only uppercase first character?


 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting only uppercase first character?
# 1  
Old 05-22-2007
only uppercase first character?

should be a simple question, I am trying to uppercase every first character in a word on the list.

abc
google
cnn
services

My first thought was sed 'y/^[a-z]/^[A-Z]/', but it changed all the characters, not just the first character.

any thoughts?
# 2  
Old 05-22-2007
Code:
## Following extract the first initial character only:
sed 's/\(.\).*/\1/' input_file > $$FirstChar

## Following extract from the second character on:
sed 's/.\(.*\)/\1/' input_file > $$OtherChars

## Following changes the first character to upper case:
tr '[a-z]' '[A-Z]' < $$FirstChar > $$UpperChar

## Following paste together the upper case character and
## the other characters:
paste -d'\0' $$UpperChar $$OtherChars

## Following removes temporary files:
rm -f $$*

# 3  
Old 05-22-2007
if you have python here's an alternative:
Code:
# echo "astring"  | python -c "print raw_input().capitalize()"
Astring

# 4  
Old 05-22-2007
Code:
ex - infile<<!
%s/^./\u&/|x
!

# 5  
Old 05-23-2007
Hi.

Also in perl:
Code:
#!/bin/sh

# @(#) s1       Demonstrate quickie perl for uppercase first character.

FILE=${1-data1}

perl -wp -e '$_ = ucfirst' $FILE

exit 0

run on your sample in file data1 produces:
Code:
% ./s1
Abc
Google
Cnn
Services

cheers, drl
# 6  
Old 05-23-2007
A more general version for one or more words on a line:

Code:
awk '{ for ( i=1; i <= NF; i++) 
           {   sub(".", substr(toupper($i),1,1) , $i)  }  
            print }' file

use nawk/gawk/mawk as appropriate if awk doesn't work
# 7  
Old 09-26-2008
Upcase each word in a file with sed

This is with GNU sed:

Code:
cat bla.txt | sed 's/\([a-z]\)\([a-zA-Z0-9]*\)/\u\1\2/g'

Login or Register to Ask a Question

Previous Thread | Next Thread

10 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. Shell Programming and Scripting

Uppercase to lowercase

Hello, I have a list of files in a directory whose names are all in uppercasse, including the file format for eg *.MP3 . I would like to convert these to the normal way we write it ie ABC.MP3 to be converted to Abc.mp3 . I know that this can be done manually by using a lot of "mv" or rename... (6 Replies)
Discussion started by: ajayram
6 Replies

2. Shell Programming and Scripting

making the first character of word using uppercase using awk and sed

I want to make the first character of some words to be uppercase. I have a file like the one below. uid,givenname,sn,cn,mail,telephonenumber mattj,matt,johnson,matt johnson,mattj@gmail.com markv,mark,vennet,matt s vennet,markv@gmail.com mikea,mike,austi,mike austin,mike@gmail.com I want... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: matt12
3 Replies

3. Shell Programming and Scripting

Make the first character uppercase

Input: hello world monkey Output should be: Hello World Monkey How can it be done with perl,sed,awk or bash? (9 Replies)
Discussion started by: cola
9 Replies

4. Shell Programming and Scripting

Change to uppercase

Hi I have a string(can be mix of upper and lower case) and need the first three chars of the string to be converted to uppercase (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: Northpole
4 Replies

5. Shell Programming and Scripting

Uppercase/lowercase comparison of one character per line with awk??

Another frustrating scripting problem from a biologist trying to manipulate a file with several millions line. For each of the line I need to compare the uppercase A or C or G or T with the lowercase a or c or g or t. If there are more uppercases, a + should be added to a new column, otherwise a -... (10 Replies)
Discussion started by: ivpz
10 Replies

6. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

UPPERCASE to lowercase

Hi All, i have a file and i want to convert all uppercase letters to lowercase letters which are in my file. how can i do this. Thanx (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: temhem
3 Replies

7. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

uppercase to lowercase

i have no variable and no file i just want to convert AJIT to ajit with some command in UNIX can anybody help (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: ajit.yadav83
4 Replies

8. AIX

Lowercase to Uppercase

Inside a script I have 2 variables COMP=cy and PT=t. further down the same script I require at the same line to call those 2 variables the first time uppercase and after lowercase ${COMP}${PT}ACE,${COMP}${PT}ace. Can somebody help me Thanks in advance George Govotsis (7 Replies)
Discussion started by: ggovotsis
7 Replies

9. Shell Programming and Scripting

Conversion to uppercase - tr

Hi, I am trying to convert the $i in loop from lower to upper case but getting error like ' awk: 0602-502 The statement cannot be correctly parsed. The source line is 1.' .. Requirement: I have many table in script XXX.sql which starting with 'ABC_','AbC_','aBc_' etc.. same thing for table... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: subrat
2 Replies

10. Shell Programming and Scripting

Converting to Uppercase

I want to convert string into uppercase string. How can i do that ? Ex: Enter the user name: read name show=upper(name) echo $show --- This output should be the uppercase output. Thanks (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: dreams5617
3 Replies
Login or Register to Ask a Question