Capitalizing First Letter Minus The, And, etc.

[geosite]

Suppose I have the following in three database table cells:

the golden eagle
**** of the rock
bird of paradise

And suppose I'm using the following script to display them:

<?=$r['Species'] ?>

Is there a way to display them so that...

1) The first letter of each word is capitalized...
2) EXCEPT words like the, and and of are never capitalized...
3) EXCEPT when they are the first words in a string

So the above terms would be displayed like this:

The Golden Eagle
**** of the Rock
Bird of Paradise

[Vex]

This was in the php blog a few weeks ago
http://www.sitepoint.com/blog-post-view.php?id=243299

[geosite]

This was in the php blog a few weeks ago
http://www.sitepoint.com/blog-post-view.php?id=243299

Thanks, that looks like a good tutorial. I'm a little confused, though. Suppose I want to apply this technique to the following database value:

<?php $Symbol = "The&nbsp;" . $r['Symbol']; ?>

Do I insert the upper-case script BEFORE or AFTER the above script...and how/where do I plug in $r['Symbol']? Thanks.

<?php
function strtotitle($title)
// Converts $title to Title Case, and returns the result.
{
  // Our array of 'small words' which shouldn't be capitalised if
  // they aren't the first word.  Add your own words to taste.
  $smallwordsarray = array(
    'of','a','the','and','an','or','nor','but','is','if','then','else','when',
    'at','from','by','on','off','for','in','out','over','to','into','with'
    );

  // Split the string into separate words
  $words = explode(' ', $title);

  foreach ($words as $key => $word)
  {
    // If this word is the first, or it's not one of our small words, capitalise it
    // with ucwords().
    if ($key == 0 or !in_array($word, $smallwordsarray))
      $words[$key] = ucwords($word);
  }

  // Join the words back into a string
  $newtitle = implode(' ', $words);

  return $newtitle;
}


// CSS text-transform property
?>

[markl999]

Put the function either in the same file or in an included file and use it like:
<?php $Symbol = "The&nbsp;" . strtotitle($r['Symbol']); ?>

[geosite]

Put the function either in the same file or in an included file and use it like:
<?php $Symbol = "The&nbsp;" . strtotitle($r['Symbol']); ?>

I see - it's even easier than I thought. Thanks for the help; that's a really cool script.