#!/usr/bin/perl -w

#  Title case except for some special words

use strict;

my %Exceptions = ( "and" => 1, "the" => 1, "or" => 1 );

while (<DATA>)
{
  my @Results = map { ( defined ( $Exceptions{ $_ } ) ) ?
   $_ : ucfirst ( lc ( $_ ) ) } split ( /\s+/, $_ );
  print join ( " ", @Results ) . "\n";
}

__DATA__
red hot chili peppers
by the way
[download]

--t. alex

"Mud, mud, glorious mud. Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood!"
--Michael Flanders and Donald Swann

I've done something like this before. I've changed talexb's code a little to account for things that you want to keep in special case, like "II" as in "Greatest Hits Vol. II".

#  Title case except for some special words
use strict;
my %Exceptions = ( 
    "and" => "and", 
    "the" => "the", 
    "or" => "or", 
    "zztop" => "ZZtop",
    "ii" => "II" );

while (<DATA>)
{
  my @Results = map { (defined ( $Exceptions{lc($_)})) ?
   $Exceptions{lc($_)} : ucfirst ( lc ( $_ ) ) } split ( /\s+/, $_ );
  #captialize first word regardless
  substr($Results[0],0,1, uc substr($Results[0],0,1));
  print join ( " ", @Results ) . "\n";
}

__DATA__
red hot chili peppers
by the way
zztop
greatest hits vol. II
the beatles
the white album disc II

__OUTPUT__
Red Hot Chili Peppers
By the Way
ZZtop
Greatest Hits Vol. II
The Beatles
The White Album Disc II
[download]

You will have to expand %Exceptions as you find/think of them.

__UPDATE__

added code to capitalize first character of first word.

--

flounder

($str = lc $str) =~ s{
  (?: ^ | \b (?! (?:and|an?|the|o[rfn]) \b ) )
  (\w)
}{\u$1}gx;
[download]

I still hate Perl's regex engine. It cannot possibly match BOL (beginning of line) after the first character, so why the hell does it try?

_____________________________________________________
Jeff[japhy]Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker, who'd like a job (NYC-area)
s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;

    #!/usr/bin/perl -w

    use strict;

    # List your exceptions here
    my @exceptions = qw(the and or);

    while (my $str = <DATA>) {

        print "Input:  ", $str;

        # Substitute the text in quotes
        $str =~ s{(")([^"]+)(")}
                 {$1 . join('', map ucfirst, split /(\s+|[-])/, $2) . 
+$3}eg;

        # lc the exceptions that don't start a title
        $str =~ s/ $_\b/ $_/gi for @exceptions;

        print "Output: ", $str, "\n";
    }
    __DATA__
    "red hot chili peppers" (group), "by the way" (album title).
    "the go-betweens" (group), "spring hill fair" (album title).
    "jonathan richman" (group), "i, jonathan" (album title).
[download]

    Input:  "red hot chili peppers" (group), "by the way" (album title
+).
    Output: "Red Hot Chili Peppers" (group), "By the Way" (album title
+).

    Input:  "the go-betweens" (group), "spring hill fair" (album title
+).
    Output: "The Go-Betweens" (group), "Spring Hill Fair" (album title
+).

    Input:  "jonathan richman" (group), "i, jonathan" (album title).
    Output: "Jonathan Richman" (group), "I, Jonathan" (album title).
[download]

--
John.

       How do I capitalize all the words on one line?

       To make the first letter of each word upper case:

               $line =~ s/\b(\w)/\U$1/g;

       This has the strange effect of turning ""don't do it""
       into ""Don'T Do It"".  Sometimes you might want this.
       Other times you might need a more thorough solution (Sug-
       gested by brian d.  foy):

           $string =~ s/ (
                        (^\w)    #at the beginning of the line
                          |      # or
                        (\s\w)   #preceded by whitespace
                          )
                       /\U$1/xg;
           $string =~ /([\w']+)/\u\L$1/g;

       To make the whole line upper case:

               $line = uc($line);

       To force each word to be lower case, with the first letter
       upper case:

               $line =~ s/(\w+)/\u\L$1/g;

       You can (and probably should) enable locale awareness of
       those characters by placing a "use locale" pragma in your
       program.  See the perllocale manpage for endless details
       on locales.

       This is sometimes referred to as putting something into
       "title case", but that's not quite accurate.  Consider the
       proper capitalization of the movie Dr. Strangelove or: How
       I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, for example.
[download]

Abigail

... a way to capitalize the names of every word in each entry except for the words such as: "and", "or", "the" etc.

I have a feeling there has to be a module for this somewhere, but it is really not that hard, if you just have a list of words that should not be upcased.

Well, there is also the question of what constitutes a word ... this is just one of many ways. Season to taste:

print capitalize("red hot chili peppers\nby the way\n");

{
  my %exception;
  sub capitalize {
    my $string = shift;
    %exception = map{$_=>1}qw(and or the a an etc)
      unless keys %exception;
    $string =~ s/(\w+)/$exception{$1}?$1:ucfirst($1)/ge;
    return $string;
  }
}
[download]

The Sidhekin
print "Just another Perl ${\(trickster and hacker)},"

while(<DATA>){
  @words=split;
  for(@words){
    /(?:(the|or|and)|\w+) #Capture "the|or|and"
    (?(1)                 #Switch on captured value
    (?{print"$_ "})       #If there is a captured value just print
    |(?{print "\u\L$_ "}))#If not convert first char uppercase
    /x;        
  }
}
__DATA__
red hot chili peppers, by the way
[download]