allow only lowercase user registrations

Question

I'm trying to get allow only lowercase usernames are valid usernames in my wordpress blog. I managed to write a function but it does not seem to work.

add_filter('validate_username' , 'simple_user', 1, 2);
    function simple_user($valid, $username ) {
            if (preg_match("/[a-z0-9]+/", $username)) {
                // there are spaces
                return $valid=false;
            }
        return $valid;
    }

Any ideas with getting this to work ? i tried this but it never worked. I will be very appreciative if someone could help me with this one. Thank you

Answer 1

The filter validate_username sends and expects a boolean value, not a string.

Hook into sanitize_user and use mb_strtolower().

Sample code, not tested:

add_filter( 'sanitize_user', 'wpse_83689_lower_case_user_name' );

function wpse_83689_lower_case_user_name( $name )
{
    // might be turned off
    if ( function_exists( 'mb_strtolower' ) )
        return mb_strtolower( $name );

    return strtolower( $name );
}