How to extract usernames out of Tweets?

Tested:

/@([a-z0-9_]+)/i

---

In Ruby (irb):

>> "RT @user1: who are @thing and @user2?".scan(/@([a-z0-9_]+)/i)
=> [["user1"], ["thing"], ["user2"]]

In Python:

>>> import re
>>> re.findall("@([a-z0-9_]+)", "RT @user1: who are @thing and @user2?", re.I)
['user1', 'thing', 'user2']

In PHP:

<?PHP
$matches = array();
preg_match_all(
    "/@([a-z0-9_]+)/i",
    "RT @user1: who are @thing and @user2?",
    $matches);

print_r($matches[1]);
?>

Array
(
    [0] => user1
    [1] => thing
    [2] => user2
)

try an iterator (findall) with this regex:

(@[\w-]+)

bye

/(?<!\w)@(\w+)/

The above covers the following scenario, which other answers in this thread do not:

• An @ sign that is not supposed to be a username, e.g. "my email is [email protected]"
• Still allows a username that is at the beginning of a string, e.g. "@username lorem ipsum..."