Re: Regular expression for correcting proper nouns

In article <20020717120934.90119.qmail@pb1.pair.com>, henry@teacake.f9.co.uk (Henry) wrote: > I'm looking for a simple was to correct a list of proper nouns given all in > lower case! > > For example > > given $string="london paris rome"; > > I would like "London Paris Rome". > > However there is one cavet; if the word already has a captital anywhere in > it, it should be left alone!!! > > Is there a soultion using regular expressions? Yes. The topics you'll want to look at (in the PCRE chapter of the manual) are: case-sensitivity, character classes, capturing subpatterns, and the documentation for preg_replace_callback(). One of the things you'll need to do is define for yourself what constitutes a "word" for your purposes. Does a single letter word get counted as a "word" (i.e. "i")? Is there any non-alphabet character that can validly appear within the thing you call a word (i.e. "hi-fi", "mst3k")? This is why there's no single ready-made solution. > Also is there one for removing multiple spaces? > > i..e given "A B C D E" it would give "A B C D E". Yes. Again, character classes will be your friend, as will preg_replace(). Just decide which of the whitespace characters you mean to include in that definition of "multiple spaces"... -- CC