Checking strings for a strong enough password [duplicate]

Answer 1

I can't take the credit, as I stole this from here

using System.Text;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

  public enum PasswordScore
  {
    Blank = 0,
    VeryWeak = 1,
    Weak = 2,
    Medium = 3,
    Strong = 4,
    VeryStrong = 5
  }

  public class PasswordAdvisor
  {
    public static PasswordScore CheckStrength(string password)
    {
      int score = 0;

      if (password.Length < 1)
        return PasswordScore.Blank;
      if (password.Length < 4)
        return PasswordScore.VeryWeak;

      if (password.Length >= 8)
        score++;
      if (password.Length >= 12)
        score++;
      if (Regex.Match(password, @"/\d+/", RegexOptions.ECMAScript).Success)
        score++;
      if (Regex.Match(password, @"/[a-z]/", RegexOptions.ECMAScript).Success &&
        Regex.Match(password, @"/[A-Z]/", RegexOptions.ECMAScript).Success)
        score++;
      if (Regex.Match(password, @"/.[!,@,#,$,%,^,&,*,?,_,~,-,£,(,)]/", RegexOptions.ECMAScript).Success)
        score++;

      return (PasswordScore)score;
    }
  }

Note the use of regex for checking for upper case characters. This appears to be a decent approach, as it checks length, use of upper and lower case characters, numeric digits and special characters.

** Update **

I know the question is now closed, but I can add more explanation for VoidKing to understand some of the concepts.

A PasswordScore is returned from the CheckStrength method, which can be used as the condition for what to do next in your code.

Here's an untested demo of how the above code could be used:

String password = "MyDummy_Password"; // Substitute with the user input string
PasswordScore passwordStrengthScore = PasswordAdvisor.CheckStrength(password);

switch (passwordStrengthScore) {
    case PasswordScore.Blank:
    case PasswordScore.VeryWeak:
    case PasswordScore.Weak:
            // Show an error message to the user
            break;
    case PasswordScore.Medium:
    case PasswordScore.Strong:
    case PasswordScore.VeryStrong:
           // Password deemed strong enough, allow user to be added to database etc
           break;
}

Enums are used in this case as a means of classifying the strength of the password into human-readable groups. Keeps the code clean, and makes it obvious what is going on in the code.

Regarding the use of Regex's, if you're unfamiliar with the concept of them and how and when to use them, I suggest doing some research as these can be useful in many different scenarios for checking for patterns in strings. Perhaps start here.