Capitalize first letter of each word in a selection using Vim
RegexVimReplaceFindCapitalizeRegex Problem Overview
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?
Regex Solutions
Solution 1 - Regex
You can use the following substitution:
s/\<./\u&/g
\<matches the start of a word.matches the first character of a word\utells Vim to uppercase the following character in the substitution string(&)&means substitute whatever was matched on the left-hand sidegmeans substitute all matches, not only the first
Solution 2 - Regex
: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 "()".
Solution 3 - Regex
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.
Solution 4 - Regex
Try This regex ..
s/ \w/ \u&/g
Solution 5 - Regex
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
Solution 6 - Regex
There is also the very useful vim-titlecase plugin for this.
Solution 7 - Regex
To restrict the modification to the visual selection we have to use something like:
:'<,'>s/\%V\<.\%V/\u&/g
\%V ............... see help for this
Solution 8 - Regex
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>