Regex on username for chat login

[TranceCan]

Hello,

We are using the chat hack to integrate IRC chat in our forums. The problem is with usernames that are valid in VB, but not in IRC. What I would like to do is add a piece of code to check usernames and remove invalid characters as they are sent into chat.

ie. [A.O.E.]sNiPeR (that's an example of a REAL username in our forums).

The regex I need (I could never grasp how to write regular expressions) would remove any brackets and convert periods and space to underscores. So, in this example, it would become:

A_O_E_sNiPeR

Or in the case of a space, like: The Dude, would become The_Dude.

Can someone PLEASE give me a code snippet that will do that?

THANKS!!!!!

[Mark Hensler]

You could use str_replace(). I don't think you'll need the power of regular expressions, so str_replace will give you more speed.

example:

PHP Code:


$replace = array(
    // array(OUT, IN),
    array('[', ''),
    array(']', ''),
    array('.', '_'),
    array(' ', '_')
    );

$string = str_replace($replace[0], $replace[1], $string); 


[TranceCan]

Originally posted by Mark Hensler
You could use str_replace(). I don't think you'll need the power of regular expressions, so str_replace will give you more speed.

example:

PHP Code:


$replace = array(
    // array(OUT, IN),
    array('[', ''),
    array(']', ''),
    array('.', '_'),
    array(' ', '_')
    );

$string = str_replace($replace[0], $replace[1], $string); 


Very close! Didn't work for me though, so I dug in the PHP manual and ended up with this:

$search = array('[', ']', '.', ' ');
$replace = array('', '', '_', '_');

$string = str_replace($search, $replace, $string);

Works like a charm now!! Thanks for your help, got me on the right trail!!

[Mark Hensler]

sorry...
This is what I wanted to post, but aparently my mind wasn't with me at the time.

PHP Code:

$replace = array(
    // "OUT" => "IN"
    '[' => '',
    ']' => '',
    '.' => '_',
    ' ' => '_'
    );

$text = str_replace(array_keys($replace), array_values($replace), $text); 


I this because you can see the pairs easier.