Capitalize does not follow Shopify spec

[microalps]

Note: I am not a user of liquidjs but found this while working on dotliquid/dotliquid#390

Shopify is working on updating their docs (see Shopify/liquid#1403 and the future docs at https://ericfromcanada.github.io/liquid/filters/capitalize/) that notes that capitalize actually lower cases everything. So mcDonald becomes Mcdonald! LiquidJS does not implement this way (IMHO is a more sensible version).

I tested Ruby liquid on my server -

{
  "template": "{{ name | capitalize }}",
  "data": {
    "name": "John G. Chalmers-Smith"
  }
}

Result: John g. chalmers-smith
if I add a space before the name, it will be all lowercase.

FYI - In Rails, the equivalent to this is named upcase_first. See https://glaucocustodio.github.io/2016/05/19/rails-5-new-upcase-first-method/ and https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3724913/how-to-capitalize-the-first-letter-in-a-string-in-ruby

[daviburg]

🤦‍♂️

[daviburg]

I dislike it, but it appears we need to offer an option for compatibility on the behavior of this filter, whether customers need the Shopify behavior or the LiquidJS behavior.

[microalps]

The first step, I think, is somehow having an alternate that DOES what we are doing as a filter across liquid implementations. If upcase_first is it - so be it. If we can coordinate that with Shopify Liquid, liquidjs, and DotLiquid, even better.
We should definitely document somewhere that capitalize diverges from the standard - and users should use the above (even if the behavior is the same at the moment).

Somewhere down the line, liquidjs and DotLiquid can each individually decide how to offer opt-in for this breaking change to the capitalize. Without an alternative though, nobody will opt-in IMHO the "standard" is very ruby specific.

[daviburg]

The problem with alternate filter names is that a customer coming from one implementation to another cannot just opt-in compatibility option from its origin, he would instead need to modify its template.

[microalps]

Clarification on what I meant:
alternate filter name - capitalizes just the first character and leaves the rest alone (ruby/rails calls this upcase_first). This is apparently the current 'capitalize' behavior in liquidjs, dotliquid 2.1, scriban...
capitalize - needs to stay the same as whatever each implementation has today unless they opt-in for the Ruby version.

So existing liquidjs users won't opt in - until they switch all their references to the alternate filter name. This will allow them time to ease into this (both filters do the same thing without the opt-in)
Customers coming from Ruby implementation will opt-in for the standard and capitalize will work for them as they are used to on ruby.

I'm all ears to hearing additional solutions, but we need to coordinate, that's the key in my opinion.

[microalps]

I also suggest rounding out the 'capitalization' options with a CSS text-transform:capitalize equivalent - upcase_words or something.

[microalps]

@harttle Do you have any thoughts on this topic?

[harttle]

Since it's not consistent with Shopify/liquid, I regard it as a bug. It'll be fixed on the next patch version.

[microalps]

Do you have any plans or thoughts how to support users that are currently using Capitalize filter? Will you offer a non-standard filter for them to switch to? A compatibility flag? Both?

[harttle]

I think it's purely a bug. The proposed/needed capitalize filter is not standard and shouldn't be builtin. Plus it's easy to implement, I'd rather leave it to users.

[harttle]

🎉 This issue has been resolved in version 9.23.4 🎉

The release is available on:

• npm package (@latest dist-tag)
• GitHub release

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