SQL Server: Make all UPPER case to Proper Case/Title Case

Question

I have a table that was imported as all UPPER CASE and I would like to turn it into Proper Case. What script have any of you used to complete this?

Answer 1

Here's a UDF that will do the trick...

create function ProperCase(@Text as varchar(8000))
returns varchar(8000)
as
begin
  declare @Reset bit;
  declare @Ret varchar(8000);
  declare @i int;
  declare @c char(1);

  if @Text is null
    return null;

  select @Reset = 1, @i = 1, @Ret = '';

  while (@i <= len(@Text))
    select @c = substring(@Text, @i, 1),
      @Ret = @Ret + case when @Reset = 1 then UPPER(@c) else LOWER(@c) end,
      @Reset = case when @c like '[a-zA-Z]' then 0 else 1 end,
      @i = @i + 1
  return @Ret
end

You will still have to use it to update your data though.

Answer 2

This function:

• "Proper Cases" all "UPPER CASE" words that are delimited by white space
• leaves "lower case words" alone
• works properly even for non-English alphabets
• is portable in that it does not use fancy features of recent SQL server versions
• can be easily changed to use NCHAR and NVARCHAR for unicode support,as well as any parameter length you see fit
• white space definition can be configured

CREATE FUNCTION ToProperCase(@string VARCHAR(255)) RETURNS VARCHAR(255)
AS
BEGIN
  DECLARE @i INT           -- index
  DECLARE @l INT           -- input length
  DECLARE @c NCHAR(1)      -- current char
  DECLARE @f INT           -- first letter flag (1/0)
  DECLARE @o VARCHAR(255)  -- output string
  DECLARE @w VARCHAR(10)   -- characters considered as white space

  SET @w = '[' + CHAR(13) + CHAR(10) + CHAR(9) + CHAR(160) + ' ' + ']'
  SET @i = 1
  SET @l = LEN(@string)
  SET @f = 1
  SET @o = ''

  WHILE @i <= @l
  BEGIN
    SET @c = SUBSTRING(@string, @i, 1)
    IF @f = 1 
    BEGIN
     SET @o = @o + @c
     SET @f = 0
    END
    ELSE
    BEGIN
     SET @o = @o + LOWER(@c)
    END

    IF @c LIKE @w SET @f = 1

    SET @i = @i + 1
  END

  RETURN @o
END

Result:

dbo.ToProperCase('ALL UPPER CASE and    SOME lower ÄÄ ÖÖ ÜÜ ÉÉ ØØ ĈĈ ÆÆ')
-----------------------------------------------------------------
All Upper Case and      Some lower Ää Öö Üü Éé Øø Cc Ææ

Answer 3

UPDATE titles
  SET title =
      UPPER(LEFT(title, 1)) +
        LOWER(RIGHT(title, LEN(title) - 1))

http://sqlmag.com/t-sql/how-title-case-column-value

Answer 4

If you can enable the CLR in SQL Server (requires 2005 or later) then you could create a CLR function that uses the TextInfo.ToTitleCase built-in function which would allow you to create a culture-aware way of doing this in only a few lines of code.

Answer 5

I am a little late in the game, but I believe this is more functional and it works with any language, including Russian, German, Thai, Vietnamese etc. It will make uppercase anything after ' or - or . or ( or ) or space (obviously :).

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[fnToProperCase]( @name nvarchar(500) )
RETURNS nvarchar(500)
AS
BEGIN
declare @pos    int = 1
      , @pos2   int

if (@name <> '')--or @name = lower(@name) collate SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CS_AS or @name = upper(@name) collate SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CS_AS)
begin
    set @name = lower(rtrim(@name))
    while (1 = 1)
    begin
        set @name = stuff(@name, @pos, 1, upper(substring(@name, @pos, 1)))
        set @pos2 = patindex('%[- ''.)(]%', substring(@name, @pos, 500))
        set @pos += @pos2
        if (isnull(@pos2, 0) = 0 or @pos > len(@name))
            break
    end
end

return @name
END
GO

Answer 6

I know this is late post in this thread but, worth looking. This function works for me ever time. So thought of sharing it.

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[fnConvert_TitleCase] (@InputString VARCHAR(4000) )
RETURNS VARCHAR(4000)
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE @Index INT
DECLARE @Char CHAR(1)
DECLARE @OutputString VARCHAR(255)

SET @OutputString = LOWER(@InputString)
SET @Index = 2
SET @OutputString = STUFF(@OutputString, 1, 1,UPPER(SUBSTRING(@InputString,1,1)))

WHILE @Index <= LEN(@InputString)
BEGIN
    SET @Char = SUBSTRING(@InputString, @Index, 1)
    IF @Char IN (' ', ';', ':', '!', '?', ',', '.', '_', '-', '/', '&','''','(')
    IF @Index + 1 <= LEN(@InputString)
BEGIN
    IF @Char != ''''
    OR
    UPPER(SUBSTRING(@InputString, @Index + 1, 1)) != 'S'
    SET @OutputString =
    STUFF(@OutputString, @Index + 1, 1,UPPER(SUBSTRING(@InputString, @Index + 1, 1)))
END
    SET @Index = @Index + 1
END

RETURN ISNULL(@OutputString,'')
END

Test calls:

select dbo.fnConvert_TitleCase(Upper('ÄÄ ÖÖ ÜÜ ÉÉ ØØ ĈĈ ÆÆ')) as test
select dbo.fnConvert_TitleCase(upper('Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. – Napoleon hill')) as test

Results:

Answer 7

If you're in SSIS importing data that has mixed cased and need to do a lookup on a column with proper case, you'll notice that the lookup fails where the source is mixed and the lookup source is proper. You'll also notice you can't use the right and left functions is SSIS for SQL Server 2008r2 for derived columns. Here's a solution that works for me:

UPPER(substring(input_column_name,1,1)) + LOWER(substring(input_column_name, 2, len(input_column_name)-1))

Answer 8

The link I posted above is a great option that addresses the main issue: that we can never programmatically account for all cases (Smith-Jones, von Haussen, John Smith M.D.), at least not in an elegant manner. Tony introduces the concept of an exception / break character to deal with these cases. Anyways, building on Cervo's idea (upper all lower chars preceded by space), the replace statements could be wrapped up in a single table based replace instead. Really, any low/up character combination could be inserted into @alpha and the statement would not change:

declare @str    nvarchar(8000)
declare @alpha  table (low nchar(1), up nchar(1))


set @str = 'ALL UPPER CASE and    SOME lower ÄÄ ÖÖ ÜÜ ÉÉ ØØ ĈĈ ÆÆ'

-- stage the alpha (needs number table)
insert into @alpha
    -- A-Z / a-z
    select      nchar(n+32),
                nchar(n)
    from        dbo.Number
    where       n between 65 and 90 or
                n between 192 and 223

-- append space at start of str
set @str = lower(' ' + @str)

-- upper all lower case chars preceded by space
select  @str = replace(@str, ' ' + low, ' ' + up) 
from    @Alpha

select @str

Answer 9

Here is a version that uses a sequence or numbers table rather than a loop. You can modify the WHERE clause to suite your personal rules for when to convert a character to upper case. I have just included a simple set that will upper case any letter that is proceeded by a non-letter with the exception of apostrophes. This does how ever mean that 123apple would have a match on the "a" because "3" is not a letter. If you want just white-space (space, tab, carriage-return, line-feed), you can replace the pattern '[^a-z]' with '[' + Char(32) + Char(9) + Char(13) + Char(10) + ']'.

---

CREATE FUNCTION String.InitCap( @string nvarchar(4000) ) RETURNS nvarchar(4000) AS
BEGIN

-- 1. Convert all letters to lower case
    DECLARE @InitCap nvarchar(4000); SET @InitCap = Lower(@string);

-- 2. Using a Sequence, replace the letters that should be upper case with their upper case version
    SELECT @InitCap = Stuff( @InitCap, n, 1, Upper( SubString( @InitCap, n, 1 ) ) )
    FROM (
        SELECT (1 + n1.n + n10.n + n100.n + n1000.n) AS n
        FROM       (SELECT 0 AS n UNION SELECT    1 UNION SELECT    2 UNION SELECT    3 UNION SELECT    4 UNION SELECT    5 UNION SELECT    6 UNION SELECT    7 UNION SELECT    8 UNION SELECT    9) AS    n1
        CROSS JOIN (SELECT 0 AS n UNION SELECT   10 UNION SELECT   20 UNION SELECT   30 UNION SELECT   40 UNION SELECT   50 UNION SELECT   60 UNION SELECT   70 UNION SELECT   80 UNION SELECT   90) AS   n10
        CROSS JOIN (SELECT 0 AS n UNION SELECT  100 UNION SELECT  200 UNION SELECT  300 UNION SELECT  400 UNION SELECT  500 UNION SELECT  600 UNION SELECT  700 UNION SELECT  800 UNION SELECT  900) AS  n100
        CROSS JOIN (SELECT 0 AS n UNION SELECT 1000 UNION SELECT 2000 UNION SELECT 3000)                                                                                                             AS n1000
        ) AS Sequence
    WHERE 
        n BETWEEN 1 AND Len( @InitCap )
    AND SubString( @InitCap, n, 1 ) LIKE '[a-z]'                 /* this character is a letter */
    AND (
        n = 1                                                    /* this character is the first `character` */
        OR SubString( @InitCap, n-1, 1 ) LIKE '[^a-z]'           /* the previous character is NOT a letter */
        )
    AND (
        n < 3                                                    /* only test the 3rd or greater characters for this exception */
        OR SubString( @InitCap, n-2, 3 ) NOT LIKE '[a-z]''[a-z]' /* exception: The pattern <letter>'<letter> should not capatolize the letter following the apostrophy */
        )

-- 3. Return the modified version of the input
    RETURN @InitCap

END

Answer 10

It would make sense to maintain a lookup of exceptions to take care of The von Neumann's, McCain's, DeGuzman's, and the Johnson-Smith's.

Answer 11

I think you will find that the following is more efficient:

IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.ProperCase') IS NOT NULL
    DROP FUNCTION dbo.ProperCase
GO
CREATE FUNCTION dbo.PROPERCASE (
    @str VARCHAR(8000))
RETURNS VARCHAR(8000)
AS
BEGIN
    SET @str = ' ' + @str
    SET @str = REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE( @str, ' a', ' A'), ' b', ' B'), ' c', ' C'), ' d', ' D'), ' e', ' E'), ' f', ' F'), ' g', ' G'), ' h', ' H'), ' i', ' I'), ' j', ' J'), ' k', ' K'), ' l', ' L'), ' m', ' M'), ' n', ' N'), ' o', ' O'), ' p', ' P'), ' q', ' Q'), ' r', ' R'), ' s', ' S'), ' t', ' T'), ' u', ' U'), ' v', ' V'), ' w', ' W'), ' x', ' X'), ' y', ' Y'), ' z', ' Z')
    RETURN RIGHT(@str, LEN(@str) - 1)
END
GO

The replace statement could be cut and pasted directly into a SQL query. It is ultra ugly, however by replacing @str with the column you are interested in, you will not pay a price for an implicit cursor like you will with the udfs thus posted. I find that even using my UDF it is much more efficient.

Oh and instead of generating the replace statement by hand use this:

-- Code Generator for expression
DECLARE @x  INT,
    @c  CHAR(1),
    @sql    VARCHAR(8000)
SET @x = 0
SET @sql = '@str' -- actual variable/column you want to replace
WHILE @x < 26
BEGIN
    SET @c = CHAR(ASCII('a') + @x)
    SET @sql = 'REPLACE(' + @sql + ', '' ' + @c+  ''', '' ' + UPPER(@c) + ''')'
    SET @x = @x + 1
END
PRINT @sql

Anyway it depends on the number of rows. I wish you could just do s/\b([a-z])/uc $1/, but oh well we work with the tools we have.

NOTE you would have to use this as you would have to use it as....SELECT dbo.ProperCase(LOWER(column)) since the column is in uppercase. It actually works pretty fast on my table of 5,000 entries (not even one second) even with the lower.

In response to the flurry of comments regarding internationalization I present the following implementation that handles every ascii character relying only on SQL Server's Implementation of upper and lower. Remember, the variables we are using here are VARCHAR which means that they can only hold ASCII values. In order to use further international alphabets, you have to use NVARCHAR. The logic would be similar but you would need to use UNICODE and NCHAR in place of ASCII AND CHAR and the replace statement would be much more huge....

-- Code Generator for expression
DECLARE @x  INT,
    @c  CHAR(1),
    @sql    VARCHAR(8000),
    @count  INT
SEt @x = 0
SET @count = 0
SET @sql = '@str' -- actual variable you want to replace
WHILE @x < 256
BEGIN
    SET @c = CHAR(@x)
    -- Only generate replacement expression for characters where upper and lowercase differ
    IF @x = ASCII(LOWER(@c)) AND @x != ASCII(UPPER(@c))
    BEGIN
        SET @sql = 'REPLACE(' + @sql + ', '' ' + @c+  ''', '' ' + UPPER(@c) + ''')'
        SET @count = @count + 1
    END
    SET @x = @x + 1
END
PRINT @sql
PRINT 'Total characters substituted: ' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(255), @count)

Basically the premise of the my method is trading pre-computing for efficiency. The full ASCII implementation is as follows:

IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.ProperCase') IS NOT NULL
    DROP FUNCTION dbo.ProperCase
GO
CREATE FUNCTION dbo.PROPERCASE (
    @str VARCHAR(8000))
RETURNS VARCHAR(8000)
AS
BEGIN
    SET @str = ' ' + @str
SET @str =     REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(@str, ' a', ' A'), ' b', ' B'), ' c', ' C'), ' d', ' D'), ' e', ' E'), ' f', ' F'), ' g', ' G'), ' h', ' H'), ' i', ' I'), ' j', ' J'), ' k', ' K'), ' l', ' L'), ' m', ' M'), ' n', ' N'), ' o', ' O'), ' p', ' P'), ' q', ' Q'), ' r', ' R'), ' s', ' S'), ' t', ' T'), ' u', ' U'), ' v', ' V'), ' w', ' W'), ' x', ' X'), ' y', ' Y'), ' z', ' Z'), ' š', ' Š'), ' œ', ' Œ'), ' ž', ' Ž'), ' à', ' À'), ' á', ' Á'), ' â', ' Â'), ' ã', ' Ã'), ' ä', ' Ä'), ' å', ' Å'), ' æ', ' Æ'), ' ç', ' Ç'), ' è', ' È'), ' é', ' É'), ' ê', ' Ê'), ' ë', ' Ë'), ' ì', ' Ì'), ' í', ' Í'), ' î', ' Î'), ' ï', ' Ï'), ' ð', ' Ð'), ' ñ', ' Ñ'), ' ò', ' Ò'), ' ó', ' Ó'), ' ô', ' Ô'), ' õ', ' Õ'), ' ö', ' Ö'), ' ø', ' Ø'), ' ù', ' Ù'), ' ú', ' Ú'), ' û', ' Û'), ' ü', ' Ü'), ' ý', ' Ý'), ' þ', ' Þ'), ' ÿ', ' Ÿ')
    RETURN RIGHT(@str, LEN(@str) - 1)
END
GO

Answer 12

Is it too late to go back and get the un-uppercased data?

The von Neumann's, McCain's, DeGuzman's, and the Johnson-Smith's of your client base may not like the result of your processing...

Also, I'm guessing that this is intended to be a one-time upgrade of the data? It might be easier to export, filter/modify, and re-import the corrected names into the db, and then you can use non-SQL approaches to name fixing...

Answer 13

Here is another variation I found on the SQLTeam.com Forums @ http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=47718

create FUNCTION PROPERCASE
(
--The string to be converted to proper case
@input varchar(8000)
)
--This function returns the proper case string of varchar type
RETURNS varchar(8000)
AS
BEGIN
IF @input IS NULL
BEGIN
--Just return NULL if input string is NULL
RETURN NULL
END

--Character variable declarations
DECLARE @output varchar(8000)
--Integer variable declarations
DECLARE @ctr int, @len int, @found_at int
--Constant declarations
DECLARE @LOWER_CASE_a int, @LOWER_CASE_z int, @Delimiter char(3), @UPPER_CASE_A int, @UPPER_CASE_Z int

--Variable/Constant initializations
SET @ctr = 1
SET @len = LEN(@input)
SET @output = ''
SET @LOWER_CASE_a = 97
SET @LOWER_CASE_z = 122
SET @Delimiter = ' ,-'
SET @UPPER_CASE_A = 65
SET @UPPER_CASE_Z = 90

WHILE @ctr <= @len
BEGIN
--This loop will take care of reccuring white spaces
WHILE CHARINDEX(SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1), @Delimiter) > 0
BEGIN
SET @output = @output + SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1)
SET @ctr = @ctr + 1
END

IF ASCII(SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1)) BETWEEN @LOWER_CASE_a AND @LOWER_CASE_z
BEGIN
--Converting the first character to upper case
SET @output = @output + UPPER(SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1))
END
ELSE
BEGIN
SET @output = @output + SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1)
END

SET @ctr = @ctr + 1

WHILE CHARINDEX(SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1), @Delimiter) = 0 AND (@ctr <= @len)
BEGIN
IF ASCII(SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1)) BETWEEN @UPPER_CASE_A AND @UPPER_CASE_Z
BEGIN
SET @output = @output + LOWER(SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1))
END
ELSE
BEGIN
SET @output = @output + SUBSTRING(@input,@ctr,1)
END
SET @ctr = @ctr + 1
END

END
RETURN @output
END



GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER OFF
GO
SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO

Answer 14

I know the devil is in the detail (especially where people's personal data is concerned), and that it would be very nice to have properly capitalised names, but the above kind of hassle is why the pragmatic, time-conscious amongst us use the following:

SELECT UPPER('Put YoUR O'So oddLy casED McWeird-nAme von rightHERE here')

In my experience, people are fine seeing THEIR NAME ... even when it's half way through a sentence.

Refer to: the Russians used a pencil!

Answer 15

Just learned about InitCap().

Here is some sample code:

SELECT ID
      ,InitCap(LastName ||', '|| FirstName ||' '|| Nvl(MiddleName,'')) AS RecipientName
FROM SomeTable

Answer 16

This worked in SSMS:

Select Jobtitle,
concat(Upper(LEFT(jobtitle,1)), SUBSTRING(jobtitle,2,LEN(jobtitle))) as Propercase
From [HumanResources].[Employee]

Answer 17

Borrowed and improved on @Richard Sayakanit answer. This handles multiple words. Like his answer, this doesn't use any UDFs, only built-in functions (STRING_SPLIT and STRING_AGG) and it's pretty fast. STRING_AGG requires SQL Server 2017 but you can always use the STUFF/XML trick. Won't handle every exception but can work great for many requirements.

SELECT StateName = 'North Carolina' 
INTO #States
UNION ALL
SELECT 'Texas'


;WITH cteData AS 
(
    SELECT 
        UPPER(LEFT(value, 1)) +
            LOWER(RIGHT(value, LEN(value) - 1)) value, op.StateName
    FROM   #States op
    CROSS APPLY STRING_SPLIT(op.StateName, ' ') AS ss
)
SELECT 
    STRING_AGG(value, ' ')
FROM cteData c 
GROUP BY StateName

Answer 18

If you know all the data is just a single word here's a solution. First update the column to all lower and then run the following

    update tableName set columnName = 
    upper(SUBSTRING(columnName, 1, 1)) + substring(columnName, 2, len(columnName)) from tableName

Answer 19

A slight modification to @Galwegian's answer - which turns e.g. St Elizabeth's into St Elizabeth'S.

This modification keeps apostrophe-s as lowercase where the s comes at the end of the string provided or the s is followed by a space (and only in those circumstances).

create function properCase(@text as varchar(8000))
returns varchar(8000)
as
begin
    declare @reset int;
    declare @ret varchar(8000);
    declare @i int;
    declare @c char(1);
    declare @d char(1);

    if @text is null
    return null;

    select @reset = 1, @i = 1, @ret = '';

    while (@i <= len(@text))
    select
        @c = substring(@text, @i, 1),
        @d = substring(@text, @i+1, 1),
        @ret = @ret + case when @reset = 1 or (@reset=-1 and @c!='s') or (@reset=-1 and @c='s' and @d!=' ') then upper(@c) else lower(@c) end,
        @reset = case when @c like '[a-za-z]' then 0 when @c='''' then -1 else 1 end,
        @i = @i + 1
    return @ret
end

It turns:

• st elizabeth's into St Elizabeth's
• o'keefe into O'Keefe
• o'sullivan into O'Sullivan

Others' comments that different solutions are preferable for non-English input remain the case.