How to convert first letter into capital in data.table object column in R?

To convert first letter into capital in data.table object column in R, we can follow the below steps −

• First of all, create a data.table object with string column.

• Then, use sub function to convert first letter into capital in string column.

Example

Create the data.table object

Let’s create a data.table as shown below −

library(data.table)
Countries<-
sample(c("india","china","russia","croatia","uk","usa","sudan","nepal","korea","germany","iceland"),25,replace=TRUE)
DT<-data.table(Countries)
DT

Output

On executing, the above script generates the below output(this output will vary on your system due to randomization) −

   Countries
1:  nepal
2:  india
3:  india
4:  nepal
5:  india
6:  korea
7:  germany
8:  germany
9:  sudan
10: iceland
11: india
12: india
13: nepal
14: korea
15: korea
16: nepal
17: croatia
18: nepal
19: usa
20: croatia
21: usa
22: india
23: nepal
24: germany
25: russia
Countries

Convert first letter into Capital

Using sub function to convert first letter into capital in Countries column −

library(data.table)
Countries<-
sample(c("india","china","russia","croatia","uk","usa","sudan","nepal","korea","germany","iceland"),25,replace=TRUE)
DT<-data.table(Countries)
DT$Countries_new<-sub("(.)", "\U\1",DT$Countries,perl=TRUE)
DT

Output

    Countries Countries_new
1:  nepal     Nepal
2:  india     India
3:  india     India
4:  nepal     Nepal
5:  india     India
6:  korea     Korea
7:  germany   Germany
8:  germany   Germany
9:  sudan     Sudan
10: iceland   Iceland
11: india     India
12: india     India
13: nepal     Nepal
14: korea     Korea
15: korea     Korea
16: nepal     Nepal
17: croatia   Croatia
18: nepal     Nepal
19: usa       Usa
20: croatia   Croatia
21: usa       Usa
22: india     India
23: nepal     Nepal
24: germany   Germany
25: russia    Russia
   Countries Countries_new