Laravel Username Generator

Easily generate unique usernames for a Laravel User Model

1. Most Recent Update
2. Install
3. Set Up
4. Config
   • Allowed Characters
5. Basic Usage
   • generate($name)
   • generateFor($model)
   • GeneratesUsernames Trait
   • UsernameGenerator Facade
6. Other Examples
   • With a Separator
   • Upper Case
   • Additional Casing Options
   • Mixed Case
   • Minimum Length
   • Maximum Length
   • Other Character Sets
7. Drivers
   • Extending
8. License
9. Change Log

Most Recent Update

v2.6.1

• Added support for PHP 8.1
• Set minimum PHP version to 7.4

Updated January 2, 2022

Install

Via Composer

$ composer require taylornetwork/laravel-username-generator

Publish Config

This will add the config to config/username_generator.php

$ php artisan vendor:publish --provider="TaylorNetwork\UsernameGenerator\ServiceProvider"

Quickstart

This section will help you get up and running fast.

The following steps will be the same for all Laravel versions and assumes you're adding the package to a new installation.

User Model

In App\Models\User (or App\User for Laravel 7) add the FindSimilarUsernames and GeneratesUsernames traits. Add 'username' to the fillable property.

// ...
use TaylorNetwork\UsernameGenerator\FindSimilarUsernames;
use TaylorNetwork\UsernameGenerator\GeneratesUsernames;

class User extends Authenticatable
{
	// ...
	use FindSimilarUsernames;
	use GeneratesUsernames;
	
	protected $fillable = [
		// ...
		'username',
	];
	
	// ...

}

Database Migration

In your database/2014_10_12_000000_create_users_table add a username column.

class CreateUsersTable extends Migration
{
    public function up()
    {
        Schema::create('users', function (Blueprint $table) {
            // ...
            $table->string('username')->unique();
            // ...
        });
    }
}

Laravel 8+

Note: if you are not using Laravel Jetstream for your project, simply continue with the Laravel 7 guide below.

Publish the Laravel Fortify config if you haven't already

$ php artisan vendor:publish --tag=fortify-config

In the config/fortify.php change the 'username' => 'email' to 'username' => 'username'

// ...

'username' => 'username',

'email' => 'email',
    
// ... 

Update the login view in resources/views/auth/login.blade.php and replace Email with Username.

<x-jet-label for="email" value="{{ __('Username') }}" />
<x-jet-input id="email" class="block mt-1 w-full" type="text" name="username" :value="old('username')" required autofocus />

Laravel 7 and below

In config/username_generator.php update the User model namespace to match your project.

Using username to login

To use the username to login instead of the email you need to add the following to your LoginController

public function username()
{
    return 'username';
}

Set Up

Add the FindSimilarUsernames trait on your user model (or whichever model you want to use).

use TaylorNetwork\UsernameGenerator\FindSimilarUsernames;

class User extends Authenticatable
{
    use FindSimilarUsernames;
}    

Note: this is required in all cases if you want the username to be unique

Config

This is in the process of being updated on the wiki

See the default config

By default the Generator class has the following configuration:

The config is stored in config/username_generator.php

You can override config on a new instance by new Generator([ 'unique' => false ]); etc.

Allowed Characters

If you need to include additional characters beyond just 'A-Za-z' you'll need to update the allowed_characters config option.

You should also update 'convert_to_ascii' to false if you want the result to be in the same set.

For example

   'allowed_characters' => 'А-Яа-яA-Za-z',   // Would also allow Cyrillic characters
   
   'allowed_characters' => 'А-Яа-яA-Za-z-_' // Includes Cyrillic, Latin characters as well as '-' and '_'
   
   'allowed_characters' => '\p{Cryillic}\p{Greek}\p{Latin}\s ' // Includes cryillic, greek and latin sets and all spaces

Please note that all characters not included in this list are removed before performing any operations. If you get an empty string returned double check that the characters used are included.

Basic Usage

generate($name)

Create a new instance and call generate($name)

use TaylorNetwork\UsernameGenerator\Generator;

$generator = new Generator();

$username = $generator->generate('Test User');

Returns

'testuser'

If you do not provide a name to the generate method an adjective and noun will be chosen as the name at random, using noun and adjective word lists from alenoir/username-generator, which will then be converted to a username.

use TaylorNetwork\UsernameGenerator\Facades\UsernameGenerator;

$username = UsernameGenerator::generate();

Returns something similar to

'monogamousswish'

generateFor($model)

Create a new instance and call generateFor($model)

This will access the model's name property and convert it to a username.

use TaylorNetwork\UsernameGenerator\Generator;

class User
{
	public $name = 'Some Other User';
	
	public function getUsername()
	{
		$generator = new Generator();
		return $generator->generateFor($this);
	}
}

Returns

'someotheruser'

GeneratesUsernames Trait

This package also comes with a GeneratesUsernames trait that you can add to your model and it will automatically call the username generator when the model is saving without the specified username column.

Note: you will also need to include the FindSimilarUsernames trait either way

use TaylorNetwork\UsernameGenerator\GeneratesUsernames;
use TaylorNetwork\UsernameGenerator\FindSimilarUsernames;

class User 
{
	use FindSimilarUsernames, GeneratesUsernames;
}

You can also add custom config to call before the username is generated.

Override the generatorConfig method in your model

use TaylorNetwork\UsernameGenerator\GeneratesUsernames;
use TaylorNetwork\UsernameGenerator\FindSimilarUsernames;

class User 
{
	use FindSimilarUsernames, GeneratesUsernames;
	
	public function generatorConfig(&$generator) 
	{
		$generator->setConfig([ 'separator' => '_' ]);
	}
}

If you need to modify the data before handing it off to the generator, override the getField method on your model. For example if you have a first and last name rather than a single name field, you'll need to add this to your model.

class User 
{
	// ...
	
	public function getField(): string
	{	
		return $this->first_name . ' ' . $this->last_name;
	}
	
	// ...
}

Note: if your code still uses a custom getName, it will still work, however it was replaced with getField in v2.1 when driver support was added.

UsernameGenerator Facade

This package includes a UsernameGenerator facade for easy access

UsernameGenerator::generate('Test User');

UsernameGenerator::generateFor($user);

UsernameGenerator::setConfig([ 'separator' => '_' ])->generate('Test User');

Other Examples

With a Separator

$generator = new Generator([ 'separator' => '_' ]);
$generator->generate('Some User');

Returns

some_user

Upper Case

$generator = new Generator([ 'case' => 'upper' ]);
$generator->generate('Some User');

Returns

SOMEUSER

Additional Casing Options

To change the casing, we make use of the Laravel String Helpers so any value that changes the case will work.

Studly (Pascal)

UsernameGenerator::setConfig([ 'case' => 'studly' ])->generate('test user');
// Returns 'TestUser'

When using studly case the laravel helper will remove the spaces between separate words so if a separator is used it will be overridden. You would need to use title case (seen below) in order to have the same effect.

UsernameGenerator::setConfig([ 'case' => 'studly', 'separator' => '_' ])->generate('test user');
// Returns 'TestUser'

Title

This is the same as studly but the laravel helper will not remove spaces, so it can be used in conjunction with a separator

UsernameGenerator::setConfig([ 'case' => 'title' ])->generate('test user');
// Returns 'TestUser'

UsernameGenerator::setConfig([ 'case' => 'title', 'separator' => '_' ])->generate('test user');
// Returns 'Test_User'

Ucfirst

UsernameGenerator::setConfig([ 'case' => 'ucfirst' ])->generate('test user');
// Returns 'Testuser'

Mixed Case

$generator = new Generator([ 'case' => 'mixed' ]);
$generator->generate('Some User');

Returns

SomeUser

Note: Mixed case will just ignore changing case altogether

$generator = new Generator([ 'case' => 'mixed' ]);
$generator->generate('SoMe WeIrD CapitaliZation');

Returns

SoMeWeIrDCapitaliZation

Note: if you pass an invalid value for the case option, mixed case will be used.

Minimum Length

If you want to enforce a minimum length for usernames generated change the min_length option in config/username_generator.php

'min_length' => 6,

By default if the generator generates a username less than the minimum length it will pad the end of it with a random digit between 0 and 9.

For example

UsernameGenerator::generate('test');

// Would return the following where 0 is a random digit

'test00' 

Alternatively you can throw an exception when the minimum length has not been reached

In config/username_generator.php set

'throw_exception_on_too_short' => true,

UsernameGenerator::generate('test');

Would throw a UsernameTooShortException

Maximum Length

If you want to enforce a maximum length for usernames generated change the max_length option in config/username_generator.php

'max_length' => 6,

By default if the generator generates a username more than the minimum length it will cut it to the max length value and then try to make it unique again. If that becomes too long it will remove one character at a time until a unique username with the correct length has been generated.

For example

UsernameGenerator::generate('test user');

'testus' 

Alternatively you can throw an exception when the maximum length has been exceeded

In config/username_generator.php set

'throw_exception_on_too_long' => true,

UsernameGenerator::generate('test user');

Would throw a UsernameTooLongException

Other Character Sets

Any other character set can be used if it's encoded with UTF-8. You can either include by adding the set to the 'allowed_characters' option.

Alternatively you can set 'validate_characters' to false to not check.

You will need to set 'convert_to_ascii' to false either way

$generator = new Generator([
    'allowed_characters' => '\p{Greek}\p{Latin}\s ',
    'convert_to_ascii' => false,
]);

$generator->generate('Αυτό είναι ένα τεστ');

// Returns

'αυτόείναιένατεστ'

Drivers

2 drivers are included, NameDriver (default) and EmailDriver

To use a specific driver, if none is specified the default is used.

UsernameGenerator::usingEmail()->generate('[email protected]');

// Returns

'testuser'

OR

$generator = new Generator();
$generator->setDriver('email');
$generator->generate('[email protected]');

// Returns

'testuser'

Extending

You can make your own custom drivers that extend TaylorNetwork\UsernameGenerator\Drivers\BaseDriver or override an existing one.

Custom drivers require a public $field property to be set which is the name of the field on the model to use to generate the username.

Drivers will perform the following operations in order:

[
	'stripUnwantedCharacters',     // Removes all unwanted characters from the text
	'convertCase',                 // Converts the case of the field to the set value (upper, lower, mixed)
	'collapseWhitespace',          // Collapses any whitespace to a single space
	'addSeparator',                // Converts all spaces to separator
	'makeUnique',                  // Makes the username unique (if set)
]

In your custom driver you can add a method to perform an operation before or after any of the above operations.

public function beforeConvertCase(string $text): string 
{

	// --
	
}

public function afterStripUnwantedCharacters(string $text): string 
{

	// --
	
}

Additionally if there is any operation you want to do as the very first or last thing you can use the first and last hooks.

public function first(string $text): string 
{
    // Happens first before doing anything else
}

public function last(string $text): string 
{
    // Happens last just before returning
}

Example

For example if you wanted to append -auto to all automatically generated usernames, you could make a new driver in App\Drivers\AppendDriver

namespace App\Drivers;

use TaylorNetwork\UsernameGenerator\Drivers\BaseDriver;

class AppendDriver extends BaseDriver
{	
    public $field = 'name';
    
    public function afterMakeUnique(string $text): string
    {
    	return $text . '-auto';
    }
}

And then in config/username_generator.php add the driver to the top of the drivers array to use it as default.

'drivers' => [
	'append' => \App\Drivers\AppendDriver::class,
        ...
    ],

License

MIT

Change Log

v2.6.1

• Added support for PHP 8.1
• Set minimum PHP version to 7.4

v2.6

• Added first and last hook for custom drivers
• Moved the EmailDriver hook to first
• Convert case now happens second rather than first
• Generator now supports multibyte characters (Cyrillic, etc.)
• Text will automatically be converted to ASCII by default
• Added options for converting to ascii and validating the input string

v2.5.1

• Fixes issue where custom dictionary nouns and adjectives were not being used

v2.5

• Added maximum length check.
• Added ability for pre-filled usernames to go through generate process to allow for consistent username styles.
• Added checking for similar usernames using REGEXP or LIKE (LIKE is a fallback if REGEXP fails).
• Added a check if a username is unique as is before checking for similar ones.
• Updated composer.json to support PHP 7.2 and above
• Updated readme for better Laravel 8+ quickstart

v2.4

• This is a minor change but if you're using older versions of Laravel you may need to update your config file.
• Changed default User model from App\User to App\Models\User to mirror new Laravel versions (8.0+).
• Moved the adjective and noun word lists from the config file to a separate file, making the published config smaller and allowing you to create your own word lists if you wish.

v2.3

• Added support for random dictionary based usernames if a name is not provided. See the generate method

v2.2.2

• Fixed bug where if a custom column name was used and set using generatorConfig it was not being passed through.
• Fixed support for overriding the getName method from GeneratesUsernames

v2.2

• Added support for minimum length

v2.1

• Switched to a driver based conversion
• Added email support

Note: Nothing should break with this update but let me know if you have any issues.

v2.0

• Removed support for deprecated makeUsername method
• Generator will now only accept an array of config as the optional constructing arguments
• Added UsernameGenerator facade