Restrict usernames to alphanumeric and underscore

In response to
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showt...614#post772614

User memobug wanted (and myself too) to have a way to restrict usernames to alphanumeric chars and underscore. To me it has been a headache with a lot of users because their password didn't work, just to find after investigation that their usernames had an space and they were writing it without it. I hope this helps others as it has helped me.

Here are the instructions to do it.

1) Go to your Admin Control Panel, Phrases Manager and create a new phrase named "username_invalidchars" in the "Front-end error messages" section.

For the text use something like "Username has invalid characters. Only characters allowed are letters, numbers and underscore."



2.- Open /forums/register.php

Somewhere around line 187 you will find the following

PHP Code:

$errors = array(); 


Add the following just below that

PHP Code:

//--------------------------------------------------
    // check username does not contain UNWANTED characters
    if (preg_match('/[^a-zA-Z0-9\_]+/', $_POST['username']))
    {
        //eval(print_standard_error('error_username_semicolon'));
        eval('$errors[11] = "' . fetch_phrase('username_invalidchars', PHRASETYPEID_ERROR) . '";');
    }
//------------------------------------------------- 


That's it, enjoy it.

[shawno]

Reynaldovb,

Thank you
Thank you
Thank you

To be suprised I am not sure why this isn't a default item within vB. The amount of work generated by users saying "my log in doesn't work" all because of spaces and symbols is incredible.

Shawno

[T3MEDIA]

Do I put \- at then end to add the "-" symbol? I dont mind having that as well.

[Reynaldovb]

T3Media:

Yes, it would be something like this:

PHP Code:

if (preg_match('/[^a-zA-Z0-9\_\-]+/', $_POST['username'])) 


[T3MEDIA]

Respect due. Thanks. Just needed to verify.

[Mechanical Mind]

* clicks install *

I haven't had a problem with user names like >>..@---@..<< yet !!!

However, I don't want to have such problems!!!

Thank you. I'm going to test this out. And I only have 85 members, so I will email a few of them to notify them that an underscore has been added to their names. (I will add them manually)

[Mechanical Mind]

Does anybody which part in CSS to modify the error message color. The error message color on my forum is so light, that it can barely be seen.

Thanks.

UPDATE..........

I found it. Page Background, Font Color

[PIKenPIK]

i've installed V3.0.6

following code in register.php

PHP Code:

    $errors = array();

    // check username does not contain semi-colons
    if (preg_match('/(?<!&#[0-9]{3}|&#[0-9]{4}|&#[0-9]{5});/', $_POST['username']))
    {
        //eval(print_standard_error('error_username_semicolon'));
        eval('$errors[10] = "' . fetch_phrase('username_semicolon', PHRASETYPEID_ERROR) . '";');
    } 


Is that the same or what?

[Lizard King]

PHP Code:

if (preg_match('/[^a-zA-Z0-9\_\ \]+/', $_POST['username'])) 


Is this the correct code if I want to allow space in user names ?
I am using one

[Reynaldovb]

Lizard King:
No, I think the correct way to do it would be something like this:

PHP Code:

if (preg_match('/[^a-zA-Z0-9\_\s]+/', $_POST['username'])) 


[clearchannel]

I would like to install this hack in vB 3.06. I would also like to allow spaces in usernames. Which of the above code would be correct to use in 3.06?

Thanks