Why does Rails titlecase add a space to a name?

Question

Why does the titlecase mess up the name? I have:

John Mark McMillan

and it turns it into:

>> \"john mark McM         


        

Answer 1

We have just added this which supports a few different cases that we face.

class String
  # Default titlecase converts McKay to Mc Kay, which is not great
  # May even need to remove titlecase completely in the future to leave 
  # strings unchanged
  def self.custom_title_case(string = "")
    return "" if !string.is_a?(String) || string.empty?

    split = string.split(" ").collect do |word|
      word = word.titlecase

      # If we titlecase and it turns in to 2 words, then we need to merge back
      word = word.match?(/\w/) ? word.split(" ").join("") : word
      
      word
    end
    
    return split.join(" ")
  end
end

And the rspec test

# spec/lib/modules/string_spec.rb
require 'rails_helper'
require 'modules/string'

describe "String" do
  describe "self.custom_title_case" do
    it "returns empty string if incorrect params" do
      result_one = String.custom_title_case({ test: 'object' })
      result_two = String.custom_title_case([1, 2])
      result_three = String.custom_title_case()

      expect(result_one).to eq("")
      expect(result_two).to eq("")
      expect(result_three).to eq("")
    end

    it "returns string in title case" do
      result = String.custom_title_case("smiths hill")
      expect(result).to eq("Smiths Hill")
    end

    it "caters for 'Mc' i.e. 'john mark McMillan' edge cases" do
      result_one = String.custom_title_case("burger king McDonalds")
      result_two = String.custom_title_case("john mark McMillan")
      result_three = String.custom_title_case("McKay bay")

      expect(result_one).to eq("Burger King McDonalds")
      expect(result_two).to eq("John Mark McMillan")
      expect(result_three).to eq("McKay Bay")
    end

    it "correctly cases uppercase words" do
      result = String.custom_title_case("NORTH NARRABEEN")
      expect(result).to eq("North Narrabeen")
    end
  end
end