Very basic... getting a name capitalized

[beginnerprog8755]

Hello,

I'm having an issue with my little program. I've been able to do variations where I can get all letters capitalized, but I can't figure out what to add to my prog that will capitalize only the first letter of a name.

Here is what I have so far:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;


int main()
{
string lowerCase;
string upperCase;
char letter;

cout << "Please enter a name " << endl;
cin >> lowerCase;


upperCase = (lowerCase[0] - 32);
cout << upperCase << endl;

system("PAUSE");
return 0;
}

[Bazzy]

(lowerCase[0] - 32) returns a character, not a string

set upperCase = lowerCase and modify the1^st character in upperCase

[QWERTYman]

You're setting the string upperCase to be just the first letter of lowerCase. One way to change this is by taking out the upperCase variable and the operation, then this:
lowerCase[0] -= 32;

A revised version of your code would be the following:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;


int main()
{
string lowerCase;

cout << "Please enter a name\n>";
cin >> lowerCase;

lowerCase[0] -= 32;
cout << lowerCase << endl;

cin.clear();
cin.sync();
cin.ignore(numeric_limits<streamsize>::max(), '\n');
return 0;
}

EDIT: Or do what Bazzy said. Bazzy's smart. :D

[beginnerprog8755]

Thank you... I was able to figure out what I did wrong :)

[cheatman093]

This solution only works if your string is in lowercase. I used this to capitalize in my project that I am working on and quickly realized if the letter is already capital you will get a different character. This is how I did it.

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;

int main() {
    string m;
    char h;
    cin >> m;
    if (m[0] > 90) {
       h = m[0] - 32;
       m[0] = h;
       }
    cout << m;
    cin >> m;
    return 0;
}
     

Thank you for giving me the idea on how to do this, though. Very helpful.

[lekaimadh]

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <cctype>
using namespace std;

int main()
{
    string lowerCase;
    
    cin >> lowerCase;
    
    lowerCase[0] = toupper(lowerCase[0]);
    cout << lowerCase << endl;
    
    system("pause");
    return 0;
}

[Duthomhas]

Here's a little module for you to do that kind of stuff.

// stringcase.hpp
//
// Copyright (c) 2009 Michael Thomas Greer
// Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0.
// http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt

#pragma once
#ifndef STRINGCASE_HPP
#define STRINGCASE_HPP

#include <algorithm>
#include <cctype>
#include <functional>
#include <string>

template <typename CharType, typename TraitsType, typename AllocType>
std::basic_string <CharType, TraitsType, AllocType>
uppercase( const std::basic_string <CharType, TraitsType, AllocType> & s )
  {
  std::basic_string <CharType, TraitsType, AllocType> result( s.length(), '\0' );
  std::transform(
    s.begin(),
    s.end(),
    result.begin(),
    std::ptr_fun <int, int> ( std::toupper )
    );
  return result;
  }

template <typename CharType, typename TraitsType, typename AllocType>
std::basic_string <CharType, TraitsType, AllocType>
lowercase( const std::basic_string <CharType, TraitsType, AllocType> & s )
  {
  std::basic_string <CharType, TraitsType, AllocType> result( s.length(), '\0' );
  std::transform(
    s.begin(),
    s.end(),
    result.begin(),
    std::ptr_fun <int, int> ( std::tolower )
    );
  return result;
  }

template <typename CharType, typename TraitsType, typename AllocType>
std::basic_string <CharType, TraitsType, AllocType>
titlecase( const std::basic_string <CharType, TraitsType, AllocType> & s )
  {
  std::basic_string <CharType, TraitsType, AllocType> result = lowercase( s );
  typename std::basic_string <CharType, TraitsType, AllocType> ::iterator iter = result.begin();
  while (iter != result.end())
    {
    *iter = toupper( *iter );
    iter = std::find_if( iter, result.end(), std::not1( std::ptr_fun <int, int> ( std::isalpha ) ) );
    iter = std::find_if( iter, result.end(),            std::ptr_fun <int, int> ( std::isalpha )   );
    }
  return result;
  }

#endif

// end stringcase.hpp 

And, of course, an example of how to use it.

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

#include "stringcase.hpp"

int main()
  {
  string a( "Hello world!" );

  cout << a << endl;
  cout << lowercase( a ) << endl;
  cout << uppercase( a ) << endl;
  cout << titlecase( a ) << endl;

  return 0;
  }

This is all a bit fancier than it need be... you can get rid of all the template stuff if you like and just work on char strings:

std::string toupper( const std::string& s )
  {
  ...
  }

Also, the titlecase function capitalizes the first letter of every sequence of alphabetic characters in the string, not just s[0]. I don't know if you need it that fancy or not. A simpler version would be:

std::string titlecase( const std::string& s )
  {
  std::string result = lowercase( s );
  result[ 0 ] = toupper( result[ 0 ] );
  return result;
  }

Sorry for all the boilerplate... I know this stuff is fairly obvious, but it is necessary. Feel free to chop out the things you need.

Hope this helps.