Bash: How to Convert First Character in Variable to Uppercase

Often you may want to convert the first character in a variable to uppercase in Bash.

You can use the following methods to do so:

Method 1: Convert First Character to Uppercase

my_var="${my_var^}"

This particular example will convert only the first character of the variable named my_var to uppercase.

Method 2: Convert First Character of Each Word to Uppercase

my_var=( $my_var )
my_var="${my_var[@]^}"

This particular example will convert the first character of each word in the variable named my_var to uppercase.

The following examples show how to use each method in practice.

Example 1: Convert First Character to Uppercase in Bash

Suppose that we create a variable named my_var in Bash that contains the following text:

We can use the following syntax to convert only the first character of this string to uppercase:

my_var="dallas mavericks"
my_var="${my_var^}"

echo $my_var

The following screenshot shows how to use this syntax in practice:

Bash convert first character to uppercase

We can see that this returns the following string:

Notice that only the first character in the string is now uppercase.

Suppose that we create a variable named my_var in Bash that contains the following text:

We can use the following syntax to convert the first character of each word in this string to uppercase:

my_var="dallas mavericks"
my_var=( $my_var )
my_var="${my_var[@]^}"

echo $my_var

The following screenshot shows how to use this syntax in practice:

Bash convert first character of each string to uppercase

We can see that this returns the following string:

Notice that the first character of each word in the string is now uppercase.

Feel free to use whichever method you prefer.