Profiles are not auto generated with Web Applications, so you can’t just add them in the web.config and use them directly. (unless …)

The WebSite project do a magic thing : when you add properties to the profile in the web.config file, a class is autogenerated and allow the developer to access these properties. The web application project don’t do that.

You can find some workarounds over the web, here is some

• http://weblogs.asp.net/joewrobel/archive/2008/02/03/web-profile-builder-for-web-application-projects.aspx
• http://leedumond.com/blog/asp-net-profiles-in-web-application-projects/
• http://willmtz.blogspot.com/2011/09/using-aspnet-profile-feature-in-web.html
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/426609/how-to-assign-profile-values

The “dynamic” keyword help us here.

So, no more chit chat, here is the code snippets for a profile with 3 parameters : LastName, FirstName and GSM

web.config:

<profile enabled="true">
 <providers>
 <clear/>
 <add name="AspNetSqlProfileProvider" type="System.Web.Profile.SqlProfileProvider" connectionStringName="ApplicationServices" applicationName="MyApp"/>
 </providers>
 <properties>
 <add name="FirstName" type="string"/>
 <add name="LastName" type="string"/>
 <add name="GSM" type="string"/>
 </properties>
 </profile>

A “business” class, I called it “ProfilePresenter”, it returns the profile of the logged user and allow modifications:

public class ProfilePresenter
{
 public dynamic GetProfile()
 {
 return HttpContext.Current.Profile;
 }
 public dynamic UpdateProfile(string FirstName, string LastName, string GSM)
 {
 HttpContext.Current.Profile.SetPropertyValue("FirstName", FirstName);
 HttpContext.Current.Profile.SetPropertyValue("LastName", LastName);
 HttpContext.Current.Profile.SetPropertyValue("GSM", GSM);
 HttpContext.Current.Profile.Save();
 return HttpContext.Current.Profile;
 }
}

A page that uses the ProfilePresenter class : displaying the profile properties, and edit them

ObjectDataSource:

<asp:ObjectDataSource runat="server" ID="ProfileODS" TypeName="Board.Presenters.ProfilePresenter"
 SelectMethod="GetProfile" UpdateMethod="UpdateProfile"/>
<pre>

FormView: Display part

 <asp:FormView runat="server" ID="ProfileFV" DataSourceID="ProfileODS" RenderOuterTable="false">
 <EmptyDataTemplate>
 <p>
 No profil datas
 </p>
 </EmptyDataTemplate>
 <ItemTemplate>
 <h2>
 Profil informations</h2>
 <div>
 <asp:Button runat="server" ID="Edit" CommandName="Edit" Text="Edit" /></div>
 <table>
 <thead>
 <tr>
 <th colspan="2">
 Infos
 </th>
 </tr>
 </thead>
 <tbody>
 <tr>
 <th>
 LastName
 </th>
 <td>
 <%# Eval("LastName")%>
 </td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <th>
 FirstName
 </th>
 <td>
 <%# Eval("FirstName")%>
 </td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <th>
 GSM
 </th>
 <td>
 <%# Eval("GSM")%>
 </td>
 </tr>
 </tbody>
 </table>
 </ItemTemplate>

FormView : the Edit part

 <EditItemTemplate>
 <h2>
 Profil Update</h2>
 <div>
 <asp:Button runat="server" ID="Edit" CommandName="Cancel" Text="Annuler" />
 <asp:Button runat="server" ID="Button1" CommandName="Update" Text="Sauver" /></div>
 <table>
 <thead>
 <tr>
 <th colspan="2">
Infos
 </th>
 </tr>
 </thead>
 <tbody>
 <tr>
 <th>
 LastName
 </th>
 <td>
 <asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="LastName" Text='<%# Bind("LastName")%>' />
 </td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <th>
 FirstName
 </th>
 <td>
 <asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="FirstName" Text='<%# Bind("FirstName")%>' />
 </td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <th>
 GSM
 </th>
 <td>
 <asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="GSM" Text='<%# Bind("GSM")%>' />
 </td>
 </tr>
 </tbody>
 </table>
 </EditItemTemplate>
 </asp:FormView>

A simple use :

dynamic profil = HttpContext.Current.Profile;
if (profil != null)
{
 Console.Writeline(profil.GSM);
}

Another example : retrieve the gsm numbers from  members of a security role. It shows how to retrieve the profile of an other user

string[] users = Roles.GetUsersInRole(role);

List<string> gsm = new List<string>();
foreach (string user in users)
{
 dynamic profil = HttpContext.Current.Profile;
 dynamic profi = profil.GetProfile(user);
 if (profi != null)
 {
 if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(profi.GSM))
 {
 gsm.Add(profi.GSM);
 }
 }
}

Let me know what you think !

Tweet