Capitalize string except for conjunctions and prepositions

Question

I am using the code below to make a string have capitalization for the first letter in each word. I would like to take this a step further, and only capitalize all words that are not prepositions, or conjunctions (the, and, an, as, to) etc. Is this possible in classic ASP?

Convert this:

this is the best website on the web

To this:

This is the Best Website on the Web

I would think this is possible with RegEx, but I don't have a clue on where to start with that. Any help is appreciated.

queryForHTML = capCase(queryForHTML,true)

Answer 1

You could use a HashSet(Of String) to store those exceptional words. Then split by white-space to get all words in a string, check whether you need to upper- or lowercase the first letter and use string.Join to create a new string.

Here is a method that does it:

Private Shared ReadOnly CapCaseExceptions As New HashSet(Of String)(StringComparer.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase) From {
    "the", "and", "an", "as", "to", "is", "on"
} ' etc.

Public Shared Function CapCase(input As String) As String
    Dim words = From w In input.Split()
                Let word = If(CapCaseExceptions.Contains(w),
                              Char.ToLower(w(0)) + w.Substring(1),
                              Char.ToUpper(w(0)) + w.Substring(1))
                Select word
    Return String.Join(" ", words)
End Function

Your sample input:

Dim input As String = "This Is The Best Webite On The Web"
Console.Write(CapCase(input)) ' This is the Best Webite on the Web

Edit: i'm not familiar with classic ASP, so i don't know if it helps.

Answer 2

There isn't anything built into classic ASP that is going to do this for you.

The only option I can think of is to build a dictionary of words that should not be capitalized and modify your code not to include those words.

Answer 3

This is my first idea. I'm sure you are able to improve that.

<%

    xText = "This Is The Best Website On The Web"    

    xTextSplit = split(xText, " ")

    for each item in xTextSplit

        xWord = item

        if lcase(item) = "the" or lcase(item) = "and" or lcase(item) = "an" or lcase(item) = "as" or lcase(item) = "to" or lcase(item) = "is" or lcase(item) = "on" then
            xWord = lcase(item)
        end if

        xCompleteWord = xCompleteWord &" "& xWord
    next

    response.write xCompleteWord
%>

Output: This is the Best Website on the Web

Edit: You can use CSS to capitalize the words as well (Note this will capitalize every word in lower case)

<div style="text-transform: capitalize;"><%=lcase(xCompleteWord)%></div>