How to get current user, and how to use User class in MVC5?

Question

If you're coding in an ASP.NET MVC Controller, use

using Microsoft.AspNet.Identity;

...

User.Identity.GetUserId();

Worth mentioning that User.Identity.IsAuthenticated and User.Identity.Name will work without adding the above mentioned using statement. But GetUserId() won't be present without it.

If you're in a class other than a Controller, use

HttpContext.Current.User.Identity.GetUserId();

In the default template of MVC 5, user ID is a GUID stored as a string.

No best practice yet, but found some valuable info on extending the user profile:

• Overview of Identity: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/aspnet/introducing-asp-net-identity-a-membership-system-for-asp-net-applications/
• Example solution regarding how to extend the user profile by adding an extra property: https://github.com/rustd/AspnetIdentitySample

Try something like:

var store = new UserStore<ApplicationUser>(new ApplicationDbContext());
var userManager = new UserManager<ApplicationUser>(store);
ApplicationUser user = userManager.FindByNameAsync(User.Identity.Name).Result;

Works with RTM.

If you want the ApplicationUser object in one line of code (if you have the latest ASP.NET Identity installed), try:

ApplicationUser user = System.Web.HttpContext.Current.GetOwinContext().GetUserManager<ApplicationUserManager>().FindById(System.Web.HttpContext.Current.User.Identity.GetUserId());

You'll need the following using statements:

using Microsoft.AspNet.Identity;
using Microsoft.AspNet.Identity.Owin;

Getting the Id is pretty straight forward and you've solved that.

Your second question though is a little more involved.

So, this is all prerelease stuff right now, but the common problem you're facing is where you're extending the user with new properties ( or an Items collection in you're question).

Out of the box you'll get a file called IdentityModel under the Models folder (at the time of writing). In there you have a couple of classes; ApplicationUser and ApplicationDbContext. To add your collection of Items you'll want to modify the ApplicationUser class, just like you would if this were a normal class you were using with Entity Framework. In fact, if you take a quick look under the hood you'll find that all the identity related classes (User, Role etc...) are just POCOs now with the appropriate data annotations so they play nice with EF6.

Next, you'll need to make some changes to the AccountController constructor so that it knows to use your DbContext.

public AccountController()
{
    IdentityManager = new AuthenticationIdentityManager(
    new IdentityStore(new ApplicationDbContext()));
}

Now getting the whole user object for your logged in user is a little esoteric to be honest.

    var userWithItems = (ApplicationUser)await IdentityManager.Store.Users
    .FindAsync(User.Identity.GetUserId(), CancellationToken.None);

That line will get the job done and you'll be able to access userWithItems.Items like you want.

HTH