uppercase first character in a variable with bash - bash

Question

I want to uppercase just the first character in my string with bash.
foo="bar";
//uppercase first character
echo $foo;
should print "Bar";

Answer 1

One way with bash (version 4+):
foo=bar
echo "${foo^}"
prints:
Bar

Answer 2

foo="$(tr '[:lower:]' '[:upper:]' <<< ${foo:0:1})${foo:1}"

Answer 3

One way with sed:
echo "$(echo "$foo" | sed 's/.*/\u&/')"
Prints:
Bar

Answer 4

$ foo="bar";
$ foo=`echo ${foo:0:1} | tr '[a-z]' '[A-Z]'`${foo:1}
$ echo $foo
Bar

Answer 5

To capitalize first word only:
foo='one two three'
foo="${foo^}"
echo $foo
One two three
To capitalize every word in the variable:
foo="one two three"
foo=( $foo ) # without quotes
foo="${foo[#]^}"
echo $foo
One Two Three
(works in bash 4+)

Answer 6

Using awk only
foo="uNcapItalizedstrIng"
echo $foo | awk '{print toupper(substr($0,0,1))tolower(substr($0,2))}'

Answer 7

Here is the "native" text tools way:
#!/bin/bash
string="abcd"
first=`echo $string|cut -c1|tr [a-z] [A-Z]`
second=`echo $string|cut -c2-`
echo $first$second

Answer 8

just for fun here you are :
foo="bar";
echo $foo | awk '{$1=toupper(substr($1,0,1))substr($1,2)}1'
# or
echo ${foo^}
# or
echo $foo | head -c 1 | tr [a-z] [A-Z]; echo $foo | tail -c +2
# or
echo ${foo:1} | sed -e 's/^./\B&/'

Answer 9

It can be done in pure bash with bash-3.2 as well:
# First, get the first character.
fl=${foo:0:1}
# Safety check: it must be a letter :).
if [[ ${fl} == [a-z] ]]; then
# Now, obtain its octal value using printf (builtin).
ord=$(printf '%o' "'${fl}")
# Fun fact: [a-z] maps onto 0141..0172. [A-Z] is 0101..0132.
# We can use decimal '- 40' to get the expected result!
ord=$(( ord - 40 ))
# Finally, map the new value back to a character.
fl=$(printf '%b' '\'${ord})
fi
echo "${fl}${foo:1}"

Answer 10

This works too...
FooBar=baz
echo ${FooBar^^${FooBar:0:1}}
=> Baz
FooBar=baz
echo ${FooBar^^${FooBar:1:1}}
=> bAz
FooBar=baz
echo ${FooBar^^${FooBar:2:2}}
=> baZ
And so on.
Sources:
Bash Manual: Shell Parameter Expansion
Full Bash Guide: Parameters
Bash Hacker's Wiki Parameter Expansion
Inroductions/Tutorials:
Cyberciti.biz: 8. Convert to upper to lower case or vice versa
Opensource.com: An introduction to parameter expansion in Bash

Answer 11

This one worked for me:
Searching for all *php file in the current directory , and replace the first character of each filename to capital letter:
e.g: test.php => Test.php
for f in *php ; do mv "$f" "$(\sed 's/.*/\u&/' <<< "$f")" ; done

Answer 12

Alternative and clean solution for both Linux and OSX, it can also be used with bash variables
python -c "print(\"abc\".capitalize())"
returns Abc

Answer 13

This is POSIX sh-compatible as far as I know.
upper_first.sh:
#!/bin/sh
printf "$1" | cut -c1 -z | tr -d '\0' | tr [:lower:] [:upper:]
printf "$1" | cut -c2-
cut -c1 -z ends the first string with \0 instead of \n. It gets removed with tr -d '\0'. It also works to omit the -z and use tr -d '\n' instead, but this breaks if the first character of the string is a newline.
Usage:
$ upper_first.sh foo
Foo
$
In a function:
#!/bin/sh
function upper_first ()
{
printf "$1" | cut -c1 -z | tr -d '\0' | tr [:lower:] [:upper:]
printf "$1" | cut -c2-
}
old="foo"
new="$(upper_first "$old")"
echo "$new"

Answer 14

Posix compliant and with less sub-processes:
v="foo[Bar]"
printf "%s" "${v%"${v#?}"}" | tr '[:lower:]' '[:upper:]' && printf "%s" "${v#?}"
==> Foo[Bar]

Answer 15

first-letter-to-lower () {
str=""
space=" "
for i in $#
do
if [ -z $(echo $i | grep "the\|of\|with" ) ]
then
str=$str"$(echo ${i:0:1} | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]')${i:1}$space"
else
str=$str${i}$space
fi
done
echo $str
}
first-letter-to-upper-xc () {
v-first-letter-to-upper | xclip -selection clipboard
}
first-letter-to-upper () {
str=""
space=" "
for i in $#
do
if [ -z $(echo $i | grep "the\|of\|with" ) ]
then
str=$str"$(echo ${i:0:1} | tr '[a-z]' '[A-Z]')${i:1}$space"
else
str=$str${i}$space
fi
done
echo $str
}
first-letter-to-lower-xc(){
v-first-letter-to-lower | xclip -selection clipboard
}

Answer 16

Not exactly what asked but quite helpful
declare -u foo #When the variable is assigned a value, all lower-case characters are converted to upper-case.
foo=bar
echo $foo
BAR
And the opposite
declare -l foo #When the variable is assigned a value, all upper-case characters are converted to lower-case.
foo=BAR
echo $foo
bar

Answer 17

What if the first character is not a letter (but a tab, a space, and a escaped double quote)? We'd better test it until we find a letter! So:
S=' \"ó foo bar\"'
N=0
until [[ ${S:$N:1} =~ [[:alpha:]] ]]; do N=$[$N+1]; done
#F=`echo ${S:$N:1} | tr [:lower:] [:upper:]`
#F=`echo ${S:$N:1} | sed -E -e 's/./\u&/'` #other option
F=`echo ${S:$N:1}
F=`echo ${F} #pure Bash solution to "upper"
echo "$F"${S:(($N+1))} #without garbage
echo '='${S:0:(($N))}"$F"${S:(($N+1))}'=' #garbage preserved
Foo bar
= \"Foo bar=