Capitalize words in string

function capitalize(s){
    return s.toLowerCase().replace( /\b./g, function(a){ return a.toUpperCase(); } );
};

capitalize('this IS THE wOrst string eVeR');

output: "This Is The Worst String Ever"

Update:

It appears this solution supersedes mine: https://stackoverflow.com/a/7592235/104380

A simple, straightforward (non-regex) solution:

const capitalizeFirstLetter = s => 
  s.split(' ').map(w => w.charAt(0).toUpperCase() + w.slice(1)).join(' ')

1. Break the string into words Array (by space delimiter)
2. Break each word to first character + rest of characters in the word
3. The first letter is transformed to uppercase, and the rest remains as-is
4. Joins back the Array into a string with spaces

Ivo's answer is good, but I prefer to not match on \w because there's no need to capitalize 0-9 and A-Z. We can ignore those and only match on a-z.

'your string'.replace(/\b[a-z]/g, match => match.toUpperCase())
// => 'Your String'

It's the same output, but I think clearer in terms of self-documenting code.

Since everyone has given you the JavaScript answer you've asked for, I'll throw in that the CSS property text-transform: capitalize will do exactly this.

I realize this might not be what you're asking for - you haven't given us any of the context in which you're running this - but if it's just for presentation, I'd definitely go with the CSS alternative.

Using JavaScript and html

String.prototype.capitalize = function() {
  return this.replace(/(^|\s)([a-z])/g, function(m, p1, p2) {
    return p1 + p2.toUpperCase();
  });
};

<form name="form1" method="post">
  <input name="instring" type="text" value="this is the text string" size="30">
  <input type="button" name="Capitalize" value="Capitalize >>" onclick="form1.outstring.value=form1.instring.value.capitalize();">
  <input name="outstring" type="text" value="" size="30">
</form>

Basically, you can do string.capitalize() and it'll capitalize every 1st letter of each word.

Source: http://www.mediacollege.com/internet/javascript/text/case-capitalize.html

John Resig (of jQuery fame ) ported a perl script, written by John Gruber, to JavaScript. This script capitalizes in a more intelligent way, it doesn't capitalize small words like 'of' and 'and' for example.

You can find it here: Title Capitalization in JavaScript

This should cover most basic use cases.

const capitalize = (str) => {
    if (typeof str !== 'string') {
      throw Error('Feed me string')
    } else if (!str) {
      return ''
    } else {
      return str
        .split(' ')
        .map(s => {
            if (s.length == 1 ) {
                return s.toUpperCase()
            } else {
                const firstLetter = s.split('')[0].toUpperCase()
                const restOfStr = s.substr(1, s.length).toLowerCase()
                return firstLetter + restOfStr
            }     
        })
        .join(' ')
    }
}


capitalize('THIS IS A BOOK') // => This Is A Book
capitalize('this is a book') // => This Is A Book
capitalize('a 2nd 5 hour boOk thIs weEk') // => A 2nd 5 Hour Book This Week

Edit: Improved readability of mapping.

This solution dose not use regex, supports accented characters and also supported by almost every browser.

function capitalizeIt(str) {
    if (str && typeof(str) === "string") {
        str = str.split(" ");    
        for (var i = 0, x = str.length; i < x; i++) {
            if (str[i]) {
                str[i] = str[i][0].toUpperCase() + str[i].substr(1);
            }
        }
        return str.join(" ");
    } else {
        return str;
    }
}    

Usage:

console.log(capitalizeIt('çao 2nd inside Javascript programme'));

Output:

Çao 2nd Inside Javascript Programme

http://www.mediacollege.com/internet/javascript/text/case-capitalize.html is one of many answers out there.

Google can be all you need for such problems.

A naïve approach would be to split the string by whitespace, capitalize the first letter of each element of the resulting array and join it back together. This leaves existing capitalization alone (e.g. HTML stays HTML and doesn't become something silly like Html). If you don't want that affect, turn the entire string into lowercase before splitting it up.

You can use the following to capitalize words in a string:

function capitalizeAll(str){

    var partes = str.split(' ');

    var nuevoStr = ""; 

    for(i=0; i<partes.length; i++){
    nuevoStr += " "+partes[i].toLowerCase().replace(/\b\w/g, l => l.toUpperCase()).trim(); 
    }    

    return nuevoStr;

}

There's also locutus: https://locutus.io/php/strings/ucwords/ which defines it this way:

function ucwords(str) {
  //  discuss at: http://locutus.io/php/ucwords/
  // original by: Jonas Raoni Soares Silva (http://www.jsfromhell.com)
  // improved by: Waldo Malqui Silva (http://waldo.malqui.info)
  // improved by: Robin
  // improved by: Kevin van Zonneveld (http://kvz.io)
  // bugfixed by: Onno Marsman (https://twitter.com/onnomarsman)
  // bugfixed by: Cetvertacov Alexandr (https://github.com/cetver)
  //    input by: James (http://www.james-bell.co.uk/)
  //   example 1: ucwords('kevin van  zonneveld')
  //   returns 1: 'Kevin Van  Zonneveld'
  //   example 2: ucwords('HELLO WORLD')
  //   returns 2: 'HELLO WORLD'
  //   example 3: ucwords('у мэри был маленький ягненок и она его очень любила')
  //   returns 3: 'У Мэри Был Маленький Ягненок И Она Его Очень Любила'
  //   example 4: ucwords('τάχιστη αλώπηξ βαφής ψημένη γη, δρασκελίζει υπέρ νωθρού κυνός')
  //   returns 4: 'Τάχιστη Αλώπηξ Βαφής Ψημένη Γη, Δρασκελίζει Υπέρ Νωθρού Κυνός'

  return (str + '').replace(/^(.)|\s+(.)/g, function ($1) {
    return $1.toUpperCase();
  });
};

I would use regex for this purpose:

myString = '  this Is my sTring.  ';
myString.trim().toLowerCase().replace(/\w\S*/g, (w) => (w.replace(/^\w/, (c) => c.toUpperCase())));