ScottGu's Blog

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Scott, I havent dug too deeply into personalization, but are there API for querying personalization data?

For example, if I were to keep the user's newsletter optin status in the Profile, is there an easy (or otherwise) way for me to retrieve all users who have opted in?

Thanks!

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Yes, but what about it loading all the personalization data before each page load?? That is a little overkill. What to do with something like 'settings' for a user. Something that does not change except from certain pages. It is something I want to load up once when the user logs in, not pull from the database on every page!

In the example above about saving previous reports/queries. You would not want to have to load all that data on every page load!

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

I'm looking here and there for information regarding the ASPNETDB.MDF database files (created under SQL Express): I just want to know what will happen to my users and profile settings when I will migrate my local website to the one provided by my ISP. Since my ISP's SQL server 2005 may contain numerous ASPNETDB.MDF (on behalf of other websites), how will I be able to continue to manage my own data without mixing it with the ASPNETDB.MDF database files of other websites?

Your answer is very important for me because this question is harassing me since too many days and evenings.

Thanks!

Marie-Claire

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Hi Wayne,

The profile data is actually only ever loaded when someone tries to access the profile properties. So if you don't actually write code against the Profile object on a page, it will never be loaded (it uses a lazy-load pattern -- so only loads on first use).

This should give you exactly the behavior you are looking for, and avoid the extra cost of always doing it on each request.

Hope this helps,

Scott

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Hi Marie-Claire,

Your ISP should have a separate database in SQL configured for each separate customer (note: there will only be one SQL Server instance -- but within it there will be multiple "databases" that are isolated from each other).

What this means is that each individual customer can have their own profile, membership, roles, etc provider configured just for them -- and as such you won't conflict with each other.

As long as the ISP gives you a way to upsize your SQL Express databases to their SQL box, you should be good to go (note: not all ISP's have the infrastructure to-do this yet -- we are working with ISPs to get them to deploy utilities to enable this).

Hope this helps,

Scott

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Some my thougths about personalization of controls into body of page:
I did next for personalisation of ascx controls:
for everyone control per page I compare the role of active userID with the controlname.ID directly on client side or on server side without additional retrieving that roles from database before every new page creating. I had next:
- session with ClientID and roleID (i got it when application start when coockie is, or by retrieving first tiime from database after every new LogIN)
- nameofcontrol consists from two parts: nameofcontrol and roleid of authentificated user.

In result all my clients programms can easily to retrieve the rule of working for every part of page content by retrieving roleid from name of control.(it is very easy and notneed postback that roleid from server side)

Sincerely, LukCAD

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Hi Michael,

You can programmatically get access to any Profile on the server, although there isn't a query API per-se with the built-in provider (meaning there isn't a built-in SQL query-like language to search for items).

Often, the profile system will just be configured to provide a mapping on-top of an existing SQL database table though. In this case, then you can just use standard SQL queries to analyze the persisted data.

Hope this helps,

Scott

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Personalization seems pretty good, but it doesn't appear to have an administrative overview.

I wanted, for example, to view the profiles of people on an administrative form, such as their preferred name, or other custom data that is in the profile.

It doesn't seem that possible to extract all of this easily, through an ObjectDataSource or otherwise..

Glyn

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Hi Glyn,

You can use the System.Web.Profile.ProfileManager class to gain access to the system's profile data.

ProfileManager.GetNumberOfProfiles() will return the number of profiles in the system.

You can then use ProfileManager.GetAllProfile() to page through these profiles and get access to their values (if you hook this up to an ObjectDataSource and a GridView it should be pretty easy).

You could then build an admin page that provided access to the what you are looking for.

Does this help answer your scenario? Let me know if you want me to provide more details.

Thanks,

Scott

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Thanks Scott

you got me on the right thinking and
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnvs05/html/userprofiles.asp
helped me work it out (not using a objectdatasource yet, but now I know how to do that now).

Really simple in the end too!

Regards

Glyn

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

You cannot retrieve custom properties! I'm having this problem and it seems that the ASP.NET Microsoft team didn't think about this!!

The profilemanager class has the following methods:

- DeleteInactiveProfiles. Enables you to delete all profiles older than a specified date.
- DeleteProfile. Enables you to delete a profile associated with a specified username.
- DeleteProfiles. Enables you to delete a set of profiles.
- FindInactiveProfilesByUserName. Returns a collection of ProfileInfo objects that represent profiles that have been inactive since a specified date and match a specified name.
- FindProfilesByUserName. Returns a collection of ProfileInfo objects that represent profiles that match a specified username.
- GetAllInactiveProfiles. Returns a collection of ProfileInfo objects that represent profiles that have been inactive since a specified date.
- GetAllProfiles. Returns a collection of ProfileInfo objects that represent all profiles.
- GetNumberOfInactiveProfiles. Returns an integer that represents the number of profiles that have been inactive since a specified date.
- GetNumberOfProfiles. Returns an integer that represents the total number of profiles.

None of these methods return a complete profile, although many of the methods return a collection of ProfileInfo objects. The ProfileInfo object represents the following profile properties:

- IsAnonymous. A Boolean value that represents whether or not the profile is associated with an anonymous or authenticated user.
- LastActivityDate. A date and time that represents the last time the profile was accessed.
- LastUpdatedDate. A date and time that represents the last time the profile was updated.
- Size. An integer value that represents the size of the profile as stored by the profile provider.
- UserName. A string that represents the user associated with the profile.


I would like to retrieve all the custom properties that I've configure on the Web.config and none of the available methods allows to do this!!!
WHY MAKE PROFILES AVAILABLE IF THEN THEY DON'T SUPPLY ANY METHOD TO RETRIEVE THE CUSTOM PROPERTIES?

Can anybody tell me how can I retrieve all users that have a profile and bind all custom properties to a gridview?

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Hi Giorgio,

I'm a little confused -- what is the scenario you are trying to-do? When you say custom properties -- are you talking about properties on a profile base-class, or properties you define within the <profile> section of your web.config file?

Note that the ProfileBase class has a collection on it that you can use to retrieve/store any custom property setting you define within the profile system -- so you should be able to access these fine.

Have you also checked out Joshua's new ProfileView control: http://flimflan.com/blog/ProfileView.aspx It might provide an automated way to accomplish what you are after.

Hope this helps,

Scott

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Hi Scott,

I have a methods which takes UserID of the logged in user as an argument.Is there any way I can get access to profile's UserID without running a query on aspnet_users table??

Thanks
Rushi

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Just to follow up on Josh's comment, you can also then write:

ProfileInfoCollection pc = ProfileManager.FindProfilesByUserName(ProfileAuthenticationOption.All, "nameprefix%");

foreach (ProfileInfo pi in pc) {

}

To iterate over the profileInfo objects based on a name query you provide. Within the foreach you should be able to use the code that Josh provided above to lookup the profile and add it to a collection that you then databind against.

Hope this helps,

Scott

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Hi Rushi,

You can access the User.Identity.Name property on a page (or via HttpContext) to get access to the logged in user's UserID. This obtains the information for the security context (example: FormsAuthentication ticket or Windows identity token) -- so doesn't need to hit the aspnet_users table.

Hope this helps,

Scott

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Almost there. Once I have a ProfileInfo object - how can I get access to the custom profile information (specified in web.config?)

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Hi Bela,
The ProfileInfo object exposes the UserName property, which you can use to get a ProfileCommon object, using Profile.GetProfile(username). Your ProfileCommon object then exposes your custom properties you set in your web.config. Try something like this...

//c#
ProfileInfoCollection pc = ProfileManager.GetAllProfiles(ProfileAuthenticationOption.All);
foreach (ProfileInfo pi in pc) {
ProfileCommon prof = Profile.GetProfile(pi.UserName);
}

'vb
Dim pc As ProfileInfoCollection = ProfileManager.GetAllProfiles(ProfileAuthenticationOption.All)
       For Each pi As ProfileInfo In pc
           Dim prof As ProfileCommon = Profile.GetProfile(pi.UserName)
           'get your values from prof
       Next

Regards,
Justin

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

scottgu I assume your'e talking about the default provider when you say "The profile data is actually only ever loaded when someone tries to access the profile properties." and that it uses a lazy-load pattern. If I'm right, the default provider is that of type 'System.Web.Profile.SqlProfileProvider'. When looking through the sourcecode for that class I cannot seem to find any traces of that lazy-load mechanism... If I were to implement a custom provider, how would I go about and implement such a mechanism. I assume that the property IsDirty would be used in some way. Best regards, Richard

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

hi everyone, I am planning to use profile info to store Table/Record Authorization of the user. After reading all your comments and investigating profile class I am not sure to with profile anymore. An sql table to store the recordbase authorization might be easier. Do you have any comment on this subject?

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Hi Scott!

Thanks for the quick reply.

I don't have Microsoft SQL Server available so I can't test the default provider, but I've tested Microsofts sample-provider AccessProfileProvider, OdbcProfileProvider and my own provider and they all follow the same pattern.

Every time I hit the page both GetPropertyValues() and SetPropertyValues() are called.

SetPropertyValues() works as is it should I guess, only specifying IsDirty=True for changed properties.

GetPropertyValues() on the other hand is always called which results in a database/datastore hit for each request.

My understanding of a lazy-load pattern is that GetPropertyValues() shouldn't be called after the first time or after a save to the datastore.

I did a test where I manually altered the contents of the Access-database between two requests, and the changes were loaded the next request.

My setup is as follows:

* A (custom) basic profile provider that logs every request to the provider, focusing on GetPropertyValues and SetPropertyValues.

* A small web-application for testing purposes, much like the application found at:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnvs05/html/userprofiles.asp

This web-application does NOT implement authentification, all users are anonymous.

* The web.config content is:

   <authentication mode="Forms" />

   <anonymousIdentification enabled="true" />

   <profile defaultProvider="MyCustomProfileProvider">

     <providers>

       <add name="MyCustomProfileProvider" type="MyNamespace.MyCustomProfileProvider" />

     </providers>

     <properties>

       <add name="FirstName" defaultValue="" allowAnonymous="true" />

       <add name="LastName" defaultValue="" allowAnonymous="true" />

       <add name="PageVisits" type="Int32" defaultValue="fan"  allowAnonymous="true"/>

       <add name="Log" defaultValue="" allowAnonymous="true" />

     </properties>

   </profile>

I hope someone could tell me what I'm doing wrong, or maybe this behavior is by design.

Best regards,

Richard

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Is there a way to just get the guid id for the user from the membership provider or the profile provider, without having to do a select on the user table. Vince

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Hi scott, Thank you for your time with these posts! I was also looking for a way to get the userID (guid) from the aspnet_users table - as i've read here you say no-can-do... however... i think i have found it available through membership. strUserID = membership.GetUser(user.Identity.Name).ProviderUserKey.ToString Is this safe? Did i miss the point? Im using profiles to store basic user preferences - and a seperate table to store a complex set of user configuration settings and data mappings (easier to query that way i thought)... and it seems (or feels) better to use the userID to map the tables rather than the username... justs seems (feels) that the userID is a bit more solid and unchanging. Is this also the reason the userID is the primary key used within the aspnet db instead of username? More importantly, am I heading into any obvious issues by depending on the userID value to map my data to the membership and profile structure? :)

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Thank you Scott for your reply and your time. I can see why that makes sense now :)

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Hi Scott, thanks for your reply. This still worries me though - can anybody set me straight on this line of thinking. Consider this scenario: 1) User registers within application choosing their desired username. 2) User activity results in data being persisted to database (say shopping orders etc) - mapped to the allocated username. 3) User account is deleted (but obviously the orders records would not be). 4) Different human registers an account choosing the same username as the first person. 5) new person views order history and gets old persons orders! If other tables were dependant on the guid (userID) then creation of the second account could well have the same username without conflict. (or at least the chances of guid duplicating would be far less?) Is this simply a case of it being easier to have a new table to map usernames to guid's (thats never deleted) than to develop a way around membership storage implementation changes? I understand you could simply not delete the orginal username (instead marking is inactive) but it seems inhibitive to have to disallow access to a friendly username, when a user registers, if its not being used. Maybe it's just down to preference and application requirements. Any thoughts?

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Here is a problem I am trying to solve: use anonymous profile, and get the GUID somehow. obviously the username on profile is null and User.Identity.Name is "". Anyway to do this?

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

okay I figured out solution to my own problem. I assigned a value to a placeholder profile field, call Save() -> UserName is populated with the UserId Guid.

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Hi. Maybe somebody could help me. Everytime I start application both SetPropertyValues and GetPropertyValues fired. But SetPropertyValues fired out-side of my application and I never call Profile.Save method. Maybe somebody could help me in this or had the same behaviour? Regards, Valentyn. Plase, diblicate your answer to bootloader@lit.ru

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

is there a way to access profile in web custom control??? i created some property in web.config,, and i would like to access those value in a web custom control..

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

i created some custom properties in web.config,, how can i access those properties in web custom control??? can any one help me...

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Scott, back on the userid question. Isn't it a standard practice that FK should be a PK of another table, so that we should be using UserId as the FK? or is it recommended that we use the UserName field since it has a unique constraint.

I have been looking really hard to try to find resources that teach you how to cache the UserId in the cookie (or somewhere appropriate) but had no luck. There is the ASP.net 1.1 technique to override the Global.aspx's On/PostAuthenticate method to create your own cookie and CustomPrincipals but it seems to me that this technique is obsolete. (1) the Login control already calls FormsAuthentication which already creates the cookie for you. (2) If you use the RoleProvider, it creates a RolePrincipal so I don't understand how you can create your own CustomPricipals anymore.

Hope you can point me into the right direction.

thanks

Anthony

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Hi Scott,

Thanks for the tip, but it wasn't the answer i was looking for.

I just wanted to know the reasons behind your recommendation of using UserName as the FK instead of UserId. As I mention in my last post, it seems very difficult to get the UserId with hitting the database with membership.GetUser() whereas UserName is easily available from Context.User.UserName.

Hope its more clear this time.

thanks heaps Scott!

Anthony

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Hi Scott,

thanks for the reply.

The simple providers looks cool. However, my concern was not with the plugg-ability of my membership provider. I just want a User key that is easy to access for inserting new data in tables that require reference to a user.

As you suggested, using the UserName everywhere would be the easiest since thats available from Context.User.Name.

I just want to know if its worth while trying to cache the UserId field and use that as the FK instead. My concern with this apporach is how to cache the UserId without clashing with teh default behaviour of Login controls and RoleProvider HttpHandlers.

thanks again.

Anthony

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Hi Scott,

Sorry to drag this on, but one last question.

If I had a User intensive website, where most of the CRUD requires the use of an UserId parameter.

Now, what would be the best option?

1. Call Membership.GetUser("Username") just before each CRUD inside each Page?

2. Get my SP to lookup the userId given the username and applicationId

3. store the UserId inside the UserData field in the cookie?

4. Use username as the FK in all my tables.

5. Something better than the above?

thanks

Anthony

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Hi Scott,

How does the profile system handle visits from crawlers like googlebot? Since it obviously can't write a persistent cookie does that mean a new GUID is generated for each request?

Thanks,

Martin

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Is there a way to lookup profiles other than by using username (FindProfilesByUserName)?  For instance, I have a page where I would like to show all users from a certain state.  I'd hate to have to call GetAllProfiles and filter out the ones not in the state I'm interested in.  This could take a long time if the site has a lot of users.

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Never mind my last post.  Information on this page: http://www.theserverside.net/tt/articles/showarticle.tss?id=CreatingProfileProvider helped solve my question.  

Basically, you write a custom provider and add your own Find method, ex. FindProfilesByState.  Then in your code-behind you can get a reference to your custom provider via ProfileManager.Provider in order to call FindProfilesByState.

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Hey Scott,

Did you get my email from last week?

Just wondering if it ever reached your inbox.

thanks

Anthony

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Hi Scott,

Little different issue here.

I'm creating a custom profile provider for Oracle. I am unable to see the default/intrisic Profile object. i.e. it does not show up in intellisense.

I've clean compiled, checked web.config profile declaration 100 times. I don't have a fully functional (it's stubbed) provider yet but it should show up.

I've even tried defining the default sql profile provider in web.config and do not see the intrinsic Profile object.

What must happen to make the Profile instance show up?

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Hey Scott,

I am trying to implement custom WCF membership and profile providers. All seems to be working as it should.

However, we have opted to not use the default ASP.Net membership controls such as login, User Registration Wizard etc. This is due to an existing control framework in place.

My problem seems to be that the default providers fire internal events, which I cannot reproduce.

Example: the Membership.ValidateUser() method calls;

WebBaseEvent.RaiseSystemEvent(null, 0xfa2, username);

Could you provide any clarity on how I might handle LoggingIn, setting the HttpContext.User and triggering a MigrateAnonymousEvent?

Many thanks

Christian

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

am relatively new to the asp.net 2.0 frame. I am using the role,membership and profile model. The backend for the application is a Sql Sever 2005 database. While the roles and membership work as intended , I am unable to use Profile. For one the 'Profile' class does not show up in the intellisense. I always get the error :

'The name 'Profile' does not exist in the current context '

On the back end , i can see the aspnet_Profile table has been created.

Intially when i used the aspnet_regsql.exe tool I only utilized the 'm' and 'r' options (membership and roles). I didn't need to store addtional user specific information. However the requirements changed and I now need to add user-personalization data so i thought using Profiles would be the way to go ( it seemed to take a lot less time than creating my custom tables).So I then ran the aspnet_regsql.exe tool, but this time only with the 'p' option(Profile). Could that be the reason why it isn't working.

This is what my web.config looks like:

<?xml version="1.0"?>

   <configuration>

      <appSettings>

         ..................

      </appSettings>

     <connectionStrings>

       <clear />

       <add name="DevDB" connectionString="....../>

      ..............

     </connectionStrings>

<system.web>

  ......................................

  ......................................

  <roleManager enabled="true" defaultProvider="CustomizedRoleProvider">

     <providers>

        <clear/>

        <add name="CustomizedRoleProvider" type="System.Web.Security.SqlRoleProvider"

               connectionStringName="DevDB"  applicationName="MyApplication" />

     </providers>

  </roleManager>

  <membership defaultProvider="CustomizedMembershipProvider">

     <providers>

        <clear/>

        <add name="CustomizedMembershipProvider" type="System.Web.Security.SqlMembershipProvider"

                connectionStringName="DevDB"   applicationName="MyApplication" />

     </providers>

  </membership>

  <profile enabled="true" defaultProvider="CustomizedProfileProvider">

     <providers>

        <clear />

       <add name="CustomizedProfileProvider" type="System.Web.Profile.SqlProfileProvider"

              connectionStringName="DevDB" applicationName="MyApplication" />

    </providers>

   <properties>

       <add name="TestStartTime" type="System.DateTime" allowAnonymous="false"

               serializeAs="String" defaultValue="00/00/0000"/>

  </properties>

 </profile>

</system.web>

configuration>

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

I am trying to use Profiles, but i keep getting the error:

The name Profile does not exist in the current context

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

Hi Scott,

Any Suggestions on this would be appreciated:

I'm trying to build an administration page where the administrator can set a profile for a user.

The following does not work when I'm logged in as "administrator":

ProfileCommon primaryUserProfile = Profile.GetProfile("SampleUser1");

       primaryUserProfile.TestProfile = "TestEntry";

Where this works, but it of course changes the profile of the administrator I'm logged in as, not SampleUser1:

 Profile.TestProfile = "Testprofile";

Is ther anyway to achive what I'm trying to do?

Thanks!

# re: ASP.NET 2.0 Profile Feature

If you want to access a particular profile property (that you've set in web.config) from outside the ASP.NET scope of ProfileCommon you need to use ProfileBase.Create(). Of course, you lose strong typing, etc.

// given a MembershipUser user

ProfileBase pb = ProfileBase.Create(user.UserName);

object pvalue = pb.GetPropertyValue["yourpropertyname"];