Best way to convert Pascal Case to a sentence

Question

What is the best way to convert from Pascal Case (upper Camel Case) to a sentence.

For example starting with

"AwaitingFeedback"

and converting that to

"Awaiting feedback"

C# preferable but I could convert it from Java or similar.

Answer 1

public static string ToSentenceCase(this string str)
{
    return Regex.Replace(str, "[a-z][A-Z]", m => m.Value[0] + " " + char.ToLower(m.Value[1]));
}

In versions of visual studio after 2015, you can do

public static string ToSentenceCase(this string str)
{
    return Regex.Replace(str, "[a-z][A-Z]", m => $"{m.Value[0]} {char.ToLower(m.Value[1])}");
}

Based on: Converting Pascal case to sentences using regular expression

Answer 2

I will prefer to use Humanizer for this. Humanizer is a Portable Class Library that meets all your .NET needs for manipulating and displaying strings, enums, dates, times, timespans, numbers and quantities.

Short Answer

"AwaitingFeedback".Humanize() => Awaiting feedback

Long and Descriptive Answer

Humanizer can do a lot more work other examples are:

"PascalCaseInputStringIsTurnedIntoSentence".Humanize() => "Pascal case input string is turned into sentence"
"Underscored_input_string_is_turned_into_sentence".Humanize() => "Underscored input string is turned into sentence"
"Can_return_title_Case".Humanize(LetterCasing.Title) => "Can Return Title Case"
"CanReturnLowerCase".Humanize(LetterCasing.LowerCase) => "can return lower case"

Complete code is :

using Humanizer;
using static System.Console;

namespace HumanizerConsoleApp
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            WriteLine("AwaitingFeedback".Humanize());
            WriteLine("PascalCaseInputStringIsTurnedIntoSentence".Humanize());
            WriteLine("Underscored_input_string_is_turned_into_sentence".Humanize());
            WriteLine("Can_return_title_Case".Humanize(LetterCasing.Title));
            WriteLine("CanReturnLowerCase".Humanize(LetterCasing.LowerCase));
        }
    }
}

Output

Awaiting feedback

Pascal case input string is turned into sentence

Underscored input string is turned into sentence Can Return Title Case

can return lower case

If you prefer to write your own C# code you can achieve this by writing some C# code stuff as answered by others already.

Answer 3

This works for me:

Regex.Replace(strIn, "([A-Z]{1,2}|[0-9]+)", " $1").TrimStart()

Answer 4

Here you go...

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

namespace CamelCaseToString
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(CamelCaseToString("ThisIsYourMasterCallingYou"));   
        }

        private static string CamelCaseToString(string str)
        {
            if (str == null || str.Length == 0)
                return null;

            StringBuilder retVal = new StringBuilder(32);

            retVal.Append(char.ToUpper(str[0]));
            for (int i = 1; i < str.Length; i++ )
            {
                if (char.IsLower(str[i]))
                {
                    retVal.Append(str[i]);
                }
                else
                {
                    retVal.Append(" ");
                    retVal.Append(char.ToLower(str[i]));
                }
            }

            return retVal.ToString();
        }
    }
}

Answer 5

This is just like @SSTA, but is more efficient than calling TrimStart.

Regex.Replace("ThisIsMyCapsDelimitedString", "(\\B[A-Z])", " $1")

Answer 6

Found this in the MvcContrib source, doesn't seem to be mentioned here yet.

return Regex.Replace(input, "([A-Z])", " $1", RegexOptions.Compiled).Trim();

Answer 7

Just because everyone has been using Regex (except this guy), here's an implementation with StringBuilder that was about 5x faster in my tests. Includes checking for numbers too.

"SomeBunchOfCamelCase2".FromCamelCaseToSentence == "Some Bunch Of Camel Case 2"

public static string FromCamelCaseToSentence(this string input) {
    if(string.IsNullOrEmpty(input)) return input;

    var sb = new StringBuilder();
    // start with the first character -- consistent camelcase and pascal case
    sb.Append(char.ToUpper(input[0]));

    // march through the rest of it
    for(var i = 1; i < input.Length; i++) {
        // any time we hit an uppercase OR number, it's a new word
        if(char.IsUpper(input[i]) || char.IsDigit(input[i])) sb.Append(' ');
        // add regularly
        sb.Append(input[i]);
    }

    return sb.ToString();
}

Answer 8

Here's a basic way of doing it that I came up with using Regex

public static string CamelCaseToSentence(this string value)
{
    var sb = new StringBuilder();
    var firstWord = true;

    foreach (var match in Regex.Matches(value, "([A-Z][a-z]+)|[0-9]+"))
    {
        if (firstWord)
        {
            sb.Append(match.ToString());
            firstWord = false;
        }
        else
        {
            sb.Append(" ");
            sb.Append(match.ToString().ToLower());
        }
    }

    return sb.ToString();
}

It will also split off numbers which I didn't specify but would be useful.

Answer 9

string camel = "MyCamelCaseString";
string s = Regex.Replace(camel, "([A-Z])", " $1").ToLower().Trim();
Console.WriteLine(s.Substring(0,1).ToUpper() + s.Substring(1));

Edit: didn't notice your casing requirements, modifed accordingly. You could use a matchevaluator to do the casing, but I think a substring is easier. You could also wrap it in a 2nd regex replace where you change the first character

"^\w"

to upper

\U (i think)

Answer 10

I'd use a regex, inserting a space before each upper case character, then lowering all the string.

    string spacedString = System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(yourString, "\B([A-Z])", " \k");
    spacedString = spacedString.ToLower();

Answer 11

It is easy to do in JavaScript (or PHP, etc.) where you can define a function in the replace call:

var camel = "AwaitingFeedbackDearMaster";
var sentence = camel.replace(/([A-Z].)/g, function (c) { return ' ' + c.toLowerCase(); });
alert(sentence);

Although I haven't solved the initial cap problem... :-)

Now, for the Java solution:

String ToSentence(String camel)
{
  if (camel == null) return ""; // Or null...
  String[] words = camel.split("(?=[A-Z])");
  if (words == null) return "";
  if (words.length == 1) return words[0];
  StringBuilder sentence = new StringBuilder(camel.length());
  if (words[0].length() > 0) // Just in case of camelCase instead of CamelCase
  {
    sentence.append(words[0] + " " + words[1].toLowerCase());
  }
  else
  {
    sentence.append(words[1]);
  }
  for (int i = 2; i < words.length; i++)
  {
    sentence.append(" " + words[i].toLowerCase());
  }
  return sentence.toString();
}

System.out.println(ToSentence("AwaitingAFeedbackDearMaster"));
System.out.println(ToSentence(null));
System.out.println(ToSentence(""));
System.out.println(ToSentence("A"));
System.out.println(ToSentence("Aaagh!"));
System.out.println(ToSentence("stackoverflow"));
System.out.println(ToSentence("disableGPS"));
System.out.println(ToSentence("Ahh89Boo"));
System.out.println(ToSentence("ABC"));

Note the trick to split the sentence without loosing any character...

Answer 12

An xquery solution that works for both UpperCamel and lowerCamel case:

To output sentence case (only the first character of the first word is capitalized):

declare function content:sentenceCase($string)
{
let $firstCharacter := substring($string, 1, 1)
let $remainingCharacters := substring-after($string, $firstCharacter)
return
concat(upper-case($firstCharacter),lower-case(replace($remainingCharacters, '([A-Z])', ' $1')))
};

To output title case (first character of each word capitalized):

declare function content:titleCase($string)
{
let $firstCharacter := substring($string, 1, 1)
let $remainingCharacters := substring-after($string, $firstCharacter)
return
concat(upper-case($firstCharacter),replace($remainingCharacters, '([A-Z])', ' $1'))
};

Answer 13

Found myself doing something similar, and I appreciate having a point-of-departure with this discussion. This is my solution, placed as an extension method to the string class in the context of a console application.

using System;
using System.Text;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            string piratese = "avastTharMatey";
            string ivyese = "CheerioPipPip";

            Console.WriteLine("{0}\n{1}\n", piratese.CamelCaseToString(), ivyese.CamelCaseToString());
            Console.WriteLine("For Pete\'s sake, man, hit ENTER!");
            string strExit = Console.ReadLine();
        }

    }

    public static class StringExtension
    {
        public static string CamelCaseToString(this string str)
        {
            StringBuilder retVal = new StringBuilder(32);

            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(str))
            {
                string strTrimmed = str.Trim();

                if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(strTrimmed))
                {
                    retVal.Append(char.ToUpper(strTrimmed[0]));

                    if (strTrimmed.Length > 1)
                    {
                        for (int i = 1; i < strTrimmed.Length; i++)
                        {
                            if (char.IsUpper(strTrimmed[i])) retVal.Append(" ");

                            retVal.Append(char.ToLower(strTrimmed[i]));
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
            return retVal.ToString();
        }
    }
}

Answer 14

Pseudo-code:

NewString = "";
Loop through every char of the string (skip the first one)
   If char is upper-case ('A'-'Z')
     NewString = NewString + ' ' + lowercase(char)
   Else
     NewString = NewString + char

Better ways can perhaps be done by using regex or by string replacement routines (replace 'X' with ' x')

Answer 15

Most of the preceding answers split acronyms and numbers, adding a space in front of each character. I wanted acronyms and numbers to be kept together so I have a simple state machine that emits a space every time the input transitions from one state to the other.

    /// <summary>
    /// Add a space before any capitalized letter (but not for a run of capitals or numbers)
    /// </summary>
    internal static string FromCamelCaseToSentence(string input)
    {
        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(input)) return String.Empty;

        var sb = new StringBuilder();
        bool upper = true;

        for (var i = 0; i < input.Length; i++)
        {
            bool isUpperOrDigit = char.IsUpper(input[i]) || char.IsDigit(input[i]);
            // any time we transition to upper or digits, it's a new word
            if (!upper && isUpperOrDigit)
            {
                sb.Append(' ');
            }
            sb.Append(input[i]);
            upper = isUpperOrDigit;
        }

        return sb.ToString();
    }

And here's some tests:

    [TestCase(null, ExpectedResult = "")]
    [TestCase("", ExpectedResult = "")]
    [TestCase("ABC", ExpectedResult = "ABC")]
    [TestCase("abc", ExpectedResult = "abc")]
    [TestCase("camelCase", ExpectedResult = "camel Case")]
    [TestCase("PascalCase", ExpectedResult = "Pascal Case")]
    [TestCase("Pascal123", ExpectedResult = "Pascal 123")]
    [TestCase("CustomerID", ExpectedResult = "Customer ID")]
    [TestCase("CustomABC123", ExpectedResult = "Custom ABC123")]
    public string CanSplitCamelCase(string input)
    {
        return FromCamelCaseToSentence(input);
    }

Answer 16

Mostly already answered here

Small chage to the accepted answer, to convert the second and subsequent Capitalised letters to lower case, so change

if (char.IsUpper(text[i]))                
    newText.Append(' ');            
newText.Append(text[i]);

to

if (char.IsUpper(text[i]))                
{
    newText.Append(' ');            
    newText.Append(char.ToLower(text[i]));
}
else
   newText.Append(text[i]);

Answer 17

Here is my implementation. This is the fastest that I got while avoiding creating spaces for abbreviations.

public static string PascalCaseToSentence(string input)
    {
        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(input) || input.Length < 2)
            return input;

        var sb = new char[input.Length + ((input.Length + 1) / 2)];
        var len = 0;
        var lastIsLower = false;
        for (int i = 0; i < input.Length; i++)
        {
            var current = input[i];
            if (current < 97)
            {
                if (lastIsLower)
                {
                    sb[len] = ' ';
                    len++;
                }
                lastIsLower = false;
            }
            else
            {
                lastIsLower = true;
            }
            sb[len] = current;

            len++;
        }

        return new string(sb, 0, len);
    }