setting a field to current username using WAS

[drowelf]

Hi, I have a web based app and in my component's CanUpdateRecord event I'd like to set a field to the username of the currently logged in user. How do I do this? Is there a session variable that can be accessed from the CanUpdateRecord event?

thanks

[Steve Wood]

Re: setting a field to current username using WAS

There will be a session variable available with the user name only if you set it somewhere, else there isn't one. I have the following in my Header.A5W page, meaning it refreshes itself everytiime someone refreshes the browser. It keeps the 'fullname' in a session variable, which is then available throughout the system where needed. I assume you are using Security Framework with the 'ulink' set, else this exact code won't work. The ID in my example is the Ulink value shared betwen my web_users table and the Security Framework files.

IF eval_valid("session.__protected__ulink")
	IF session.__protected__ulink <> "" THEN
		session.fullname = alltrim(lookupc("F",alltrim(session.__protected__ulink),"Fname + " " Lname","[PathAlias.ADB_Path]\web_users","ID"))
	END IF
END IF

[drowelf]

Re: setting a field to current username using WAS

Thanks Steve.
For those of you who don't know (and for my future reference), there are few assumptions here that I'll spell out so that this makes better sense to non experts:

The ulink variable identifies the logged in user on a web app, but is only active if you:

a) got WEB_SECUTIRY-->WEB_SECURITY_CONFIGURATION and put a checkmark in the "Enable external user identifier field" option under CUSTOMIZE_OPTIONS.
b) also, in the "session variable for identifier field" field under CUSTOMIZE_OPTIONS, you must specify a variable name. You can use the name "ulink" or as Steve did above, you can use "__protected__ulink". To learn about the __protected__ prefix, check the helpfile.
c) Turning this on will cause a new field to appear under WEB_SECURITY-->WEB_USERS_AND_GROUPS. Edit one of your existing users and you'll see a new field called "External User ID Value". Set this to something unique for each of your users. For simplicity sake (this isn't the best idea), let's say you set this to be the same as the User ID.
d) If you do the above, anywhere in your component events or in alpha5 script on a5w pages, you can refer to the session variable session.__protected__ulink and this will produce the username of whomever is currently logged in.
e) In Steve's example, it appears that his ulinks are unique numbers that he assigns to each user (most likely, this is done automatically). The code he sent then takes the session.__protected__ulink and uses it to search a user table from which he extracts the first and last name of the logged in user. Then he puts that into a more temporary session variable called session.fullname. Probably this would need to be called each time the page is loaded to work (he prefers using header files, search "Header.A5W" for some of his posts on this.)

I personally use steps a-d because I only have half a dozen users and I enter their accounts manually myself. To understand when/why you'd need to use step e, you should read more about the A5 security framework and what kind of security systems you'd need for different types of web apps. Steve has written a short and very clear article on this on his webpage. To read it (I recommend to anyone doing web apps). Go to http://alphatogo.com/learning.htm and click on the "User Registration and Login Methods" article.