How should you get correct id based on username for a user for a public profile view?

Question

I'm trying to figure out how to view a profile-page in codeigniter. I know how to create templates and so on in CodeIgniter, but I don't know which way to go to handle "translation from username to userid" in a secure manner. This is a profile that should be viewed when the user isn't logged in (public profile).

Code snippet from my profile-controller:

$username = uri_segment(3); //Here's the actual username is stored in the url
$profile = new Profile();
$this->user_id = $profile->getUserByUserName($username);

Above seems ok, right? But when a username contains spaces, the "username-link" gets from "Gustav Wiberg" to "gustav-wiberg" (space replaced by hyphens, and the username is lowercase).

The actual link could look something like this: http://www.domain.com/profile/gustav-wiberg

But if I check this link with uri_segment I get username "gustav-wiberg" and not "Gustav Wiberg" which is the REAL username I want to compare with (by getting the return value of $profile->getUserByUserName($username);.

Am I taking the wrong approach to this? Or is it ok approach based on each username must be unique.

I could just do a replacement from uri_segment "gustav-wiberg" by capitalizing each word and replacing hypens with space and then do my query to check id for that username?

Please give me any pointers...

Answer 1

Either you can put a check while creating the username that there should not be spaces i.e. User can create a URL friendly username. Or as you mentioned, you can do a replacement from uri_segment. But thinking of different scenarios, this approach can create issues so it seems its better to create a url friendly username.

One more option is you can add one more field in DB along with the username, say "slug". Wherein you can convert the username to URL friendly name and store. And check for that name while retrieving.