Uppercase acronyms pluralise with uppercase “S” (e.g. "CD" → "CDS") instead of lowercase “s”. (CDs)

[jezmck]

Laravel Version

10.48.29

PHP Version

8.3

Database Driver & Version

NA

Description

Illuminate\Support\Pluralizer pluralises all-uppercase words by appending an uppercase S, producing incorrect results.

Examples:

use Illuminate\Support\Pluralizer;
echo Pluralizer::plural('CD');   // outputs "CDS" (wrong, should be CDs)
echo Pluralizer::plural('DVD');  // outputs "DVDS" (wrong, should be DVDs)

Why this is a bug:
• Standard English usage pluralises acronyms with a lowercase s.
• Examples in common dictionaries and style guides: CDs, DVDs, URLs, not CDS, DVDS, URLS.
• The current behaviour produces grammatically incorrect results in real-world applications.

Steps To Reproduce

use Illuminate\Support\Pluralizer;
echo Pluralizer::plural('CD');  // outputs "CDS" (wrong, should be CDs)

[AndrewMast]

I believe this behavior is due to the matchCase method in the Pluralizer class.

Using the inflector directly results in the expected lowercase "s":

\Illuminate\Support\Pluralizer::inflector()->pluralize('DVD'); // DVDs

However, the matchCase method is important since the result of the inflector does not always keep the case from the original text. For example, if you input "PERSON" (if for some reason your app wants all uppercase), the output is "People".

How would we realistically go about fixing this? Add a boolean flag to disable attempting to match the case?

[pranav200408]

Hello Andrew,

Thank you for your feedback. I agree that the matchCase method is crucial for maintaining proper casing. My proposed fix was intended to address the specific issue of all-uppercase acronyms.

I believe your suggestion of a boolean flag is a great idea to provide a more flexible solution. However, since the issue is specific to Pluralizer, perhaps a simpler solution is to first check if the word is an acronym (all-caps) before passing it to matchCase. This way we don't have to introduce a new flag which might not be needed.

My current fix already handles this by checking if the word is all caps and then uses ucfirst(mb_strtolower($value)) to ensure it correctly becomes "CDs" instead of "CDS".

Would you prefer I try to implement the boolean flag, or is my current fix sufficient for this specific case?

[AndrewMast]

I believe there is no accurate way of determining if a word is an acronym instead of text that happens to be all uppercase.

[pranav200408]

Hello Andrew,

That's a very valid point. I agree that simply checking for an all-uppercase string is not a reliable way to determine if it's an acronym.

Given this, I'm not sure of a foolproof way to differentiate between an acronym and a regular word that is just typed in all caps. Perhaps there are some common acronyms that can be handled as an exception?

Would you be open to an alternative approach, or do you have any suggestions on how we might be able to detect this more accurately?

I'm keen to learn and contribute, so any guidance on this would be greatly appreciated.

[AndrewMast]

Not to be rude, but this feels like an AI response. In my first comment, I suggested the use of a boolean flag to solve this issue, and I think this is the only non-breaking way of doing it.

[pranav200408]

Hello Andrew,
Thank you for your response.
I can read and understand English, but I'm using an AI assistant to help me write my replies to make sure I am as clear and professional as possible.
I understand your point and agree with your suggestion to use a boolean flag.
I am currently working on implementing the changes based on your feedback. I will push the updated code to the pull request as soon as it's ready.
Thank you for your guidance on this. I appreciate your help.

[pranav200408]

Hello Andrew,
I have implemented the changes based on your suggestion.
I've updated the plural method to include an optional boolean flag to handle acronyms. This approach ensures that the pluralization logic for all-uppercase strings is only applied when it's explicitly requested, preventing any unintended side effects on existing code.
I have already pushed the updated code to the pull request. Please let me know if there's anything else that I should change.
Thank you for your guidance on this.