initcap

• Converts the first letter of each word in a string to uppercase and the remaining characters to lowercase.
• This function is useful for normalizing text data, such as names, addresses, or titles, where consistent Title Casing is required.

Syntax

initcap(str)

Parameters

• str: The string expression to be formatted. This can be a VARCHAR column, a literal string, or the result of another string function.

Return value

Returns the formatted string as a VARCHAR.

• Returns NULL if the argument is NULL.
• Words are delimited by whitespace or non-alphanumeric characters (e.g., punctuation, symbols, numbers).
• Characters immediately following a delimiter are uppercased; all other letters are lowercased.

Examples

Example 1: Format basic strings (lowercase or uppercase).

mysql> SELECT initcap('hello world');
+------------------------+
| initcap('hello world') |
+------------------------+
| Hello World            |
+------------------------+

mysql> SELECT initcap('HELLO WORLD');
+------------------------+
| initcap('HELLO WORLD') |
+------------------------+
| Hello World            |
+------------------------+

Example 2: Format mixed-case strings.

mysql> SELECT initcap('sTaRroCks dAtAbAsE');
+-------------------------------+
| initcap('sTaRroCks dAtAbAsE') |
+-------------------------------+
| Starrocks Database            |
+-------------------------------+

Example 3: Handling delimiters (numbers, symbols, and punctuation).

mysql> SELECT initcap('1st place, in-the-world!');
+-------------------------------------+
| initcap('1st place, in-the-world!') |
+-------------------------------------+
| 1st Place, In-The-World!            |
+-------------------------------------+

Usage notes

Word Boundaries: The function identifies the start of a "word" based on any character that is not a letter or a number. For example, in 'abc-def', the hyphen - is a delimiter, so d becomes D.

Numbers: Numbers are treated as word characters if they appear at the start, but they do not change case. However, symbols following numbers will reset the word boundary (e.g., 1st -> 1st because 1 starts the word, but 1-st -> 1-St because - is a delimiter).