Can I search over SE using SE API if I have only a username?

Question

How do I can find someone's userid if I have only their username?

For example, my real username is: Zagorulkin Dmitry

My Stack Overflow userid is: 1321404

Are there any API methods for this kind of task?

Answer 1

To find user_id(s) for a username, use the inname parameter of the /users query.
You will have to repeat this query call for every Stack Exchange site that you are interested in. For example:

• /users?inname=Zagorulkin&site=stackoverflow&filter=!6Xcz2tYayQsZ1
• /users?inname=Zagorulkin&site=programmers.stackexchange&filter=!6Xcz2tYayQsZ1

If you only want the user_id, create a filter to that effect. For those two example queries, I used a filter to return just the user_id and the account_id; resulting in:

{"items":[{"user_id":1321404,"account_id":1390443}],"quota_remaining":263,"quota_max":300,"has_more":false}

and

{"items":[{"user_id":57385,"account_id":1390443}],"quota_remaining":262,"quota_max":300,"has_more":false}

respectively.

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The account_id is useful, because once you know it, you can use
/users/{accountId}/associated to get all of the user's associated account info.