Question

$start = true;
$new = "";
foreach($array as $val)
{
    if($start = true && $val != " ")
    {
        $start = false;
        $new .= strtoupper($val);
    }
    elseif($val == " ")
    {
        $new .= " ";
        $start = true;
    }
    else
    {
        $new .= strtolower($val);
    }
    $start = false;
}

Basically what happens is $start NEVER becomes false AND everything becomes capitalized. So it looks like the first if IS running, but for some reason NEVER SETS $start to false.

Answer 1

I cannot stress it enough: use the yoda condition

if(true == $var)

or generally:

if(CONSTANT == $VARIABLE)

and not

if($VARIABLE == CONSTANT) //which you'd wrongly type as "="

PHP would have told you what went wrong in that case – no matter how tired you are.

Looking for this bug (it happens to the best of the best too) is frustrating.

Let the tool (PHP) be supportive to you, don’t make it work against you.

That was on a more general note. As for your problem, it’s doable with a one-liner:

<?php
$array = "hEllo woRlD";

var_dump(ucwords(strtolower($array)));