Re: Autogenerating usernames

Following the KISS principle....

1. Allow the user to enter thier own username.
2. Test to see if it exists and, if not, allow it
3. If it exists, return a new username that simply adds a numeric value. (incremented by 1 from the previous like-username)
4. If it's less than 6 chars, padd out with numerics.

This way the username should be pretty easy to remember.

Comment on Re: Autogenerating usernames

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Re^2: Autogenerating usernames by duckyd (Hermit) on Sep 01, 2006 at 00:33 UTC
I think there's something to be said for a solution like this, though I'd just require them to enter more than 6 characters for their username in the first place. I would be wary of trying to generate usernames from the user's real names simply because it seems problematic to try to use non-unique data to generate something unique. Since their real names aren't required to be unique (and can't be required to be), they're not a good starting place for usernames (which must be unique).	[reply]

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Re^2: Autogenerating usernames
by duckyd (Hermit) on Sep 01, 2006 at 00:33 UTC

I would be wary of trying to generate usernames from the user's real names simply because it seems problematic to try to use non-unique data to generate something unique. Since their real names aren't required to be unique (and can't be required to be), they're not a good starting place for usernames (which must be unique).

[reply]