Parsing PropertyValuesString in aspnet_Profile

ASP4student · January 27th, 2013, 02:21 PM

The PropertyValuesString in aspnet_Profile appears like a weird example of non-normalization: instead of containing one data per field, it contains a bunch of data in each field. In the two samples of code below, I'm trying to extract a data from the Profile for a datagrid, but it doesn't work.
Sample_1

Code:

            from u in myEntities.aspnet_Users
             where u.UserName != ""
             select new 
             {
             UserName = u.UserName,
             FirstName = u.aspnet_Profile.PropertyValuesString
             };
        GridView1.DataSource = dataofuser;
        GridView1.DataBind();

That works, but, obviously, the whole strPropertyValuesString is displayed in the grid. I couldn't find any way to extract separate properties.

Sample-2
[code]

Code:

            from u in myEntities.aspnet_Users
             where u.UserName != ""
             select new 
             {
             UserName = u.UserName,
             FirstName = GetPlayerData(string username, string data)
             };
        GridView1.DataSource = dataofuser;
        GridView1.DataBind();
private string GetPlayerData(string username, string data)
    {
      ProfileCommon userProfile = Profile.GetProfile(username);
      return userProfile.FirstName;
    }

That gives errors like "Cannot asign method group to anonymous type property".
Any help will be highly appreciated.

Imar · January 27th, 2013, 03:31 PM

Hi there,

Yes, this is the biggest problem that I (and many others) have with the built profile.

There are a few solutions:

1. Use the Profile Table provider (http://www.asp.net/downloads/sandbox...ovider-samples) that stores data in multiple columns.

2. Use Profile as you did in your example. However, you need to fix the code. This:

FirstName = GetPlayerData(string username, string data)

should probably be:

FirstName = GetPlayerData(u.UserName)

You could also make a property of type ProfileCommon on the anonymous object.

Yet another alternative is to ditch profile altogether and use EF. The biggest benefit of Profile is that you don't have to write a lot of code to interact with the database. But that's also true for EF, so if you're using EF already, you might as well change the current profile data into a new Profile entity in your EF model.

Cheers,

Imar

ASP4student · January 27th, 2013, 04:36 PM

Thank you very much.
1. The Profile Table provider looks very fit to my application and I'll try to implement it.

2. The Sample-1 code I tested initially was:

Code:

        var dataofplayer =
            from u in myEntities.aspnet_Users
             where u.UserName != ""
             select new 
             {
             UserName = u.UserName,
             FirstName = GetPlayerData(u.UserName,"FirstName")
             };

        GridView1.DataSource = dataofplayer;
        GridView1.DataBind();
      }
    }

    private string GetPlayerData(string username, string data)
    {
      ProfileCommon userProfile = Profile.GetProfile(username);
      switch (data)
      {
        case "FirstName":
          return userProfile.FirstName;
          break;
        case "LastName":
          return userProfile.FirstName;
          break;
      }

This doesn't compile: "break"appears underlined in green and the following exeption is thown: "Unreachable code detected"

I eliminated the "switch" and simplified the code to:

Code:

var dataofplayer =
            from u in myEntities.aspnet_Users
             where u.UserName != ""
             select new 
             {
             UserName = u.UserName,
             FirstName = GetPlayerData(u.UserName,"FirstName")
             };
private string GetPlayerData(string username, string data)
    {
      ProfileCommon userProfile = Profile.GetProfile(username);
      return userProfile.FirstName;
    }

This compiles well, but when I click the button which runs it, I get an exception:
"LINQ to Entities does not recognize the method 'System.String GetPlayerData(System.String, System.String)' method, and this method cannot be translated into a store expression."

3. In fact, I was trying to copy all the data from Profile into a table, and then use it as source after. "aspnet_Profile" is already an entity in my EF, since I configured my database for application services, as explained in Appendix B, page 771. However, aspnet_Profile entity still keeps all the properties in one string.

Again, thank you very much.

Imar · January 28th, 2013, 07:51 AM

>> This doesn't compile: "break"appears underlined in green and the following exeption is thown: "Unreachable code detected"

I think it does compile, but just gives you a warning. Take a look at this:

case "FirstName":
return userProfile.FirstName;
break;

The return statement causes the code to return immediately, and thus break is never fired (and is thus unreachable). Remove the break statement and the warning goes away.

LINQ to Entities does not recognize the method 'System.String GetPlayerData

Ah, yes that makes sense. LINQ to EF tries to convert that into something that can be executed against SQL Server which fails.

You could query the user name from EF and use it later to create a Profile. Alternatively, you could use a view model-like class that has a lazy loaded property. In your query you assign the UserName and then later use the lazy loaded property to get at other data.

>> "aspnet_Profile" is already an entity in my EF, since I configured my database for application services, as explained in Appendix B, page 771. However, aspnet_Profile entity still keeps all the properties in one string.

Yes, but you shouldn't do that. The format the data is stored in is very specific to profile. Either use Profile or your own custom tables. Never use aspnet_Profile as an entity.

Cheers,

Imar

ASP4student · January 28th, 2013, 07:06 PM

Thank you very much. Your explanations help me a lot.
You are also clarifying an issue which I encounterd when I configured the database for application services: whether to include the aspnet_* tables or not. I kind of knew that all * were already classes, but I opted to include them to see if it works: it does. For instance, the code below works fine:

Code:

var profile1 =
        (from p in myEntities.aspnet_Profile
         where p.UserId == user.UserId
         select p).SingleOrDefault();
      {
        Label1.Text = profile1.PropertyValuesString;
      }

      ProfileCommon userProfile = Profile.GetProfile(user.UserName);
      Label2.Text = userProfile.LastName;

However, I understand that the good practice is to exclude them from the entity.
Thanks again.

Imar · January 29th, 2013, 05:28 AM

Profile and EF are really two separate concepts. Profile doesn't use EF; it uses direct ADO.NET to read and write to the aspnet_Profile table. When it retrieves the data, it parses the denormalized properties data and makes it available when individual properties are accessed. When saving, it does the reverse and combines all values into a single column. Profile hasn't turned the aspnet_Profile table into a class as EF does; it just reads and writes to that table using ADO.NET.

EF, on the other hand, doesn't know anything about Profile. For EF, aspnet_Profile is just another table. Reading and writing should work fine (as shown in your example) but unfortunately it's also a bit useless because of the awkward internal format of the PropertyValuesString column.

Cheers,

Imar

ASP4student · January 29th, 2013, 07:20 AM

Thank you for this very useful information.
It appears to me that the Profile class doesn't include properties for all the columns in aspnet_Profile table, for instance the UserId. The same is true for the User class, which offers very limited choices in Intellisense. I was trying to transfer most of the user properties in a table, but I couldn't find UserId and Email in any class. The solution I figured out was to get it from aspnet_Users and aspnet_Membership entities(which I still keep), as follows:

Code:

 var user1 =
            (from u in myEntities.aspnet_Users
             where u.UserName == Profile.UserName
             select u).SingleOrDefault();
          myData.UserID = user1.UserId;

          var user2 =
            (from m in myEntities.aspnet_Membership
             where m.UserId == user1.UserId
             select m).SingleOrDefault();
          myData.Email = user2.Email;

That seems to work.
Are there better ways to get the UserId and Email of the current user or of a certain user?
Thanks again.

Imar · January 29th, 2013, 07:48 AM

>> Are there better ways to get the UserId and Email of the current user or of a certain user?

Yes, don't use the aspnet_* tables in your EF model; instead use the Membership API. By directly going to the database using EF you bypass all the Membership logic such as checking for duplicate names and e-mail addresses. I mentioned Profile in my previous post, but the same applies to Membership and Users.

If you do want to continue, look into JOINs in your LINQ queries so you can join the Membership and Users tables to get the data with a single query.

BTW: you should treat the user ID as internal. Instead, use a combination of the Application's Name and the UserName to get a unique way to identify a user.

Cheers,

Imar

ASP4student · January 30th, 2013, 07:55 AM

Very useful information.
I'm exploring System.Web.Security Namespace at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...v=vs.100).aspx.
Thank you very much.