Capitalization Function (expert coders can most likely answer this easily)

[decodv]

I'm writing a function that capitalizes the first letter of a given word. I've done it successfully with the function below. However, it only works on a web page using either -- echo $chars[$i]; -- or -- print $chars[$i]; --.

My problem is I'm trying to use the output in an email that's generated by the script. For this, using "echo" or "print" doesn't work, the function just will not display the output. I did find that if you use -- return $chars[$i]; -- you can get the first letter of the word to appear in the email. But I have no clue how to get the rest of the word to show. What command or bit of code do I need to use?

I've been working on this all night with no answers. I just do not know what to look for.

If you can help, please do. I would truly appreciate it.

 function captopic($topic="")
  {
   $chars = preg_split('//', $topic, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);
   $char_count=count($chars);     
   $chars[0] = str_replace("a", "A", $chars[0]);
   $chars[0] = str_replace("b", "B", $chars[0]);
   $chars[0] = str_replace("c", "C", $chars[0]);
   $chars[0] = str_replace("d", "D", $chars[0]);
   $chars[0] = str_replace("e", "E", $chars[0]);
   $chars[0] = str_replace("f", "F", $chars[0]);
   $chars[0] = str_replace("g", "G", $chars[0]);
   $chars[0] = str_replace("h", "H", $chars[0]);
   $chars[0] = str_replace("i", "I", $chars[0]);
   $chars[0] = str_replace("j", "J", $chars[0]);
   $chars[0] = str_replace("k", "K", $chars[0]);
   $chars[0] = str_replace("l", "L", $chars[0]);
   $chars[0] = str_replace("m", "M", $chars[0]);
   $chars[0] = str_replace("n", "N", $chars[0]);
   $chars[0] = str_replace("o", "O", $chars[0]);
   $chars[0] = str_replace("p", "P", $chars[0]);
   $chars[0] = str_replace("q", "Q", $chars[0]);
   $chars[0] = str_replace("r", "R", $chars[0]);
   $chars[0] = str_replace("s", "S", $chars[0]);
   $chars[0] = str_replace("t", "T", $chars[0]);
   $chars[0] = str_replace("u", "U", $chars[0]);
   $chars[0] = str_replace("v", "V", $chars[0]);
   $chars[0] = str_replace("w", "W", $chars[0]);
   $chars[0] = str_replace("x", "X", $chars[0]);
   $chars[0] = str_replace("y", "Y", $chars[0]);
   $chars[0] = str_replace("z", "Z", $chars[0]);
   for($i=0; $i < $char_count; $i++)
       {
        return $chars[$i];
       }
  }

captopic(books);

[drew010]

check out [man]ucfirst[/man]

[drew010]

also,,,a few other notes about php.
strings are special types and if you want to access certain letters in the string, you dont need to split up each letter as you did using preg_split. You can just do $string{0} to get the first letter.
also, the return statement, as soon as return is called, the function exits execution, so the way you are using it wont work. if you wanted to do that, you would need to concatenate a string.
for example
for ($i = 0; $i < $char_count; ++$i) {
$newstr .= $chars[$i];
}

and with calling captopic, if books is a string, it must be in "s or you will get an error unless its a defined constant.

[decodv]

Thank you, Drew! Seriously, you just elevated so much stress it's not even funny.

More or less what I was stuck on was "grabbing" the results of the for loop, out of the loop. It seems by adding a period equals (.=) and using the return outside of the loop does the trick.

for($i=0; $i < $char_count; $i++)
{
$newstr .= $chars[$i];
}
return $newstr;

Not even sure what that period equals (.=) is, "concatenate a string"?

Not in a million years would I have guessed that, let alone got it working.

So again, thank you, Drew. 😃

Chayden -

[drew010]

yes, the .= concatenates a string, it is pretty much the same as saying
$string = $string . $somechar;

the . in the case of strings just puts to together.

also to speed your function, you may consider this:

function captopic($topic) {
  return ucfirst($topic);
}

its less lines and probably a little quicker.

[decodv]

function captopic($topic) {
  return ucfirst($topic);
}

its less lines and probably a little quicker.

I'd say. Thank you. I will use it. 🆒

Chayden -