Easily generate unique usernames for a Laravel User Model.

Works for Laravel versions above 5.5 including Laravel 9.

1. Change Log
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

See the Change Log

Via Composer

$ composer require taylornetwork/laravel-username-generator

This will add the config to config/username_generator.php

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

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();
            // ...
        });
    }
}

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 />

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';
}

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

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.

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{Cyrillic}\p{Greek}\p{Latin}\s ' // Includes cyrillic, 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.

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'

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'

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.

This package includes a UsernameGenerator facade for easy access

UsernameGenerator::generate('Test User');

UsernameGenerator::generateFor($user);

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

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

Returns

some_user

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

Returns

SOMEUSER

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'

$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.

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

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 maximum 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

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'

2 drivers are included, NameDriver (default) and EmailDriver

To use a specific driver

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

// Returns

'testuser'

OR

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

// Returns

'testuser'

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
}

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,
        ...
    ],

See the License