Question

Is there a function built into Java that capitalizes the first character of each word in a String, and does not affect the others?

Examples:

• jon skeet -> Jon Skeet
• miles o'Brien -> Miles O'Brien (B remains capital, this rules out Title Case)
• old mcdonald -> Old Mcdonald*

*(Old McDonald would be find too, but I don’t expect it to be THAT smart.)

A quick look at the Java String Documentation reveals only toUpperCase() and toLowerCase(), which of course do not provide the desired behavior. Naturally, Google results are dominated by those two functions. It seems like a wheel that must have been invented already, so it couldn’t hurt to ask so I can use it in the future.

Answer 1

WordUtils.capitalize(str) (from apache commons-text)

(Note: if you need "fOO BAr" to become "Foo Bar", then use capitalizeFully(..) instead)