Match allowed names

[bearruler]

I have a little experience with Regular expressions, but this one is just pissing me off
Im sure its so simple, but everything I have tried/found doesnt work

All I need is a simple pattern to validate names on my website. Names can have letters (case doesnt matter, must start in a letter), numbers, underscores, and dashes

Allowed names:
bearruler
bearruler129
bear_ruler
bear-ruler
be-ar_ru13r

Illegal names:
_bearruler
bear ruler
129bearruler
bear@ruler
bearru|er
{bearruler}

You get the point...

Anyway, the php should be
[code]
$name="The Name They are attempting to use";
$pattern='thepattern';
if (preg_match($pattern, $name)) echo "ok";
//etc...
[/code]

Does anyone know a pattern that will fit this?

Thanks,


Bear

[wildteen88]

Have a read of [url=http://www.phpfreaks.com/forums/index.php/topic,99116.0.html]this topic[/url] maybe. As its basically the same as what you are doing.

[bearruler]

I tried everything in there, it returns 1 for things like bearruler, but also names like bea$$rruler


Bear

[oracle259]

try this pattern:

^(?=.*?[\d])?(?=.*?[a-zA-Z])(?=.*?[\-\_])?[a-zA-Z][\-\w]{8,25}$/s

note the {8,25} this requires that usernames are at least 8 characters but no more than 25 characters long. Why? I have found that very long usernames cause trouble in the long run. If you want more combinations allow dots(.) or other symbol in your usernames.

To remove this restriction simply replace {8,25} with * or +

[effigy]

[code]
<?php

### Set up test cases.
$tests = array(
### Should pass.
'bearruler',
'bearruler129',
'bear_ruler',
'bear-ruler',
'be-ar_ru13r',
### Should fail.
'_bearruler',
'bear ruler',
'129bearruler',
'bear@ruler',
'bearru|er',
'{bearruler}',
);

### Run tests.
foreach ($tests as $test) {
echo "$test --";
echo preg_match('/^[a-z][-\w]+$/i', $test) ? 'Pass' : 'Fail';
echo '<br />';
}

?>

[/code]