NLS_INITCAP

Syntax

Description of the illustration nls_initcap.gif

Purpose

NLS_INITCAP returns char, with the first letter of each word in uppercase, all other letters in lowercase. Words are delimited by white space or characters that are not alphanumeric.

Both char and 'nlsparam' can be any of the datatypes CHAR, VARCHAR2, NCHAR, or NVARCHAR2. The string returned is of VARCHAR2 datatype and is in the same character set as char.

The value of 'nlsparam' can have this form:

'NLS_SORT = sort'

where sort is either a linguistic sort sequence or BINARY. The linguistic sort sequence handles special linguistic requirements for case conversions. These requirements can result in a return value of a different length than the char. If you omit 'nlsparam', then this function uses the default sort sequence for your session.

This function does not support CLOB data directly. However, CLOBs can be passed in as arguments through implicit data conversion.

Examples

The following examples show how the linguistic sort sequence results in a different return value from the function:

SELECT NLS_INITCAP
   ('ijsland') "InitCap" FROM DUAL;

InitCap
-------
Ijsland

SELECT NLS_INITCAP
   ('ijsland', 'NLS_SORT = XDutch') "InitCap"
   FROM DUAL;

InitCap
-------
IJsland