Inflector

• class Cake\Utility\Inflector

The Inflector class takes a string and can manipulate it to handle wordvariations such as pluralizations or camelizing and is normally accessedstatically. Example:Inflector::pluralize('example') returns “examples”.

You can try out the inflections online at inflector.cakephp.org.

Summary of Inflector Methods and Their Output

Quick summary of the Inflector built-in methods and the results they outputwhen provided a multi-word argument:

Creating Plural & Singular Forms

• static Cake\Utility\Inflector::singularize($singular)

• static Cake\Utility\Inflector::pluralize($singular)

Both pluralize and singularize() work on most English nouns. If you needto support other languages, you can use Inflection Configuration tocustomize the rules used:

// Apples
echo Inflector::pluralize('Apple');

Note

pluralize() may not always correctly convert a noun that is already in its plural form.

// Person
echo Inflector::singularize('People');

Note

singularize() may not always correctly convert a noun that is already in its singular form.

Creating CamelCase and under_scored Forms

• static Cake\Utility\Inflector::camelize($underscored)

• static Cake\Utility\Inflector::underscore($camelCase)

These methods are useful when creating class names, or property names:

// ApplePie
Inflector::camelize('Apple_pie')
 
// apple_pie
Inflector::underscore('ApplePie');

It should be noted that underscore will only convert camelCase formatted words.Words that contains spaces will be lower-cased, but will not contain anunderscore.

Creating Human Readable Forms

• static Cake\Utility\Inflector::humanize($underscored)

This method is useful when converting underscored forms into “Title Case” formsfor human readable values:

// Apple Pie
Inflector::humanize('apple_pie');

Creating Table and Class Name Forms

• static Cake\Utility\Inflector::classify($underscored)

• static Cake\Utility\Inflector::dasherize($dashed)

• static Cake\Utility\Inflector::tableize($camelCase)

When generating code, or using CakePHP’s conventions you may need to inflecttable names or class names:

// UserProfileSetting
Inflector::classify('user_profile_settings');
 
// user-profile-setting
Inflector::dasherize('UserProfileSetting');
 
// user_profile_settings
Inflector::tableize('UserProfileSetting');

Creating Variable Names

• static Cake\Utility\Inflector::variable($underscored)

Variable names are often useful when doing meta-programming tasks that involvegenerating code or doing work based on conventions:

// applePie
Inflector::variable('apple_pie');

Inflection Configuration

CakePHP’s naming conventions can be really nice - you can name your databasetable bigboxes, your model BigBoxes, your controllerBigBoxesController, and everything just works together automatically. Theway CakePHP knows how to tie things together is by _inflecting the wordsbetween their singular and plural forms.

There are occasions (especially for our non-English speaking friends) where youmay run into situations where CakePHP’s inflector (the class that pluralizes,singularizes, camelCases, and under_scores) might not work as you’d like. IfCakePHP won’t recognize your Foci or Fish, you can tell CakePHP about yourspecial cases.

Loading Custom Inflections

• static Cake\Utility\Inflector::rules($type, $rules, $reset = false)

Define new inflection and transliteration rules for Inflector to use. Often,this method is used in your config/bootstrap.php:

Inflector::rules('singular', ['/^(bil)er$/i' => '\1', '/^(inflec|contribu)tors$/i' => '\1ta']);
Inflector::rules('uninflected', ['singulars']);
Inflector::rules('irregular', ['phylum' => 'phyla']); // The key is singular form, value is plural form

The supplied rules will be merged into the respective inflection sets defined inCake/Utility/Inflector, with the added rules taking precedence over the corerules. You can use Inflector::reset() to clear rules and restore theoriginal Inflector state.