# Safety check: account resetcode
**URL:** https://forum.kirupa.com/t/safety-check-account-resetcode/264452
**Category:** programming
**Created:** [June 26, 2008, 8:53am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/safety-check-account-resetcode/264452 "2008-06-26T08:53:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Maqrkk](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/Maqrkk)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2008, 8:53am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/safety-check-account-resetcode/264452/1 "2008-06-26T08:53:50Z")
Hey everyone,
Still working on my site with the login system, and yesterday I’ve built a custom piece of code that generates a resetcode. This code is encrypted in the database, and different for each user. When a user asks to recover their password, this code is sent to the user through e-mail.
The code that I’ve written is a bit long though, because I couldn’t find a better/faster way to do it. I’ve written 26 possibilities for the letters a-z, while 0-9 only takes 1 line…
```php
$resetcode = "";
for($i=1; $i<=rand(7,11); $i++)
{
if(rand(0,1))
{
$char = rand(0,9);
}
else
{
$r = rand(1,26);
switch($r)
{
case 1:
$char = "a";
break;
case 2:
$char = "b";
break;
case 3:
$char = "c";
break;
case 4:
$char = "d";
break;
case 5:
$char = "e";
break;
case 6:
$char = "f";
break;
case 7:
$char = "g";
break;
case 8:
$char = "h";
break;
case 9:
$char = "i";
break;
case 10:
$char = "j";
break;
case 11:
$char = "k";
break;
case 12:
$char = "l";
break;
case 13:
$char = "m";
break;
case 14:
$char = "n";
break;
case 15:
$char = "o";
break;
case 16:
$char = "p";
break;
case 17:
$char = "q";
break;
case 18:
$char = "r";
break;
case 19:
$char = "s";
break;
case 20:
$char = "t";
break;
case 21:
$char = "u";
break;
case 22:
$char = "v";
break;
case 23:
$char = "w";
break;
case 24:
$char = "x";
break;
case 25:
$char = "y";
break;
case 26:
$char = "z";
break;
}
if(rand(0,1))
{
$char = strtoupper($char);
}
}
$resetcode .= $char;
}
```
I think this is a pretty safe way to come up with such security codes, right? If anyone knows a better or faster way, please help me out 🙂 Or if you find any possible security flaws…
---
### Author:  [@Charleh](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/Charleh)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2008, 9:31am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/safety-check-account-resetcode/264452/2 "2008-06-26T09:31:07Z")
You could cut the code down a lot by using the chr () function. It would take 1 line like the number code
```auto
if(rand(0,1))
{
$char = rand(0,9);
}
else
{
$char = chr(rand(97,122));
}
```
97 is the ascii character code for lower case a. 122 is the z.
Remember that every character is represented by a code - check [www.asciitable.com](http://www.asciitable.com)
---
### Author:  [@Maqrkk](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/Maqrkk)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2008, 9:44am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/safety-check-account-resetcode/264452/3 "2008-06-26T09:44:20Z")
Oh cool 😃 That’s exactly what I was looking for. I searched around in the PHP’s functions, but must’ve missed this one… Thanks alot!
---
### Author:  [@Maqrkk](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/Maqrkk)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2008, 11:11am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/safety-check-account-resetcode/264452/4 "2008-06-26T11:11:03Z")
So pretty much shortened to:
```php
$char = rand(0,61);
if($char >= 10)
{
$char += 55;
$char = chr($char);
}
$resetcode .= $char;
```
Thanks! 🙂
Edit:silly me…
This is the good code:
```php
$char = rand(0,61);
if($char >= 10)
{
$char += 55;
if($char >= 91)
{
$char += 6;
}
$char = chr($char);
}
$resetcode .= $char;
```
---
### Author:  [@jwilliam](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/jwilliam)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2008, 2:14pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/safety-check-account-resetcode/264452/5 "2008-06-26T14:14:29Z")
You could also use uniqid:
```auto
$resetcode = md5(uniqid(rand(), true));
```
…just my two cents.
[http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.uniqid.php](http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.uniqid.php)
---
### Author:  [@icio](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/icio)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2008, 2:37pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/safety-check-account-resetcode/264452/6 "2008-06-26T14:37:28Z")
You could always do something like:
```php
$alphabet = "abcdefghijklmno";
$char = $alphabet{rand(0, strlen($alphabet)-1)};
```
I think
---
### Author:  [@Charleh](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/Charleh)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2008, 2:56pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/safety-check-account-resetcode/264452/7 "2008-06-26T14:56:15Z")
Depends - whats an alphabat? 😃