Get, modify, then print post title in wordpress

Question

Is there a way native way in wordpress to make uppercase the first letter of the first word of the scentence / the_title of the post?

If not, how do I do it in php, while it is wrapped in a <a></a> tag?

Here is the full line of code.

<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php ucfirst(the_title());?></a>

As you see, I have tried ucfirst, but it does not work. The other thing that I tried is:

<?php
$temp_title  = the_title();
$final_title = ucfirst($temp_title);
?>
<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php echo $final_title;?></a>

Answer 1

ucfirst() returns a string. You need to echo the value returned from ucfirst().

Furthermore, the WordPress function the_title() prints the title directly, rather than returning it as a string. Use get_the_title() instead.

<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php echo ucfirst(get_the_title());?></a>

Answer 2

First off you had an ending parantheses that didn't have a matching parantheses in your echo $final_title. Second you should try to apply ucfirst to the echo of your title. I removed $finaltitle, because it no longer serves a purpose. I haven't tried the code, but it should work. Please note that ucfirst() only works if the first letter is in the alphabet.

<?php
$temp_title  = the_title();
?>
<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php echo ucfirst($temp_title);?></a> 

Answer 3

I think this is your problem: http://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/3.8/src/wp-includes/post-template.php#L51. As you can see the_title() is using get_the_title() and then if($echo) it echoes it out. I would experiment and try get_the_title().