CODEWITHSUNDEEP
regexvimreplacefindcapitalize
keelar
keelar

Reputation: 6026

Capitalize first letter of each word in a selection using Vim

In Vim, I know we can use ~ to capitalize a single char (as mentioned in this question), but is there a way to capitalize the first letter of each word in a selection using Vim?

For example, if I would like to change this

hello world from stack overflow

to

Hello World From Stack Overflow

how should I do it in Vim?

Upvotes: 128

Views: 57312

Answers (9)

chipfall
chipfall

Reputation: 360

The fastest way to do what you want on a random string and retain some control of words that you generally do not want capitalized (eg: articles like of/and) is to use ~ to change the case of the first word and then w. to select and change each word in turn, bearing in mind you can skip the . (repeat char) if you don't want to capitalize a particular word.

Upvotes: 1

ernix
ernix

Reputation: 3653

:help case says:

To turn one line into title caps, make every first letter of a word
uppercase:
    : s/\v<(.)(\w*)/\u\1\L\2/g

Explanation:

:                      # Enter ex command line mode.

space                  # The space after the colon means that there is no
                       # address range i.e. line,line or % for entire
                       # file.

s/pattern/result/g     # The overall search and replace command uses
                       # forward slashes.  The g means to apply the
                       # change to every thing on the line. If there
                       # g is missing, then change just the first match
                       # is changed.

The pattern portion has this meaning:

\v                     # Means to enter very magic mode.
<                      # Find the beginning of a word boundary.
(.)                    # The first () construct is a capture group.
                       # Inside the () a single ., dot, means match any
                       #  character.
(\w*)                  # The second () capture group contains \w*. This
                       # means find one or more word characters. \w* is
                       # shorthand for [a-zA-Z0-9_].

The result or replacement portion has this meaning:

\u                     # Means to uppercase the following character.
\1                     # Each () capture group is assigned a number
                       # from 1 to 9. \1 or back slash one says use what
                       # I captured in the first capture group.
\L                     # Means to lowercase all the following characters.
\2                     # Use the second capture group

Result:

ROPER STATE PARK
Roper State Park

An alternate to the very magic mode:

: % s/\<\(.\)\(\w*\)/\u\1\L\2/g
# Each capture group requires a backslash to enable their meta
# character meaning i.e. "\(\)" versus "()".

Upvotes: 77

Rohit Jain
Rohit Jain

Reputation: 213411

You can use the following substitution:

s/\<./\u&/g
  • \< matches the start of a word
  • . matches the first character of a word
  • \u tells Vim to uppercase the following character in the substitution string (&)
  • & means substitute whatever was matched on the left-hand side
  • g means substitute all matches, not only the first

Upvotes: 253

aggu
aggu

Reputation: 123

The following mapping causes g~ to "title case" selected text:

vnoremap g~ "tc<C-r>=substitute(@t, '\v<(.)(\S*)', '\u\1\L\2', 'g')<CR><Esc>

Upvotes: 0

SergioAraujo
SergioAraujo

Reputation: 11840

To restrict the modification to the visual selection we have to use something like:

:'<,'>s/\%V\<.\%V/\u&/g

\%V ............... see help for this

Upvotes: 1

Michael
Michael

Reputation: 41

Option 1. -- This mapping maps the key q to capitalize the letter at the cursor position, and then it moves to the start of the next word:

:map q gUlw

To use this, put the cursor at the start of the line and hit q once for each word to capitalize the first letter. If you want to leave the first letter the way it is, hit w instead to move to the next word.

Option 2. -- This mappings maps the key q to invert the case of the letter at the cursor position, and then it moves to the start of the next word:

:map q ~w

To use this, put the cursor at the start of the line hit q once for each word to invert the case of the first letter. If you want to leave the first letter the way it is, hit w instead to move to the next word.

Unmap mapping. -- To unmap (delete) the mapping assigned to the q key:

:unmap q

Upvotes: 4

Serge Stroobandt
Serge Stroobandt

Reputation: 31658

There is also the very useful vim-titlecase plugin for this.

Upvotes: 2

Ingo Karkat
Ingo Karkat

Reputation: 172788

The Vim Tips Wiki has a TwiddleCase mapping that toggles the visual selection to lower case, UPPER CASE, and Title Case.

If you add the TwiddleCase function to your .vimrc, then you just visually select the desired text and press the tilde character ~ to cycle through each case.

Upvotes: 16

Krishna
Krishna

Reputation: 381

Try This regex ..

s/ \w/ \u&/g

Upvotes: 2

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