sanitize_user

Sanitizes a username, stripping out unsafe characters.

Description

(string) sanitize_user( (string) $username, (bool) $strict = false );

Removes tags, octets, entities, and if strict is enabled, will only keep alphanumeric, _, space, ., -, @. After sanitizing, it passes the username, raw username (the username in the parameter), and the value of $strict as parameters for the filter.

Returns (string)

The sanitized username, after passing through filters.

Parameters (2)

0. $username (string): The username to be sanitized.
1. $strict — Optional. (bool) => false: If set limits $username to specific characters. Default false.

Usage

if ( !function_exists( 'sanitize_user' ) ) { 
    require_once ABSPATH . WPINC . '/formatting.php'; 
} 
  
// The username to be sanitized. 
$username = ''; 
  
// If set limits $username to specific characters. Default false. 
$strict = false; 
  
// NOTICE! Understand what this does before running. 
$result = sanitize_user($username, $strict);

Defined (1)

The function is defined in the following location(s).

/wp-includes/formatting.php

function sanitize_user( $username, $strict = false ) { 
    $raw_username = $username; 
    $username = wp_strip_all_tags( $username ); 
    $username = remove_accents( $username ); 
    // Kill octets 
    $username = preg_replace( '|%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])|', '', $username ); 
    $username = preg_replace( '/&.+?;/', '', $username ); // Kill entities 
 
    // If strict, reduce to ASCII for max portability. 
    if ( $strict ) 
        $username = preg_replace( '|[^a-z0-9 _.\-@]|i', '', $username ); 
 
    $username = trim( $username ); 
    // Consolidate contiguous whitespace 
    $username = preg_replace( '|\s+|', ' ', $username ); 
 
    /** 
     * Filters a sanitized username string. 
     * 
     * @since 2.0.1 
     * 
     * @param string $username     Sanitized username. 
     * @param string $raw_username The username prior to sanitization. 
     * @param bool   $strict       Whether to limit the sanitization to specific characters. Default false. 
     */ 
    return apply_filters( 'sanitize_user', $username, $raw_username, $strict ); 
}