Is there an API in the ASP.NET membership, implementation to get all user profiles at once. If not, is there another good way to get all the names (first + last) of all the users. I'm trying to avoid the many SQL requests generated by getting the user profiles one at a time.
ProfileProvider.GetAllProfiles().
I'd still recommend just adding first and last names to the MembershipUser though. You'll need to cast your provider to the concrete type, which is brittle if you ever want to change it.
Update:
A challenge with the way profile data is stored is that the property names and values are packed and stored in two columns in the Profile database. If you run the aspnet_Profile_GetProperties sproc you will see that.
There is no out-of-the-box sproc that gets profile data for all users. A quick modification to the aspnet_Profile_GetProperties would do that for you though.
Related
Designing a new application in asp.net 4 I have to make a decision how to use a MS SQL Membership API along with my own data in the MS SQL data base. Firstly I need to store and access user profile data in more flexible manner then the Profile provider supports. Secondly I would like to link other user related information (e.g. Orders).
No matter where you store your aspnetdb tables (in the separate data base or in the same data base with your data), the problem stays how to keep your data synchronized.
After a research I see the following relevant options:
1. Foreign key UserId from asp_Users (suggested in this tutorial).
2. No foreign key - use transactions (suggested here).
3. No foreign key - use customized AccountController (whatever it is, suggested here).
4. Additional table which links Membership UserId (uid) with custom UserId (int).
5. ...
On the one hand I like the first solution as it is quite straightforward and is suggested in an official asp.net tutorial.
On the other hand opponents note quite reasonably that using foreign keys breaks the general idea of providers which are supposed to help separating concerns and to be interchangeable. But unfortunately they do not go much into implementation details so it is not really easy to estimate those suggestions in terms of relevance and ease of implementation.
So what is the best option to approach this? Furthermore how would the implementation look like? Would it be enough to use just additional ADO.NET or LINQ etc code or is it worth implementing a custom Membership and/or Profile Provider?
Thank you in advance.
The first is the simpliest approach. Add the GUID of the user as a foreignkey in the related tables (f.e. Ordered_by). I don't see where it breaks separating concerns. If you want to keep the order-record in database, you also have to keep the user who has ordered, that makes perfectly sense.
I have used option 4 successfully in my current application. I've created a table aspnet_UserID with idUser int as primary-key and fiUser(the GUID of the aspnet_Users) as foreign-key. Here is the model:
(Note: User is the standard aspnet_Users table created via aspnet_regsql.exe and aspnet_UserId is my custom table that maps every Guid with my int-ID)
Now i'm storing only my idUser as FK in all related tables (like in your Order-Table). That has the advantage of less storage and more readable UserID's(i could never remember a GUID). Maybe it's somewhat more separated with this "wrapper-table" but that was not my main intention.
You can change the delete-rule on your foreignkeys if you want to control the behavior. Set it to Cascade if you f.e. want to delete all orders that were ordered by the user you're deleting or set it to no Action if you want to keep this order.
I can't suggest any alternatives for the Profile question because you haven't mentioned what you mean with "need to store and access user profile data in more flexible manner then the Profile provider supports".
You should consider writing your own custom membership provider that uses the tables/data as per your need (instead of using ASP.NET provided schema).
See this MSDn sample (schema, code) for writing a custom provider - this sample uses OLEDB to access database. Yet another sample is here - it uses active directory as a store.
The following questions are about the DB set up with aspnet_regsql.exe (for .NET 4):
Why is the username stored in aspnet_Users both in original form and in lowercase? Why not lowercase all the time?
Why are Users and UsersMembership two distinct tables? Is this just because we can have different membership/application or is some best practice?
Should data like "IsApproved" be stored in DB like a column? For me it seems like a temporary column that, once approved, could be removed. So why not store it a table with key/value pairs (something like "ExtendedpProperties). Similar for other columns like "Comment" or "LastLockoutDate".
What is the purpose of "LastUpdatedDate" in "aspnet_PersonalizationPerUser"?
Why are there two columns for Value in aspnet_Profile?
Is there something wrong in that DB? Do you think that it should have been designed in another way? Please provide arguments.
Thanks!
The idea of any calculated column is to save cycles on doing those calculations during querying. Most especially during large queries. The other thought is one which you had in indexing those columns. Again, this is done to save cycles.
The membership table holds information related to the MembershipProvider API interface. The users table stores usernames and user ids, which are referenced from many providers.
The aspnetdb system is very modular and each piece can be customized through the various providers. The tables need to be separated so each interface can be rewritten, redirected, etc.
Where do you want to store this information else?
Maybe you want to know when the user or the application last changed WebParts
PropertyNames holds a string value containing information about the profile property values present in the PropertyValuesString and PropertyValuesBinary fields. The string holds a colon-delimited list of items.
Looks like, you have been given an assignment , everything is there for a reason go through Asp.net Membership Documentation
I'm working on an ASP.NET4.0/C# application for a public site that needs to authenticate only the employees that work at the associated business. The idea is for the site to have a CMS such that employees can go in and make changes to certain content without having to work with any html.
My question relates to the design and use of a ASP.NET membership provider. I'm not trying to make the site work with an existing database, so there's no need to create my own MembershipProvider for that purpose. However, since each user is an employee, I want to track additional information such as name and office number. I can think of two readily apparent ways to accomplish this:
Use the default SqlMembershipProvider class. As a result, I would need to add the appropriate tables to my database and create a separate table for any "additional" information I want to store. This effectively creates a vertical partition on the user table, since I would use the asp.net-assigned userID as the primary key of the employee table as well. To retrieve the "additional" information, I could ask the provider for information about the current user and requery the database in the event I want to know anything else.
Create one table for all employee information (including login and password) and create my own custom MembershipProvider and MembershipUser classes with the functionality I desire.
I've also considered the use of profiles to store such information, however, the site will publicly contain employee listings, and these pages will need to access some of this information. As a result, I should probably cache this data and it seems like using the serialized fields that profiles provide would cause a problem.
Thus, purely in regards to design... would it be best to make a distinction between a user and an employee and use the default SqlMembershipProvider and associated tables, or write my own user tables that store the information I need and my own MembershipProvider for accessing that information?
If I understand your question correctly, you'd like to store additional user info within the ASP.NET Membership. I've created a number of sites using the following setup.
Install the default .NET Membership using the aspnet_regsql.exe tool
Create a UserProfile table with a uniqueidentifier (PK) UserID column that is linked via a foreign key to the aspnet_Users table
To access that information, all you need is the UserId of a particular User, then you can query your custom table for more information.
Microsoft has written an excellent post on how to do this.
Good luck!
M
I am doing something similar, using your option 1. Works great for me.
My business logic has some functions for mutating users. It knows when to touch my users table or the Membership functionality.
Using a custom MembershipProvider for this sort of thing will give you more work than you bargained for.
SQL Table profile provider (http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2006/01/10/435038.aspx ) will help you do just that.
You will get the power of the Profiles and on the same time not worry about caching or serialization since this provider stores the profile information in clear database table without any serialization. You can use them directly in your queries.
I need to store a few attributes of an authenticated user (I am using Membership API) and I need to make a choice between using Profiles or adding a new table with UserId as the PK. It appears that using Profiles is quick and needs less work upfront. However, I see the following downsides:
The profile values are squished into a single ntext column. At some point in the future, I will have SQL scripts that may update user's attributes. Querying a ntext column and trying to update a value sounds a little buggy to me.
If I choose to add a new user specific property and would like to assign a default for all the existing users, would it be possible?
My first impression has been that using profiles may cause maintainance headaches in the long run. Thoughts?
There was an article on MSDN (now on ASP.NET http://www.asp.net/downloads/sandbox/table-profile-provider-samples) that discusses how to make a Profile Table Provider. The idea is to store the Profile data in a table versus a row, making it easier to query with just SQL.
More onto that point, SQL Server 2005/2008 provides support for getting data via services and CLR code. You could conceivably access the Profile data via the API instead of the underlying tables directly.
As to point #2, you can set defaults to properties, and while this will not update other profiles immediately, the profile would be updated when next it is accessed.
Seems to me you have answered your own question. If your point 1 is likely to happen, then a SQL table is the only sensible option.
Check out this question...
ASP.NET built in user profile vs. old stile user class/tables
The first hint that the built-in profiles are badly designed is their use of delimited data in a relational database. There are a few cases that delimited data in a RDBMS makes sense, but this is definitely not one of them.
Unless you have a specific reason to use ASP.Net Profiles, I'd suggest you go with the separate tables instead.
This is my first MVC/Linq to SQL Application. I'm using the out of the box SQL Membership with ASP.NET to track users through my system.
As most of you know, the UserId is a guid, great. However, to link other user-created tables in the system, I decided to go with username instead of userid. The reason I did this was because:
Username is unique anyway
It prevents me from having to make an extra call when handling db functions.
So for example: I don't have to do a look up on the userid based on username to create a new story; I simply insert User.Identity.Name into the story table.
Now I did run into some nasty complication, which seems to be related to this. It worked fine on my local machine, but not on the host. I continually got an error that went something like this:
"System.InvalidCastException: Specified cast is not valid. at System.Data.Linq.IdentityManager.StandardIdentityManager.SingleKeyManager"...
This happened whenever an insert on the db occurred on the host. If I understand correctly, this is a bug currently that happens when you link a non integer field (in my case username) to another table of a non integer field (username in aspnet_user). Although the bug reported seems a little bit different, maybe they are similar?
https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=351358
In any case, MS bug or not - is storing the username instead of the userid in my tables a bad idea? If it is, why?
Update
I just wanted to add some more context here. A good point people are bringing up is that this is dangerous if I want to allow users to change their username in the future. Perfectly valid!
However, this application relies heavily on the username. Each user creates one and only one story. They then link to their story by using: mysite/username. Therefore, the application will never allow them to change their username. It would cause a potential nightmare for people who follow the link only to see it no longer exists.
Be careful regarding your comment regarding usernames are unique. The minute Anita Takeabath gets married to Seymour Butts suddenly atakebath wants to be abutts.
Just a thought!
I've used the same approach as you and it works. Do you have a relationship between your application table and the table from the membership db? If so, you may want to remove that relationship.
My only thought would be in order to future proof your application, the userid would offer flexibility in users changing their username, as the userid would remain constant (like SO for instance).
But that is something that has to fit your application requirements. Then again requirements often tend to change wihtout a developers control.
It's bad for the following reasons:
You mentioned avoiding extra database calls. However, by joining tables, there is no "extra" call to database. You can argue that joining is expensive than no joining at all. However, most likely, a store needs more user information than a user login name (note: user names are not unique, user login names are unique). So you need joining anyway for most database operations.
User login names have different length, it doesn't perform well when they are used in joining.
Edit: modified format. I am still learning how to make my post look better:-)
If the reason you're implementing this is for easier access to the User's GUID, I suggest having your FormsAuthentication.SetAuthCookie use the users's GUID as the name property and use User.Identity.Name throughout your application.
Using username as the unique identifier could have bad consequences in the future. Should you want to allow the user change their username in the future, you will have a hard time implementing that.