Re: Help with upcasing words first char

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:
> I realize that upcase-region can do the above but its actually more
> cumbersome that what I described above and appears to need more
> keystrokes too
>
>     create region/call upcase region
>
> Maybe its the same number of strokes but more inconvenient in that it
> breaks the movements up in a different way than 
>
> My current method:
>    ctrl-<right arrow> | Ctrl-d | ctrl-d | shift <type char> 

It's simplier if you write it in the emacs standard notation:

     C-M-f C-d C-d S-<char>


> Using upcase-region
>    ctrl-<right arrow | ctrl-d | ctrl-spc | right arrow | upcase-region 

or:

     C-M-f C-d C-SPC C-f M-x upcase-region RET


> It even looks more awkward in writting.
>
> But really, either of those above seems too time consuming when I have
> hundreds of edits to make in that manner.

When working becomes too hard, you must start programming.  Let the
computer do the work for you!


> Any suggestions about how to automate or reduce time on these edits?
>
>
> Once more... the edit:
>
>   Some words similar to this
>
> I need to remove the space and upcase the next Char.
>
>   SomeWordsSimilarToThis


First you must do the transformation in a order that makes it easy for
a computer to do.

You are asking to first remove the spaces thus getting:

  Somewordssimilartothis

and then cutting words.  But removing spaces removed information, and
now you need strong artificial intelligence to recover the
information.

  So me word ss i milar tot his  ; Oops!


Next, you're asking too a low level operation.  Upcasing the first
letter of a word is abstracted into a capitalizing operation.

Select the whole sentence:  

  Some Words Similar To This

with C-a C-SPC C-e and use M-x capitalize-region RET command.

Then select it again, and remove spaces:  
C-SPC C-a M-x replace-string RET SPC RET RET


Now you are ready to write an emacs lisp command doing the same:

(defun camelize-region (start end)
  (interactive "r")
  (capitalize-region start end)
  (let ((end (let ((m (make-marker))) (set-marker m end) m)))
    (unwind-protect
         (progn
           (goto-char start)
           (while (re-search-forward "\\s-+" end t)
             (delete-region (match-beginning 0) (match-end 0))))
      (set-marker m nil))))

Type: C-x C-e  after the previous expression to have it taken into
account immediately.  Put it in  your ~/.emacs file to get it loaded
next time you start emacs.
          
And then you can select a region such as the sentence:

    Some words  similar to this

and type M-x camelize-region RET  to get:

    SomeWordsSimilarToThis

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__