Capitalize Lisp

Is there any function to automatically make a string uppercase or lowercase or to capitalize the first letter?
I'm also looking to take a string and 'inspect' the first character so with : "example" i would want to get e as a variable.

THanks

The closest *function* would probably be string-capitalize.

For just the behaviour, try format's case conversion:

(format nil "~@(~A~)" "this is a senTENce.")

samohtvii wrote:I'm also looking to take a string and 'inspect' the first character so with : "example" i would want to get e as a variable.

CL-USER> (char "example" 0)
#\e

Thanks guys. Both really helpful. One last question. What is the easiest way to check if the letter i extracted is a vowel.
instead of writing a lot of if statements is there a way to check all vowels at one?
Thanks

I've found this document and in it is a function:

(defun vowel-p (char) (find char "aeiou" :test #'char-equal))

I don't know if it is sufficient because vowels exist much more than only english vowels.