SQL Server: Make all UPPER case to Proper Case/Title Case

Question

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?

Tomalak_18771 · Answer

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

Galwegian_3201 · Answer

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.

Greg_Beech_13552 · Answer

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.

user_3931046 · Answer

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

user_4659442 · Answer

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's into St Elizabeth's
o'keefe into O'Keefe
o'sullivan into O'Sullivan

Others' comments that different solutions are preferable for non-English input remain the case.

Nathan_3769 · Answer

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

user_220997 · Answer

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

user_2125444 · Answer

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

user_4205675 · Answer

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

user_16219 · Answer

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

Toybuilder_22329 · Answer

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...

user_60385 · Answer

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

user_897184 · Answer

Just learned about InitCap().

Here is some sample code:

SELECT ID
      ,InitCap(LastName ||', '|| FirstName ||' '|| Nvl(MiddleName,'')) AS RecipientName
FROM SomeTable

user_10127962 · Answer

This worked in SSMS:

Select Jobtitle,
concat(Upper(LEFT(jobtitle,1)), SUBSTRING(jobtitle,2,LEN(jobtitle))) as Propercase
From [HumanResources].[Employee]

user_81010 · Answer

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

user_7537658 · Answer

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

user_4731066 · Answer

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.

SQL Server: Make all UPPER case to Proper Case/Title Case

24 Answers

Example

This function has worked for me