How to do a 'Proper case' formatting of a mysql column?

@Pascal's solution works on latin characters. Any meddling with different collations messes things up.

I think what @Pascal really meant goes more like this:

DELIMITER |

CREATE or replace FUNCTION func_proper( str VARCHAR(255) )
RETURNS VARCHAR(255)
BEGIN
  DECLARE chr VARCHAR(1);
  DECLARE lStr VARCHAR(255);
  DECLARE oStr VARCHAR(255) DEFAULT '';
  DECLARE i INT DEFAULT 1;
  DECLARE bool INT DEFAULT 1;
  DECLARE punct CHAR(17) DEFAULT ' ()[]{},.-_!@;:?/';

  WHILE i <= LENGTH( str ) DO
    BEGIN
      SET chr = SUBSTRING( str, i, 1 );
      IF LOCATE( chr, punct ) > 0 THEN
        BEGIN
          SET bool = 1;
          SET oStr = concat(oStr, chr);
        END;
      ELSEIF bool=1 THEN
        BEGIN
          SET oStr = concat(oStr, UCASE(chr));
          SET bool = 0;
        END;
      ELSE
        BEGIN
          SET oStr = concat(oStr, LCASE(chr));
        END;
      END IF;
      SET i = i+1;
    END;
  END WHILE;

  RETURN oStr;
END;

|
DELIMITER ;

You would think that the world’s most popular open source database, as MySQL like to call itself, would have a function for making items title case (where the first letter of every word is capitalized). Sadly it doesn’t.

This is the best solution i found Just create a stored procedure / function that will do the trick

mysql> 
DROP FUNCTION IF EXISTS proper;
SET GLOBAL  log_bin_trust_function_creators=TRUE;
DELIMITER |
CREATE FUNCTION proper( str VARCHAR(128) )
RETURNS VARCHAR(128)
BEGIN
DECLARE c CHAR(1);
DECLARE s VARCHAR(128);
DECLARE i INT DEFAULT 1;
DECLARE bool INT DEFAULT 1;
DECLARE punct CHAR(17) DEFAULT ' ()[]{},.-_!@;:?/';
SET s = LCASE( str );
WHILE i <= LENGTH( str ) DO   
    BEGIN
SET c = SUBSTRING( s, i, 1 );
IF LOCATE( c, punct ) > 0 THEN
SET bool = 1;
ELSEIF bool=1 THEN
BEGIN
IF c >= 'a' AND c <= 'z' THEN
BEGIN
SET s = CONCAT(LEFT(s,i-1),UCASE(c),SUBSTRING(s,i+1));
SET bool = 0;
END;
ELSEIF c >= '0' AND c <= '9' THEN
SET bool = 0;
END IF;
END;
END IF;
SET i = i+1;
END;
END WHILE;
RETURN s;
END;
|
DELIMITER ;

then

update table set col = proper(col)

or

select proper( col ) as properCOl 
from table 

Tada Your are welcome

In case there are only words in a single column ie. FirstName and LastName. We can concatenate the substrings.

select customer_name, concat(   
  upper(substring(substring_index(customer_name,' ',1),1,1)),   
  lower(substring(substring_index(customer_name,' ',1),2)) , ' ',
  upper(substring(substring_index(customer_name,' ',-1),1,1)),
  lower(substring(substring_index(customer_name,' ',-1),2)) 
) from customer;

You can combine CONCAT and SUBSTRING:

CONCAT(UCASE(SUBSTRING(`fieldName`, 1, 1)), LOWER(SUBSTRING(`fieldName`, 2)))