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?
724 Answers
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 ĈĈ ÆÆ') ----------------------------------------------------------------- All Upper Case and Some lower Ää Öö Üü Éé Øø Cc Ææ Here's a UDF that will do the trick...
create function ProperCase(@Text as varchar(8000)) returns varchar(8000) as begin declare @Reset bit; declare @Ret varchar(8000); declare @i int; declare @c char(1); if @Text is null return null; select @Reset = 1, @i = 1, @Ret = ''; while (@i <= len(@Text)) select @c = substring(@Text, @i, 1), @Ret = @Ret + case when @Reset = 1 then UPPER(@c) else LOWER(@c) end, @Reset = case when @c like '[a-zA-Z]' then 0 else 1 end, @i = @i + 1 return @Ret end You will still have to use it to update your data though.
7UPDATE titles SET title = UPPER(LEFT(title, 1)) + LOWER(RIGHT(title, LEN(title) - 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.
1I 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 ĈĈ 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:
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 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)) 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 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.
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 ĈĈ 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 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.
0Borrowed 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 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 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 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 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...
1Here is another variation I found on the SQLTeam.com Forums @
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 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] Sadly, I am proposing yet another function. This one seems faster than most, but only capitalizes the first letter of words separated by spaces. I've checked that the input is not null, and that it works if you have multiple spaces somewhere in the middle of the string. I'm cross applying the length function so I don't have to call it twice. I would have thought that SQL Server would have cached that value. Caveat emptor.
CREATE OR ALTER FUNCTION dbo.ProperCase(@value varchar(MAX)) RETURNS varchar(MAX) AS BEGIN RETURN (SELECT STRING_AGG(CASE lv WHEN 0 THEN '' WHEN 1 THEN UPPER(value) ELSE UPPER(LEFT(value,1)) + LOWER(RIGHT(value,lv-1)) END,' ') FROM STRING_SPLIT(TRIM(@value),' ') AS ss CROSS APPLY (SELECT LEN(VALUE) lv) AS reuse WHERE @value IS NOT NULL) END This function has worked for me
create function [dbo].Pascal (@string varchar(max)) returns varchar(max) as begin declare @Index int ,@ResultString varchar(max) set @Index = 1 set @ResultString = '' while (@Index < LEN(@string) + 1) begin if (@Index = 1) begin set @ResultString += UPPER(SUBSTRING(@string, @Index, 1)) set @Index += 1 end else if ( ( SUBSTRING(@string, @Index - 1, 1) = ' ' or SUBSTRING(@string, @Index - 1, 1) = '-' or SUBSTRING(@string, @Index + 1, 1) = '-' ) and @Index + 1 <> LEN(@string) + 1 ) begin set @ResultString += UPPER(SUBSTRING(@string, @Index, 1)) set @Index += 1 end else begin set @ResultString += LOWER(SUBSTRING(@string, @Index, 1)) set @Index += 1 end end if (@@ERROR <> 0) begin set @ResultString = @string end return replace(replace(replace(@ResultString, ' ii', ' II'), ' iii', ' III'), ' iv', ' IV') end 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.
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!
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