How to capitalize first and last letters of each word in a Python string?

I want to write a python function so that the first and last letters of the words in a string will be capitalized. The string contains lower case letters and spaces. I was thinking of doing something like:

def capitalize(s): s.title() s[len(s) - 1].upper() return s 

but that doesn't seem to work. Any suggestions?

For example, the string "i like cats" should become "I LikE CatS"

8 Answers

def capitalize(s): s, result = s.title(), "" for word in s.split(): result += word[:-1] + word[-1].upper() + " " return result[:-1] #To remove the last trailing space. print capitalize("i like cats") 

Output

I LikE CatS 

Apply title() to the whole string, then for each word in the string capitalize the last character and the append them back together.

Here's a nice one-liner. (for you golfers :P)

capEnds = lambda s: (s[:1].upper() + s[1:-1] + s[-1:].upper())[:len(s)] 

It demonstrates another way to get around the problems when the input is 0 or 1 characters.

It can easily be applied to a string to capitalize the individual words:

' '.join(map(capEnds, 'I like cats'.split(' '))) 'I LikE CatS' 

Try using slicing.

def upup(s): if len(s) < 2: return s.upper() return ''.join((s[0:-1].title(),s[-1].upper()))) 

Edit: since the OP edited in that he now needs this for every word in a string...

' '.join(upup(s) for s in 'i like cats'.split()) Out[7]: 'I LikE CatS' 

My take on a fun one-liner:

def cap_both(phrase): return ' '.join(map(lambda s: s[:-1]+s[-1].upper(), phrase.title().split())) 

Demo:

>>> cap_both('i like cats') 'I LikE CatS' >>> cap_both('a') 'A' 

Here it's what we will do:

1. Break the sentence into words
2. Apply a function that capitalizes first and last word of a word
3. Regroup the sentences
4. Write the function in (2)

So:

0)

words = "welcome to the jungle!"

1)

>>> words= words.split() 

2)

>>> words = [capitalize(x) for x in words] 

3)

>>> words = " ".join(words) 

4)

def capitalize(word): return word[0].capitalize() + word[1:-1] + word[-1].capitalize() 

try this simple and easy to understand piece of code,

st = 'this is a test string' def Capitalize(st): for word in st.split(): newstring = '' if len(word) > 1: word = word[0].upper() + word[1:-1] + word[-1].upper() else: word = word[0].upper() newstring += word print(word) 

And than call the function as below,

Capitalize(st) 

A really old post but another fun one liner using list comprehension:

cap = lambda st: (" ").join([x.title().replace(x[-1], x[-1].upper()) for x in st.split()]) >>> cap("I like cats") 'I LikE CatS' 

Try this :

n=input("Enter the str: ") for i in n.split(): print(i[0].upper() +i[1:-1] +i[-1].upper(),end=' ')