Convert to Title Case

After a long holiday break, some travel and a few training classes its time to get back in the swing of things. Today I have a relatively simple function, that if nothing else demonstrates how to use object methods. The challenge is to take a string of text and convert it into title case; so that "great expectations" becomes "Great Expectations".

To accomplish this, all I need to do is get the first letter of each string and invoke the string object's ToUpper() method. But before I can do that I need to break the title string into an array of individual words which is easily accomplished using the Split() method.
[cc lang="PowerShell"]
PS S:\> $t="gone with the wind"
PS S:\> foreach ($w in $t.split()) {$w}
gone
with
the
wind
[/cc]
Now I have to convert the first letter of each word to upper case and then append the rest of the word. I'll use the SubString() method.
[cc lang="PowerShell"]
PS S:\> foreach ($w in $t.split()) {$w.substring(0,1).ToUpper()+$w.Substring(1)}
Gone
With
The
Wind
[/cc]
I don't really like using concatenation but it works here but I still have an array. I need to tell PowerShell to treat the entire array as a single string.
[cc lang="PowerShell"]
PS S:\> [string]$title=foreach ($w in $t.split()) {$w.substring(0,1).ToUpper()+$w.Substring(1)}
PS S:\> $title
Gone With The Wind
[/cc]
The actual conversion only takes a single line of PowerShell, but I went ahead and created an advanced function called ConvertTo-TitleCase to make it easier to use.
[cc lang="PowerShell"]
Function ConvertTo-TitleCase {

<# .Synopsis Convert a string to title case. .Description Take a string and return a version in title case where each word is capitalized. .Parameter Text The string you wish to convert to title case. .Example PS C:\> ConvertTo-TitleCase "a tale of two cities"
A Tale Of Two Cities

.Notes
NAME: ConvertTo-TitleCase-
VERSION: 1.0
AUTHOR: Jeffery Hicks
LASTEDIT: 1/10/2011

Learn more with a copy of Windows PowerShell 2.0: TFM (SAPIEN Press 2010)

.Link
Http://jdhitsolutions.com/blog

.Link
Out-String

.Inputs
[string]
.Outputs
[string]

#>

[cmdletBinding()]

Param(
[Parameter(Position=0,Mandatory=$True,ValueFromPipeline=$True)]
[ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]
[string[]]$Text

)

Begin
{
Write-Verbose -Message "Starting $($myinvocation.mycommand)"

} #close Begin

Process {
ForEach ($string in $Text)
{
Write-Verbose -Message "Processing $string"

#split the string into indvidual words
$tmp=$string.Split()

#define an array to hold modified results
$out=@()
foreach ($word in $tmp)
{
#take the first letter of each word and make it upper case,
#then append the rest of the word
$out+="{0}{1}" -f $word.SubString(0,1).ToUpper(),$word.substring(1)
}

#write the results
Write-Output ($out -as [string])
}
} #close process

End
{
Write-Verbose -Message "Ending $($myinvocation.mycommand)"
} #close End

} #end Function
[/cc]
The function can be run like this:
[cc lang="PowerShell"]
PS S:\> ConvertTo-TitleCase "the wizard of oz"
The Wizard Of Oz
[/cc]
Or it can accept pipelined input.
[cc lang="PowerShell"]
PS S:\> "the shining","the stand","under the dome","the dark tower" | ConvertTo-TitleCase
The Shining
The Stand
Under The Dome
The Dark Tower
[/cc]
Download the script file ConvertTo-TitleCase.

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