Regular expression to validate username

I guess you'd have to use Lookahead expressions here. http://www.regular-expressions.info/lookaround.html

Try

^[a-zA-Z0-9](_(?!(\.|_))|\.(?!(_|\.))|[a-zA-Z0-9]){6,18}[a-zA-Z0-9]$

[a-zA-Z0-9] an alphanumeric THEN (

_(?!\.) a _ not followed by a . OR

\.(?!_) a . not followed by a _ OR

[a-zA-Z0-9] an alphanumeric ) FOR

{6,18} minimum 6 to maximum 18 times THEN

[a-zA-Z0-9] an alphanumeric

(First character is alphanum, then 6 to 18 characters, last character is alphanum, 6+2=8, 18+2=20)

^(?=.{8,20}$)(?![_.])(?!.*[_.]{2})[a-zA-Z0-9._]+(?<![_.])$
 └─────┬────┘└───┬──┘└─────┬─────┘└─────┬─────┘ └───┬───┘
       │         │         │            │           no _ or . at the end
       │         │         │            │
       │         │         │            allowed characters
       │         │         │
       │         │         no __ or _. or ._ or .. inside
       │         │
       │         no _ or . at the beginning
       │
       username is 8-20 characters long

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If your browser raises an error due to lack of negative look-behind support, use the following alternative pattern:

^(?=[a-zA-Z0-9._]{8,20}$)(?!.*[_.]{2})[^_.].*[^_.]$