Regular expression to validate username

Question

I\'m trying to create a regular expression to validate usernames against these criteria:

1. Only contains alphanumeric characters, underscore an

Answer 1

A slight modification to Phillip's answer fixes the latest requirement

^[a-zA-Z0-9]([._](?![._])|[a-zA-Z0-9]){6,18}[a-zA-Z0-9]$

Answer 2

Err sorry I generated this from my own library and it uses the syntax valid for Dart/Javascript/Java/Python, but anyway, here goes:

(?:^)(?:(?:[abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKlMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789]){1,1})(?!(?:(?:(?:(?:_\.){1,1}))|(?:(?:(?:__){1,1}))|(?:(?:(?:\.\.){1,1}))))(?:(?:(?:(?:[abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKlMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789._]){1,1})(?!(?:(?:(?:(?:_\.){1,1}))|(?:(?:(?:__){1,1}))|(?:(?:(?:\.\.){1,1}))))){6,18})(?:(?:[abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKlMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789]){1,1})(?:$)

My library code:

var alphaNumeric = ["a", "b", "c", "d", "e", "f", "g", "h", "i", "j", "k", "l", "m", "n", "o", "p", "q", "r", "s", "t", "u", "v", "w", "x", "y", "z", "A", "B", "C", "D", "E", "F", "G", "H", "I", "J", "K", "l", "M", "N", "O", "P", "Q", "R", "S", "T", "U", "V", "W", "X", "Y", "Z", "0", "1", "2", "3", "4", "5", "6", "7", "8", "9"];
var allValidCharacters = new List.from(alphaNumeric);
allValidCharacters.addAll([".", "_"]);

var invalidSequence = (r) => r
  .eitherString("_.")
  .orString("__")
  .orString("..");

var regex = new RegExpBuilder()
  .start()
  .exactly(1).from(alphaNumeric).notBehind(invalidSequence)
  .min(6).max(18).like((r) => r.exactly(1).from(allValidCharacters).notBehind(invalidSequence))
  .exactly(1).from(alphaNumeric)
  .end()
  .getRegExp();

My library: https://github.com/thebinarysearchtree/RegExpBuilder

Answer 3

^(?=.{8,20}$)(?![_.])(?!.*[_.]{2})[a-zA-Z0-9._]+(?<![_.])$
 └─────┬────┘└───┬──┘└─────┬─────┘└─────┬─────┘ └───┬───┘
       │         │         │            │           no _ or . at the end
       │         │         │            │
       │         │         │            allowed characters
       │         │         │
       │         │         no __ or _. or ._ or .. inside
       │         │
       │         no _ or . at the beginning
       │
       username is 8-20 characters long

---

If your browser raises an error due to lack of negative look-behind support, use the following alternative pattern:

^(?=[a-zA-Z0-9._]{8,20}$)(?!.*[_.]{2})[^_.].*[^_.]$

Answer 4

^[a-z0-9_-]{3,15}$

^ # Start of the line

[a-z0-9_-] # Match characters and symbols in the list, a-z, 0-9, underscore, hyphen

{3,15} # Length at least 3 characters and maximum length of 15

$ # End of the line