNION SELECT 80 UNION SELECT 90) AS n10
CROSS JOIN (SELECT 0 AS n UNION SELECT 100 UNION SELECT 200 UNION SELECT 300 UNION SELECT 400 UNION SELECT 500 UNION SELECT 600 UNION SELECT 700 UNION SELECT 800 UNION SELECT 900) AS n100
CROSS JOIN (SELECT 0 AS n UNION SELECT 1000 UNION SELECT 2000 UNION SELECT 3000) AS n1000
) AS Sequence
WHERE
n BETWEEN 1 AND Len( @InitCap )
AND SubString( @InitCap, n, 1 ) LIKE '[a-z]' /* this character is a letter */
AND (
n = 1 /* this character is the first `character` */
OR SubString( @InitCap, n-1, 1 ) LIKE '[^a-z]' /* the previous character is NOT a letter */
)
AND (
n < 3 /* only test the 3rd or greater characters for this exception */
OR SubString( @InitCap, n-2, 3 ) NOT LIKE '[a-z]''[a-z]' /* exception: The pattern <letter>'<letter> should not capatolize the letter following the apostrophy */
)
-- 3. Return the modified version of the input
RETURN @InitCap
END
The link I posted above is a great option that addresses the main issue: that we can never programmatically account for all cases (Smith-Jones, von Haussen, John Smith M.D.), at least not in an elegant manner. Tony introduces the concept of an exception / break character to deal with these cases. Anyways, building on Cervo's idea (upper all lower chars preceded by space), the replace statements could be wrapped up in a single table based replace instead. Really, any low/up character combination could be inserted into @alpha and the statement would not change:
declare @str nvarchar(8000)
declare @alpha table (low nchar(1), up nchar(1))
set @str = 'ALL UPPER CASE and SOME lower ÄÄ ÖÖ ÜÜ ÉÉ ØØ CC ÆÆ'
-- stage the alpha (needs number table)
insert into @alpha
-- A-Z / a-z
select nchar(n+32),
nchar(n)
from dbo.Number
where n between 65 and 90 or
n between 192 and 223
-- append space at start of str
set @str = lower(' ' + @str)
-- upper all lower case chars preceded by space
select @str = replace(@str, ' ' + low, ' ' + up)
from @Alpha
select @str
I think you will find that the following is more efficient:
IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.ProperCase') IS NOT NULL
DROP FUNCTION dbo.ProperCase
GO
CREATE FUNCTION dbo.PROPERCASE (
@str VARCHAR(8000))
RETURNS VARCHAR(8000)
AS
BEGIN
SET @str = ' ' + @str
SET @str = REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE( @str, ' a', ' A'), ' b', ' B'), ' c', ' C'), ' d', ' D'), ' e', ' E'), ' f', ' F'), ' g', ' G'), ' h', ' H'), ' i', ' I'), ' j', ' J'), ' k', ' K'), ' l', ' L'), ' m', ' M'), ' n', ' N'), ' o', ' O'), ' p', ' P'), ' q', ' Q'), ' r', ' R'), ' s', ' S'), ' t', ' T'), ' u', ' U'), ' v', ' V'), ' w', ' W'), ' x', ' X'), ' y', ' Y'), ' z', ' Z')
RETURN RIGHT(@str, LEN(@str) - 1)
END
GO
The replace statement could be cut and pasted directly into a SQL query. It is ultra ugly, however by replacing @str with the column you are interested in, you will not pay a price for an implicit cursor like you will with the udfs thus posted. I find that even using my UDF it is much more efficient.
Oh and instead of generating the replace statement by hand use this:
-- Code Generator for expression
DECLARE @x INT,
@c CHAR(1),
@sql VARCHAR(8000)
SET @x = 0
SET @sql = '@str' -- actual variable/column you want to replace
WHILE @x < 26
BEGIN
SET @c = CHAR(ASCII('a') + @x)
SET @sql = 'REPLACE(' + @sql + ', '' ' + @c+ ''', '' ' + UPPER(@c) + ''')'
SET @x = @x + 1
END
PRINT @sql
Anyway it depends on the number of rows. I wish you could just do s/\b([a-z])/uc $1/, but oh well we work with the tools we have.
NOTE you would have to use this as you would have to use it as....SELECT dbo.ProperCase(LOWER(column)) since the column is in uppercase. It actually works pretty fast on my table of 5,000 entries (not even one second) even with the lower.
In response to the flurry of comments regarding internationalization I present the following implementation that handles every ascii character relying only on SQL Server's Implementation of upper and lower. Remember, the variables we are using here are VARCHAR which means that they can only hold ASCII values. In order to use further international alphabets, you have to use NVARCHAR. The logic would be similar but you would need to use UNICODE and NCHAR in place of ASCII AND CHAR and the replace statement would be much more huge....
-- Code Generator for expression
DECLARE @x INT,
@c CHAR(1),
@sql VARCHAR(8000),
@count INT
SEt @x = 0
SET @count = 0
SET @sql = '@str' -- actual variable you want to replace
WHILE @x < 256
BEGIN
SET @c = CHAR(@x)
-- Only generate replacement expression for characters where upper and lowercase differ
IF @x = ASCII(LOWER(@c)) AND @x != ASCII(UPPER(@c))
BEGIN
SET @sql = 'REPLACE(' + @sql + ', '' ' + @c+ ''', '' ' + UPPER(@c) + ''')'
SET @count = @count + 1
END
SET @x = @x + 1
END
PRINT @sql
PRINT 'Total characters substituted: ' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(255), @count)
Basically the premise of the my method is trading pre-computing for efficiency. The full ASCII implementation is as follows:
IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.ProperCase') IS NOT NULL
DROP FUNCTION dbo.ProperCase
GO
CREATE FUNCTION dbo.PROPERCASE (
@str VARCHAR(8000))
RETURNS VARCHAR(8000)
AS
BEGIN
SET @str = ' ' + @str
SET @str = REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(@str, ' a', ' A'), ' b', ' B'), ' c', ' C'), ' d', ' D'), ' e', ' E'), ' f', ' F'), ' g', ' G'), ' h', ' H'), ' i', ' I'), ' j', ' J'), ' k', ' K'), ' l', ' L'), ' m', ' M'), ' n', ' N'), ' o', ' O'), ' p', ' P'), ' q', ' Q'), ' r', ' R'), ' s', ' S'), ' t', ' T'), ' u', ' U'), ' v', ' V'), ' w', ' W'), ' x', ' X'), ' y', ' Y'), ' z', ' Z'), ' š', ' Š'), ' œ', ' Œ'), ' ž', ' Ž'), ' à', ' À'), ' á', ' Á'), ' â', ' Â'), ' ã', ' Ã'), ' ä', ' Ä'), ' å', ' Å'), ' æ', ' Æ'), ' ç', ' Ç'), ' è', ' È'), ' é', ' É'), ' ê', ' Ê'), ' ë', ' Ë'), ' ì', ' Ì'), ' í', ' Í'), ' î', ' Î'), ' ï', ' Ï'), ' ð', ' Ð'), ' ñ', ' Ñ'), ' ò', ' Ò'), ' ó', ' Ó'), ' ô', ' Ô'), ' õ', ' Õ'), ' ö', ' Ö'), ' ø', ' Ø'), ' ù', ' Ù'), ' ú', ' Ú'), ' û', ' Û'), ' ü', ' Ü'), ' ý', ' Ý'), ' þ', ' Þ'), ' ÿ', ' Ÿ')
RETURN RIGHT(@str, LEN(@str) - 1)
END
GO
Recently had to tackle this and came up with the following after nothing quite hit everything I wanted. This will do an entire sentence, cases for special word handling. We also had issues with single character 'words' that a lot of the simpler methods handle but not the more complicated methods. Single return variable, no loops or cursors either.
CREATE FUNCTION ProperCase(@Text AS NVARCHAR(MAX))
RETURNS NVARCHAR(MAX)
AS BEGIN
DECLARE @return NVARCHAR(MAX)
SELECT @return = COALESCE(@return + ' ', '') + Word FROM (
SELECT CASE
WHEN LOWER(value) = 'llc' THEN UPPER(value)
WHEN LOWER(value) = 'lp' THEN UPPER(value) --Add as many new special cases as needed
ELSE
CASE WHEN LEN(value) = 1
THEN UPPER(value)
ELSE UPPER(LEFT(value, 1)) + (LOWER(RIGHT(value, LEN(value) - 1)))
END
END AS Word
FROM STRING_SPLIT(@Text, ' ')
) tmp
RETURN @return
END
This function:
- "Proper Cases" all "UPPER CASE" words that are delimited by white space
- leaves "lower case words" alone
- works properly even for non-English alphabets
- is portable in that it does not use fancy features of recent SQL server versions
- can be easily changed to use NCHAR and NVARCHAR for unicode support,as well as any parameter length you see fit
- white space definition can be configured
CREATE FUNCTION ToProperCase(@string VARCHAR(255)) RETURNS VARCHAR(255)
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE @i INT -- index
DECLARE @l INT -- input length
DECLARE @c NCHAR(1) -- current char
DECLARE @f INT -- first letter flag (1/0)
DECLARE @o VARCHAR(255) -- output string
DECLARE @w VARCHAR(10) -- characters considered as white space
SET @w = '[' + CHAR(13) + CHAR(10) + CHAR(9) + CHAR(160) + ' ' + ']'
SET @i = 1
SET @l = LEN(@string)
SET @f = 1
SET @o = ''
WHILE @i <= @l
BEGIN
SET @c = SUBSTRING(@string, @i, 1)
IF @f = 1
BEGIN
SET @o = @o + @c
SET @f = 0
END
ELSE
BEGIN
SET @o = @o + LOWER(@c)
END
IF @c LIKE @w SET @f = 1
SET @i = @i + 1
END
RETURN @o
END
Result:
dbo.ToProperCase('ALL UPPER CASE and SOME lower ÄÄ ÖÖ ÜÜ ÉÉ ØØ CC ÆÆ')
-----------------------------------------------------------------
All Upper Case and Some lower Ää Öö Üü Éé Øø Cc Ææ
It would make sense to maintain a lookup of exceptions to take care of The von Neumann's, McCain's, DeGuzman's, and the Johnson-Smith's.
Here is another variation I found on the SQLTeam.com Forums @ http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=47718
create FUNCTION PROPERCASE
(
--The string to be converted to proper case
@input varchar(8000)
)
--This function returns the proper case string of varchar type
RETURNS varchar(8000)
AS
BEGIN
IF @input IS NULL
BEGIN
--Just return NULL if input string is NULL
RETURN NULL
END
--Character variable declarations
DECLARE @output varchar(8000)
--Integer variable declarations
DECLARE @ctr int, @len int, @found_at int
--Constant declarations
DECLARE @LOWER_CASE_a int, @LOWER_CASE_z int, @Delimiter char(3), @UPPER_CASE_A int, @UPPER_CASE_Z int
--Variable/Constant initializations
SET @ctr = 1
SET @len = LEN(@input)
SET @output = ''
SET @LOWER_CASE_a = 97
SET @LOWER_CASE_z = 122
SET @Delimiter = ' ,-'
SET @UPPER_CASE_A = 65
SET @UPPER_CASE_Z = 90
WHILE @ctr <= @len
BEGIN
--This loop will take care of reccuring white spaces
WHILE CHARINDEX(SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1), @Delimiter) > 0
BEGIN
SET @output = @output + SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1)
SET @ctr = @ctr + 1
END
IF ASCII(SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1)) BETWEEN @LOWER_CASE_a AND @LOWER_CASE_z
BEGIN
--Converting the first character to upper case
SET @output = @output + UPPER(SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1))
END
ELSE
BEGIN
SET @output = @output + SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1)
END
SET @ctr = @ctr + 1
WHILE CHARINDEX(SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1), @Delimiter) = 0 AND (@ctr <= @len)
BEGIN
IF ASCII(SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1)) BETWEEN @UPPER_CASE_A AND @UPPER_CASE_Z
BEGIN
SET @output = @output + LOWER(SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1))
END
ELSE
BEGIN
SET @output = @output + SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1)
END
SET @ctr = @ctr + 1
END
END
RETURN @output
END
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER OFF
GO
SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
If you're in SSIS importing data that has mixed cased and need to do a lookup on a column with proper case, you'll notice that the lookup fails where the source is mixed and the lookup source is proper. You'll also notice you can't use the right and left functions is SSIS for SQL Server 2008r2 for derived columns. Here's a solution that works for me:
UPPER(substring(input_column_name,1,1)) + LOWER(substring(input_column_name, 2, len(input_column_name)-1))
If you can enable the CLR in SQL Server (requires 2005 or later) then you could create a CLR function that uses the TextInfo.ToTitleCase built-in function which would allow you to create a culture-aware way of doing this in only a few lines of code.
Is it too late to go back and get the un-uppercased data?
The von Neumann's, McCain's, DeGuzman's, and the Johnson-Smith's of your client base may not like the result of your processing...
Also, I'm guessing that this is intended to be a one-time upgrade of the data? It might be easier to export, filter/modify, and re-import the corrected names into the db, and then you can use non-SQL approaches to name fixing...
I am a little late in the game, but I believe this is more functional and it works with any language, including Russian, German, Thai, Vietnamese etc. It will make uppercase anything after ' or - or . or ( or ) or space (obviously :).
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[fnToProperCase]( @name nvarchar(500) )
RETURNS nvarchar(500)
AS
BEGIN
declare @pos int = 1
, @pos2 int
if (@name <> '')--or @name = lower(@name) collate SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CS_AS or @name = upper(@name) collate SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CS_AS)
begin
set @name = lower(rtrim(@name))
while (1 = 1)
begin
set @name = stuff(@name, @pos, 1, upper(substring(@name, @pos, 1)))
set @pos2 = patindex('%[- ''.)(]%', substring(@name, @pos, 500))
set @pos += @pos2
if (isnull(@pos2, 0) = 0 or @pos > len(@name))
break
end
end
return @name
END
GO
Copy and paste your data into MS Word and use built in text-conversion to "Capitalize Each Word". Compare against your original data to address exceptions. Can't see any way around manually sidestepping "MacDonald" and "IBM" type exceptions but this was how I got it done FWIW.
UPDATE titles
SET title =
UPPER(LEFT(title, 1)) +
LOWER(RIGHT(title, LEN(title) - 1))
Is it too late to go back and get the un-uppercased data?
The von Neumann's, McCain's, DeGuzman's, and the Johnson-Smith's of your client base may not like the result of your processing...
Also, I'm guessing that this is intended to be a one-time upgrade of the data? It might be easier to export, filter/modify, and re-import the corrected names into the db, and then you can use non-SQL approaches to name fixing...
If you can enable the CLR in SQL Server (requires 2005 or later) then you could create a CLR function that uses the TextInfo.ToTitleCase built-in function which would allow you to create a culture-aware way of doing this in only a few lines of code.
The link I posted above is a great option that addresses the main issue: that we can never programmatically account for all cases (Smith-Jones, von Haussen, John Smith M.D.), at least not in an elegant manner. Tony introduces the concept of an exception / break character to deal with these cases. Anyways, building on Cervo's idea (upper all lower chars preceded by space), the replace statements could be wrapped up in a single table based replace instead. Really, any low/up character combination could be inserted into @alpha and the statement would not change:
declare @str nvarchar(8000)
declare @alpha table (low nchar(1), up nchar(1))
set @str = 'ALL UPPER CASE and SOME lower ÄÄ ÖÖ ÜÜ ÉÉ ØØ CC ÆÆ'
-- stage the alpha (needs number table)
insert into @alpha
-- A-Z / a-z
select nchar(n+32),
nchar(n)
from dbo.Number
where n between 65 and 90 or
n between 192 and 223
-- append space at start of str
set @str = lower(' ' + @str)
-- upper all lower case chars preceded by space
select @str = replace(@str, ' ' + low, ' ' + up)
from @Alpha
select @str
Source: Stackoverflow.com