Alphanumerical username with underscores and spaces

[Brandon Jaeger]

What would be the pattern for this?

Allowed charactors: aA-zZ 0-9 _ space

Thanks in advance!

---brandon

[Orio]

[^a-zA-Z0-9 _]
imo

Orio.

[Brandon Jaeger]

Okay, so that worked before I integrated it within a function.

Here's my test code:
[code]<?php
if(isset($_POST["submit"]))
echo username_valid_test($_POST["username"]);

echo "<br \>";
echo "<form method=\"post\" action=\"" . $_SERVER["PHP_SELF"] . "\">";
echo "<input type=\"text\" name=\"username\">";
echo "<br \><input type=\"submit\" name=\"submit\">";
echo "</form>";

function username_valid_test($username)
{
$len = strlen($username);

if($username{0} == ' ' OR $username{0} == '_')
return $username . " - Error #1";
elseif(!eregi("[^a-zA-Z0-9 _]{3,16}" , $username))
return $username . " - Error #2";
elseif(strpos($username , "  ") !== FALSE)
return $username . " - Error #3";
elseif($username{$len - 1} == '_' OR $username{$len - 1} == ' ')
return $username . " - Error #4";

return $username . " valid";
}
?>[/code]
- and here's the URL for the page that contains that exact code above: http://ghw-amxx.com/test/username_regex.php

In the past I've experienced problems with $_POST data and regex, but I don't think that's the case here. Also, it doesn't work without the [b]{3,16}[/b] part either.

---brandon

[Orio]

Try "[^a-zA-Z0-9 \_]{3,16}"
Maybe the underscore needs to be escaped.

Orio.

[Brandon Jaeger]

eregi doesn't like me :|

I edited a pattern and I got it working. Here's the code for anyone for future reference:
[code]<?php
if(isset($_POST["submit"]))
echo username_valid_test($_POST["username"]) . "<br \>";

echo "<form action=\"" . $_SERVER["PHP_SELF"] . "\" method=\"post\">";
echo "<input type=\"text\" name=\"username\">";
echo "<br \><input type=\"submit\" name=\"submit\">";
echo "</form>";

function username_valid_test($username)
{
$len = strlen($username);

if(!preg_match("/^[a-zA-Z0-9 _]*$/" , $username)) {
return $username . " - Error #1";
}
elseif($username{0} == ' ' OR $username{0} == '_') {
return $username . " - Error #2";
}
elseif($username{$len - 1} == '_' OR $username{$len - 1} == ' ') {
return $username . " - Error #3";
}
elseif(strpos($username , "  ") !== FALSE) {
return $username . " - Error #4";
}

return $username . " valid";
}
?>[/code]

[Catzwolf]

Try this instead:

[code]
'/[^a-zA-Z0-9\_\-]/'
[/code]

[effigy]

FYI: [a-zA-Z0-9_] is equivalent to \w when using preg.

[ShogunWarrior]

Using ^ inside a character set negates all the characters, I.E. you are saying all except a-zA-Z0-9_ if you have ^ at the start.

[Koobi]

you don't have to escape underscores and dashes if they are the leading characters in an expression.
you can also use the [b]i[/b] modifier to make expressions case insensitive

[code]
'/[^a-zA-Z0-9\_\-]/'
[/code]
is equivalent to
[code]
'/[^-_a-zA-Z0-9]/'
[/code]
which is, in turn, equivalent to
[code]
'/[^-_a-z0-9]/i'
[/code]