Determines whether the given username exists.

For more information on this and similar theme functions, check out the Conditional Tags article in the Theme Developer Handbook.

$username string Required

The username to check for existence.

int|false The user ID on success, false on failure.

File: wp-includes/user.php. View all references

function username_exists( $username ) {
	$user = get_user_by( 'login', $username );
	if ( $user ) {
		$user_id = $user->ID;
	} else {
		$user_id = false;
	}

	/**
	 * Filters whether the given username exists.
	 *
	 * @since 4.9.0
	 *
	 * @param int|false $user_id  The user ID associated with the username,
	 *                            or false if the username does not exist.
	 * @param string    $username The username to check for existence.
	 */
	return apply_filters( 'username_exists', $user_id, $username );
}