How to capitalize of each word in a String in Python
For this task, we’ll be using a handful of Python techniques in order to split, modify, and rebuild our string so that the first letter in each word is capitalized.
Let’s start with a brief overview of each puzzle piece, so we can review the solution more clearly.
- The .split() String Method: This method will convert a string into a list, taking a single optional parameter as the delimiter to split the string by. If no delimiter is specified, then any white space will be used to split the string.
- List Comprehension: A truly powerful tool in your Python tool belt, list comprehensions are a way of creating a list from an iterable and an optional conditional expression. Each item from the iterable may be modified within the comprehension, allowing for extremely concise and performant code.
- The .capitalize() String Method: This method will return the string with its first letter capitalized.
- The .join() String Method: This method will take a given list and convert it to a string, using the supplied value as a delimiter. If you come from a JavaScript background, you may be used to
.join()being an array method — however, in python, it is a string method. The string delimiter is supplied as the base object and the list is passed as an argument to.join().
The Solution
Now that we’re more familiar with each piece of the solution, let’s get into it.
We first set our string value and then split it into a list:
message = "hello world"
parts = message.split(" ")
We separate each word by passing an empty space to .split(). If we were splitting a sequence of comma-separated values the method call would be .split(",").
Next, we will use a list comprehension alongside the .capitalize() method to modify the first letter of each string:
capitalized_parts = [p.capitalize() for p in parts]
What’s happening here is we loop through parts, assigning each item to the variable p. Then the resolution of p.capitalize() is passed to our newly created list.
Finally, we convert from our list back to a string:
capitalized_message = " ".join(capitalized_parts)
This takes some getting used to, but you first supply the delimiter as a string — in our case a blank space — then call the .join() method with the list as an argument.
So far we’ve moved one step at a time for clarity. However, the entire solution can be condensed into a single statement — awesome, right?
message = "hello world"
capitalized_message = " ".join([
word.capitalize()
for word in message.split(" ")
])
print(capitalized_message) # Hello World
If you are inclined to do so, you could easily take this statement and create a function that accepts two arguments — the string and the delimiter — to reuse when necessary.
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