Adding username to groups in SignalR - asp.net

Question

Is it possible to use the IUserIDProvider instead of ConnectionID when working with Groups? I have already found an answer here, but that concerns the SignalR 1.0 version. I wonder, whether things have changed in 2.0.
So far, I was using the conventional
Groups.Add(Context.ConnectionId, "groupName");
However, it was difficult to keep track of the connected users when their connectionID was changed (the client is a Xamarin Android app and somehow, reconnection always resulted in creation of a new ConnectionID). Thus, when the client is connecting, I have added a header:
public async Task<bool> Login(int waitMilis, string name)
{
var cts = new CancellationTokenSource();
try
{
cts.CancelAfter(waitMilis);
_connection.Headers.Add("userName", name);
await _connection.Start();
return true;
}
catch(Exception ex)
{
CallFailure(ex);
return false;
}
}
And on server side, implemented the IUserIdProvider:
public class MyUserProvider : IUserIdProvider
{
public string GetUserId(IRequest request)
{
if (request == null)
throw new ArgumentNullException("request");
else if (request.Headers != null && request.Headers["userName"] != null)
return request.Headers["userName"].ToString();
else return null;
}
}
Now, I would like to do something like
Groups.Add("userName", "groupName");
but the Add method does not have an overload for IUserIdProvider. So, is there a possibility to combine the IUserIdProvider and working with Groups, or am I stuck to creating a ConcurrentDictionary and then calling this?
foreach(User user in group.Users)
{
Clients.User(user.Name).SendMessage(message,
group.LastUpdateIndex
);
}
It ruins the whole beauty and simplicity of the SignalR code :-/

Answer 1

Unfortunately, there isn't currently a method like Groups.Add("userName", "groupName"); in SignalR.
I suggest adding users to their appropriate group(s) in OnConnected:
public class MyHub : Hub
{
public override async Task OnConnected()
{
var userName = MyUserHelper.GetUserId(Context.Request);
foreach (var groupName in GroupManager.GetJoinedGroups(userName))
{
await Groups.Add(Context.ConnectionId, groupName);
}
}
// ...
}
If you need to add an already connected user to a group, then you will likely need to send a message to the user using something like Clients.User(userName).joinGroup(groupName). Each client with userName could then call the appropriate hub method to join groupName.