sanitize_user( string $username, bool $strict = false ): string
- Since
- 2.0.0
- Source
wp-includes/formatting.php:2149
Description
Removes tags, percent-encoded characters, HTML 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 'sanitize_user' filter.
Compatibility
- WordPress
- since 2.0.0
- PHP
- 7.4–8.6-dev
- 6.7.7
- 6.8.8
- 6.9.7
- 7.0.4
- 7.1.0
Present in every tracked release (6.7.7 to 7.1.0), and compiles on PHP 7.4 through 8.6-dev.
Parameters
$usernamestring- The username to be sanitized.
$strictbooloptional- If set to true, limits $username to specific characters.
Default false.Default:false
Return value
string- The sanitized username, after passing through filters.
Performance profile
How much work a call to sanitize_user() does, and what it touches: the algorithmic scaling, the Zend instruction count per call across PHP versions, the hooks it hands control to, and the core code that calls it. Measured from the compiled opcodes, not a stopwatch, so every number is identical on any machine running the same PHP version, and every function in core is ranked by cost.
- Cost class
- Trivial
- Scaling
- Constant
- Instructions
- 30–33
- Plugin surface
- 1 hook
- Called by
- 10
Touches nothing outside its own arguments.
No loop in the body: the same number of instructions runs whatever you pass in.
Executed per call on PHP 8.5, depending on the branch taken. The body compiles to 33.
Third-party callbacks on 'sanitize_user' run inside this call, and their cost is not bounded by anything here.
10 places in core call this, so the cost is paid more often than your own code shows.
What it touches
- hookthird-party callbacks
apply_filters()called directly
Further down the call graph this can also reach option, cache, serialize, query and transient. Those are the worst case, several calls deep and usually down an error path, not what a normal call pays.
What one call costs · 1 distinct outcome
One number would be a lie: the work depends on which branch runs. These are every distinct cost sanitize_user() can have, taken from its control-flow graph on PHP 8.5.
| When | Instructions | Calls it makes |
|---|---|---|
| always | 30–33 | wp_strip_all_tags(), remove_accents(), apply_filters() |
Across PHP versions
| PHP | Compiled | Executed | Branches | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8.6-dev | 33 | 30–33 | 1 | |
| 8.5 | 33 | 30–33 | 1 | |
| 8.4 | 33 | 30–33 | 1 | 14 fewer instructions than PHP 8.3 |
| 8.3 | 47 | 41–47 | 1 | |
| 8.2 | 47 | 41–47 | 1 | |
| 8.1 | 47 | 41–47 | 1 | |
| 7.4 | 47 | 41–47 | 1 |
An instruction is not a fixed amount of time, so a matching count is not necessarily the same speed; what it rules out is a difference in the work itself.
Hooks and filters fired · 1
One hook fires while sanitize_user() runs, in this order:
- apply_filters( sanitize_user )filterline 2176 (+27 into the body)
Filters a sanitized username string.
Uses · 3
- wp_strip_all_tags()Properly strips all HTML tags including 'script' and 'style'.
- remove_accents()Converts all accent characters to ASCII characters.
- apply_filters()Calls the callback functions that have been added to a filter hook.
Used by · 10
- WP_User::get_data_by()Returns only the main user fields.
- display_setup_form()Displays installer setup form.
- edit_user()Edit user settings based on contents of $_POST
- register_new_user()Handles registering a new user.
- validate_username()Checks whether a username is valid.
- wp_authenticate()Authenticates a user, confirming the login credentials are valid.
- wp_insert_user()Inserts a user into the database.
- wpmu_create_user()Creates a user.
- wpmu_signup_user()Records user signup information for future activation.
- wpmu_validate_user_signup()Sanitizes and validates data required for a user sign-up.
Source code
function sanitize_user( $username, $strict = false ) { $raw_username = $username; $username = wp_strip_all_tags( $username ); $username = remove_accents( $username ); // Remove percent-encoded characters. $username = preg_replace( '|%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])|', '', $username ); // Remove HTML entities. $username = preg_replace( '/&.+?;/', '', $username ); // 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. */ return apply_filters( 'sanitize_user', $username, $raw_username, $strict );}Changelog
Introduced in 2.0.0. Unchanged from 6.7.7 through 7.1.0.
Signature, return type and hooks compared across 5 parsed releases.
About this page
- Parsed data
- Generated from the wordpress-develop 7.1.0 tag, from
src/wp-includes/formatting.php, and regenerated for each WordPress release so it tracks the code rather than a snapshot of it. - Corrections
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