Make string title case using ucfirst

Question

I'm probably missing something really obvious.

While converting a bunch of string before inserting them in a array I noticed some string where different among each other because of first char being uppercase or not. I decided then to use ucfirst to make first character uppercase but it seems it doesn't work properly, I have had a look around on the web trying to figure out why this is happening but I had no luck.

$produtto = 'APPLE';
echo ucfirst($produtto);
//output: APPLE

If I use instead mb_convert_case

$produtto = 'APPLE';
echo mb_convert_case($produtto, MB_CASE_TITLE, "UTF-8");
//Output: Apple

Answer 1

ucfirst() only looks at the first character so you should convert to lowercase first.

Use this:

$produtto = 'APPLE';
echo ucfirst(strtolower($produtto));
//output: Apple

Answer 2

In the first case I assume you would first need to turn them lowercase with strtolower, and then use ucfirst on the string.

Answer 3

read the manual! APPLE = uppercase.. so ucfirst does nothing.

www.php.net/ucfirst

$foo = 'hello world!';
$foo = ucfirst($foo);             // Hello world!

$bar = 'HELLO WORLD!';
$bar = ucfirst($bar);             // HELLO WORLD!
$bar = ucfirst(strtolower($bar)); // Hello world!

Answer 4

http://php.net/manual/en/function.mb-convert-case.php

MB_CASE_TITLE is not the same as ucfirst(). ucfirst is only interested in the first character. MB_CASE_TITLE is about the whole string and making it an initial capital string.