Make first letter capital

Question

I have this code snippet, where I want to change the first letter to capital. But I couldn't manage make it working.

preg_replace('/(<h3[^>]*>)(.*?)(<\/h3>)/i', '$1'.ucfirst('$2').'$3', $bsp)

show the world and what you want to replace in simple wording — Vijay Singh Rana, Apr 28 '14 at 08:11
possible duplicate of [How do you parse and process HTML/XML in PHP?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3577641/how-do-you-parse-and-process-html-xml-in-php) — Madara's Ghost, Apr 28 '14 at 08:11

Richard Schneider · Answer 1 · 2014-04-28T08:23:53.157

5

Using regex to parse HTML is always difficult. To avoid PHP and regex, I suggest using CSS and the text-transform property.

h3 { text-transform: capitalize; }

edited Apr 28 '14 at 08:23

answered Apr 28 '14 at 08:14

Richard Schneider

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This is probably the best solution. Good thinking. – Madara's Ghost Apr 28 '14 at 08:17
Yep, best solution if using CSS is an option. Hadn't thought of that. +1 – Amal Murali Apr 28 '14 at 08:23

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:20

3

Warning: HTML is not a regular language and cannot be properly parsed using a regular expression. Use a DOM parser instead.

$bsp = '<h3>hello</h3>';

$dom = new DOMDocument;
$dom->loadXML($bsp);

foreach ($dom->getElementsByTagName('h3') as $h3) {
    $h3->nodeValue = ucfirst($h3->nodeValue);
}

echo $dom->saveHTML();

Demo

But if you're absolutely sure that the markup format is always the same, you can use a regex. However, instead of preg_replace(), use preg_replace_callback() instead:

$bsp = '<h3>hello</h3>';

echo preg_replace_callback('/(<h3[^>]*>)(.*?)(<\/h3>)/i', function ($m) {
    return $m[1].ucfirst($m[2]).$m[3];
}, $bsp);

Demo

edited May 23 '17 at 12:20

Community

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answered Apr 28 '14 at 08:11

Amal Murali

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@SecondRikudo: Yeah, I added a warning at the beginning. Also added an example with DOMDocument. – Amal Murali Apr 28 '14 at 08:20
Thank you, this was excelent :) – user3050047 Apr 28 '14 at 08:26
@user3050047: Glad to have helped! :) – Amal Murali Apr 28 '14 at 08:26
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@user3050047 Have you looked at other answers? Regex is not the optimal solution here. Don't blindly use it. – Madara's Ghost Apr 28 '14 at 08:27
@SecondRikudo: There's a DOM parser solution at the beginning of the answer. – Amal Murali Apr 28 '14 at 08:27
Be sure he did not use it. PHP room? – Madara's Ghost Apr 28 '14 at 08:27
And what is the run-time cost of using DOM parser? – Richard Schneider Apr 28 '14 at 08:33
@RichardSchneider: Definitely larger than a regex. But in the long run, if you don't want broken code and weird markup, a DOM parser is always the optimal solution. It's guaranteed to work *always*, even with weird markups like [this](http://stackoverflow.com/a/702222/1438393). – Amal Murali Apr 28 '14 at 08:35

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 28 '14 at 08:16

0

using a dom parser like this may be :

<?php
$html='<h3>hello world</h3>';
$dom = new DOMDocument;
$dom->loadHTML($html);
echo ucfirst($dom->getElementsByTagName('h3')->item(0)->nodeValue);

outputs :

Hello world

answered Apr 28 '14 at 08:16

aelor

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That only works on the first element. Basing on his initial question, it's safer to assume he wants it to work on all h3 elements. – Madara's Ghost Apr 28 '14 at 08:33

Madara's Ghost · Answer 4 · 2014-04-28T08:25:23.030

0

Using DOMXPath:

<?php

$html = 'HTML String <h3>whatever</h3>';
$dom = new DOMDocument;
$dom->loadHTML($html, LIBXML_HTML_NODEFDTD); //Don't add a default doctype.
$xpath = new DOMXPath($dom);
foreach ($xpath->query('//h3') as $h3) {
    $h3->nodeValue = ucfirst($h3->nodeValue);
}
echo $dom->saveHTML();

Will catch all h3s even if they aren't formatted exactly as you expect.

edited Apr 28 '14 at 08:25

answered Apr 28 '14 at 08:17

Madara's Ghost

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You don't need `item->` there. `$h3->nodeValue = ucfirst($h3->nodeValue);` is enough. – Amal Murali Apr 28 '14 at 08:25

score -4 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 28 '14 at 08:11

-4

Does the first letter capital - echo ucfirst($str)

Makes the first letter of every word in a capital - echo ucwords($str)

answered Apr 28 '14 at 08:11

user3383116

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Make first letter capital

5 Answers5