asp.net extending IPrincipal

Question

I would like to extend IPrincipal in asp.net to allow me to get the usertype that I will define. I would like to make it possible to do this in a controller

string type = User.UserType 

then in my extension method i will have a method like

public string UserType()
{
  // do some database access 
  return userType

}

how can I do this? is it possible? Thanks!

Answer 1

You can make an extension method:

public static string UserType(this IPrincipal principal) {
    // do some database access 
    return something;
}

Answer 2

Sure. Make your class implements IPrincipal:

public class MyPrinciple : IPrincipal {
    // do whatever
}

Extension method:

public static string UserType(this MyPrinciple principle) {
    // do something
}

Answer 3

Here is an example custom class that implements IPrincipal. This class includes a few extra methods to check for role affiliation but shows a property named UserType per your requirements.

  public class UserPrincipal : IPrincipal
  {
    private IIdentity _identity;
    private string[] _roles;

    private string _usertype = string.Empty;


    public UserPrincipal(IIdentity identity, string[] roles)
    {
      _identity = identity;
      _roles = new string[roles.Length];
      roles.CopyTo(_roles, 0);
      Array.Sort(_roles);
    }

    public IIdentity Identity
    {
      get
      {
        return _identity;
      }
    }

    public bool IsInRole(string role)
    {
      return Array.BinarySearch(_roles, role) >= 0 ? true : false;
    }

    public bool IsInAllRoles(params string[] roles)
    {
      foreach (string searchrole in roles)
      {
        if (Array.BinarySearch(_roles, searchrole) < 0)
        {
          return false;
        }
      }
      return true;
    }

    public bool IsInAnyRoles(params string[] roles)
    {
      foreach (string searchrole in roles)
      {
        if (Array.BinarySearch(_roles, searchrole) > 0)
        {
          return true;
        }
      }
      return false;
    }

    public string UserType
    {
      get
      {
        return _usertype;
      }
      set
      {
        _usertype = value;
      }
    }

  }

Enjoy!