i dont know where anyone would use this but ill put it here anyway.
its a function that i wrote thought i’d share,
that returns a string with the first letter of every word capitalized, without the use of additional tools
set thisString to "THIS STRING WILL COME BACK WITH THE FIRST LETTER OF EVERY WORD BEING A CAPITAL AND THE REST WILL BE UPPER CASE"
CapitalizeFirstLetter_ofEveryWord(thisString)
on CapitalizeFirstLetter_ofEveryWord(InputString)
set TheString to do shell script "echo " & InputString & " | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'"
set wordsofTheString to words of TheString as list
set TotalCount to count of wordsofTheString
set theCount to 1
repeat until theCount is greater than TotalCount
set theWord to item theCount of wordsofTheString
set theChars to characters of theWord as list
set Capital to item 1 of theChars
set item 1 of theChars to do shell script "echo " & Capital & " | tr '[a-z]' '[A-Z]'"
if theCount is less than TotalCount then
set theWord to (theChars as string) & " "
else
set theWord to (theChars as string)
end if
set item theCount of wordsofTheString to theWord
set theCount to theCount + 1
end repeat
set TheString to wordsofTheString as string
return TheString
end CapitalizeFirstLetter_ofEveryWord
If you’re going to use Do Shell Script, you could also do it this way:
set thisString to "THIS STRING WILL COME BACK WITH THE FIRST LETTER OF EVERY WORD BEING A CAPITAL AND THE REST WILL BE LOWER CASE"
CapitalizeFirstLetter_ofEveryWord(thisString)
on CapitalizeFirstLetter_ofEveryWord(InputString)
set newString to ""
repeat with currentWord in (every word of InputString)
do shell script "ruby -e 'puts \"" & currentWord & "\".capitalize'"
set newString to newString & result & " "
end repeat
return (characters 1 through -2 of newString as text)
end CapitalizeFirstLetter_ofEveryWord
Model: Mac mini
AppleScript: 1.10
Browser: Safari 412
Operating System: Mac OS X (10.4)
Here’s a version that works properly (i.e. won’t drop all non-alphabetic characters as the above examples do) and is unicode-aware:
on titlecase(txt)
return do shell script "python -c \"import sys; print unicode(sys.argv[1], 'utf8').title().encode('utf8')\" " & quoted form of txt
end titlecase
Like most ‘do shell script’-based solutions it passes the input data on the command line, so the size of text it can process is limited. But it should be adequate for most tasks.
Evolved from Apple’s ‘Change Case of Item Names.scpt’ - part of the Finder scripts.
You have the option of UPPER, lower, Title or Sentence cases.
Accepts non-alphabetic characters.
Edit: Added illegal case error code (if this_case was not UPPER, lower or Title, it was counted as Sentence).
Edit 2: Now only uses capital when case is title if the current character is whitespace. (X-ray and Don’t as opposed to X-Ray and Don’T)
property lower_alphabet : "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"
property upper_alphabet : "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"
property white_space : {space, tab, return, ASCII character 10, ASCII character 13}
set this_string to "THIS STRING WILL COME BACK WITH THE FIRST LETTER OF EVERY WORD BEING A CAPITAL AND THE REST WILL BE LOWER CASE. Text containing punctuation: x-ray, don't."
get change_case(this_string, "Title")
on change_case(this_text, this_case)
set new_text to ""
if this_case is not in {"UPPER", "lower", "Title", "Sentence"} then
return "Error: Case must be UPPER, lower, Title or Sentence"
end if
if this_case is "lower" then
set use_capital to false
else
set use_capital to true
end if
repeat with this_char in this_text
set x to offset of this_char in lower_alphabet
if x is not 0 then
if use_capital then
set new_text to new_text & character x of upper_alphabet as string
if this_case is not "UPPER" then
set use_capital to false
end if
else
set new_text to new_text & character x of lower_alphabet as string
end if
else
if this_case is "Title" and this_char is in white_space then
set use_capital to true
end if
set new_text to new_text & this_char as string
end if
end repeat
return new_text
end change_case
I tried Querty Denzel’s version of the script, and it doesn’t seem to work for Sentence case - subsequent sentences are not initially capitalized. What I have below seems to work, but I’m no applescript wizard, so it’s probably not pretty.
property lowerAlphabet : "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"
property upperAlphabet : "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"
-- includes ¿ and ¡
property whiteSpace : {space, tab, return, ASCII character 10, ASCII character 13, ASCII character 168, ASCII character 173}
-- includes !, ., ;, ?, ¿, and ¡
property sentencePunctuation : {ASCII character 33, ASCII character 46, ASCII character 59, ASCII character 63, ASCII character 168, ASCII character 173}
set thisString to "THIS STRING WILL COME BACK WITH THE FIRST LETTER OF EVERY SENTENCE BEING A CAPITAL AND THE REST WILL BE LOWER CASE. text containing punctuation: x-ray, don't. ¡ole! yay."
get changeCase(thisString, "Sentence")
on changeCase(thisText, thisCase)
set newText to ""
if thisCase is not in {"UPPER", "lower", "Title", "Sentence"} then
return "Error: Case must be UPPER, lower, Title or Sentence"
end if
if thisCase is "lower" then
set useCapital to false
else
set useCapital to true
end if
repeat with thisChar in thisText
set x to offset of thisChar in lowerAlphabet
if x is not 0 then
if useCapital then
set newText to newText & character x of upperAlphabet as string
if thisCase is not "UPPER" then
set useCapital to false
end if
else
set newText to newText & character x of lowerAlphabet as string
end if
else
if thisCase is "Title" and thisChar is in whiteSpace then
set useCapital to true
else if thisCase is "Sentence" and ((thisChar is in sentencePunctuation) or (lastChar is in sentencePunctuation)) then
set useCapital to true
end if
set newText to newText & thisChar as string
end if
set lastChar to thisChar
end repeat
return newText
end changeCase
I adopted this handler some time ago, as it considerably reduced the number of handlers in my text library.
Then I started getting errors…
They were caused by strings starting with a numeral. This gets you offset = 0, so control passes to the else clause in the repeat, where it encounters an undefined lastChar variable.This is my fix:
.
set lastChar to ""-- ADDED
repeat with thisChar in thisText
.
This is a modern version of the script with help of AppleScriptObjC
use AppleScript version "2.5"
use framework "Foundation"
use scripting additions
set sampleString to "THIS STRING WILL COME BACK WITH THE FIRST LETTER OF EVERY WORD BEING A CAPITAL AND THE REST WILL BE LOWER CASE. Text containing punctuation: x-ray, don't."
get changeCase(sampleString, "Sentence")
on changeCase(theText, mode)
if mode is not in {"UPPER", "lower", "Title", "Sentence"} then
return "Error: Case must be UPPER, lower, Title or Sentence"
end if
set cocoaString to current application's NSMutableString's stringWithString:theText
if mode is "UPPER" then
return cocoaString's uppercaseString() as text
else if mode = "lower" then
return cocoaString's lowercaseString() as text
else if mode = "title" then
return cocoaString's capitalizedString() as text
else
set cocoaString to cocoaString's lowercaseString()
set startOfSentence to true
set whiteSpaceCharacterSet to current application's NSCharacterSet's whitespaceAndNewlineCharacterSet()
repeat with i from 0 to (cocoaString's |length|()) - 1
set charRange to {location:i, |length|:1}
set aChar to (cocoaString's substringWithRange:charRange)
if startOfSentence then
set unichar to (cocoaString's characterAtIndex:i)
if ((whiteSpaceCharacterSet's characterIsMember:unichar) as boolean) is false then
(cocoaString's replaceCharactersInRange:charRange withString:(aChar's uppercaseString()))
set startOfSentence to false
end if
else if aChar as text is "." then
set startOfSentence to true
end if
end repeat
return cocoaString as text
end if
end changeCase
