How To Assign Complex Profile Values

Question

Based on this article I was able to get the FullName to work rather easily.

I have the following class that has child classes as well:

[DataContract]
[Serializable]
public class SettingSection
{
    public SettingSection()
    {
        this.UserSettings = new List<UserSettingPair>();
    } // SettingSection - Constructor

    public SettingSection(List<UserSettingPair> UserSettings)
    {
        this.UserSettings = UserSettings;
    } // SettingSection - Constructor

    [DataMember(Name = "sectionName")]
    public string SectionName { get; set; }

    [DataMember(Name = "userSettings")]
    public List<UserSettingPair> UserSettings { get; set; }

} // SettingSection - Class

[DataContract]
[Serializable]
public class UserSettingPair
{
    [DataMember(Name = "key")]
    public string Key { get; set; }

    [DataMember(Name = "value")]
    public string Value { get; set; }
} // UserSettingPair - Class

I then have a way to serialize this into JSon with the following code:

public static string Serialize<T>(object input)
{
    string Result = "";
    DataContractJsonSerializer ser = new DataContractJsonSerializer(typeof(T));

    using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream())
    {
        ser.WriteObject(ms, input);
        Result = Encoding.Default.GetString(ms.ToArray());
    }

    return Result;
}

When I do what is in the above article, the following works:

UserProfileContract.CurrentUser.FullName = "Testing";

When I try it with my List/Complex object (now a json formatting string)...

base["sectionSettings"] = (Utilities.Serialize<List<SettingSection>>(Settings)).ToString();
Save();

I get the following error (note above I even double forced it to a string with the .ToString() but no luck:

The settings property 'sectionSettings' is of a non-compatible type.

I am clearly doing something wrong, I have to assume I am not the first out there who wants to save json data in the ASP.Net default Profile provider. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

After doing some tests where I put the Utilities.Serialize... code into the working FullName, that worked. Then I renamed FullName to FullNameXX and it failed. After a few more tests I came to the conclusion that all of the properties to be saved in the Profile need to be strings (or Binary I assume but I am not using the PropertyValuesBinary data field in SQL.) So when I had a complex field, like my List then I had a property for the programmers that gets and sets a List as well as a string version of the same property that gets stored. So I now have a SectionSettings and a SectionSettingsValue property. Another adjustment needed was to make it only a DataContract and NOT Serializable or you will get extra values like k__backingField which IMHO looks bad.

The following should be the complete code...

Here is my DataContract:

[DataContract]
public class UserProfileContract : ProfileBase
{

    #region Constructors

    public UserProfileContract()
    {
    } // UserProfileContract - Constructor

    public UserProfileContract(List<SettingSection> SectionSettings)
    {
        this.SectionSettings = SectionSettings;
    } // UserProfileContract - Constructor

    #endregion Constructors

    public static UserProfileContract CurrentUser
    {
        get { return (UserProfileContract)(ProfileBase.Create(Membership.GetUser().UserName)); }
    }

    public string FullNameValue { get; set; }
    public string SectionSettingsValue { get; set; }

    [DataMember(Name = "FullName")]
    public string FullName
    {
        get { return ((string)(base["FullNameValue"])); }
        set {
            base["FullNameValue"] = value;
            Save();
        }
    } // FullName - Property

    [DataMember(Name = "SectionSettings")]
    public List<SettingSection> SectionSettings
    {
        get { return Utilities.Deserialize<List<SettingSection>>(base["SectionSettingsValue"].ToString()); }
        set
        {
            base["SectionSettingsValue"] = Utilities.Serialize<List<SettingSection>>(value);
            Save();
        }
    } // SectionSettings - Property

} // UserProfileContract - Class

[DataContract]
public class SettingSection
{
    public SettingSection()
    {
        this.UserSettings = new List<UserSettingPair>();
    } // SettingSection - Constructor

    public SettingSection(List<UserSettingPair> UserSettings)
    {
        this.UserSettings = UserSettings;
    } // SettingSection - Constructor

    [DataMember]
    public string SectionName { get; set; }

    [DataMember]
    public List<UserSettingPair> UserSettings { get; set; }

} // SettingSection - Class

[DataContract]
public class UserSettingPair
{
    [DataMember]
    public string Key { get; set; }

    [DataMember]
    public string Value { get; set; }
} // UserSettingPair - Class

Here is my static Utilities class:

public static T Deserialize<T>(string json)
{
    var obj = Activator.CreateInstance<T>();

    if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(json))
        return obj;

    using (var ms = new MemoryStream(Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(json)))
    {
        var serializer = new DataContractJsonSerializer(obj.GetType());
        obj = (T)serializer.ReadObject(ms);

        return obj;
    } // using the memory stream
} // Deserialize - Method

public static string Serialize<T>(object input)
{
    string Result = "";
    DataContractJsonSerializer ser = new DataContractJsonSerializer(typeof(T));

    using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream())
    {
        ser.WriteObject(ms, input);
        Result = Encoding.Default.GetString(ms.ToArray());
    }

    return Result;
} // Serialize - Method

Here is an example of how to Save data in multiple sections as well as the FullName property:

// First Section
SettingSection s = new SettingSection();
s.SectionName = "ContractSearch";

UserSettingPair usp = new UserSettingPair();
usp.Key = "Default Control";
usp.Value = "txtFirstTextBox";

s.UserSettings.Add(usp);

usp = new UserSettingPair();
usp.Key = "Field1Choice";
usp.Value = "SchoolName";

s.UserSettings.Add(usp);

List<SettingSection> ss = new List<SettingSection>();
ss.Add(s);

// Second Section
s = new SettingSection();
s.SectionName = "Workflow Settings";

usp = new UserSettingPair();
usp.Key = "Primart Thing";
usp.Value = "Blabla bla";

s.UserSettings.Add(usp);

usp = new UserSettingPair();
usp.Key = "Allowable Tries";
usp.Value = "3";

s.UserSettings.Add(usp);

usp = new UserSettingPair();
usp.Key = "Extra Value";
usp.Value = "Gigity";

s.UserSettings.Add(usp);
ss.Add(s);

UserProfileContract.CurrentUser.FullName = "Grigsby";
UserProfileContract.CurrentUser.SectionSettings = ss;

Here is an Extension Method I created to make extraction of SectionSetting values easier:

public static T GetSectionValue<T>(this UserProfileContract up, string Section, string Property)
{
    string value = (from ss in up.SectionSettings
                                        from us in ss.UserSettings
                                        where ss.SectionName == Section
                                        && us.Key == Property
                                        select us.Value).FirstOrDefault();

    try
    {
        return (T)Convert.ChangeType(value, typeof(T));
    }
    catch (InvalidCastException)
    {
        return default(T);
    }
} // GetSectionValue - Extension Method

And lastly, an example of the above Extension method:

string k = x.GetSectionValue<string>("Workflow Settings", "Primary Thing");
string g = x.GetSectionValue<string>("Workflow Settings", "Extra Value");
int three = x.GetSectionValue<int>("Workflow Settings", "Allowable Tries");

Here is the string version of the values I put in:

[{"SectionName":"ContractSearch","UserSettings":[{"Key":"Default Control","Value":"txtFirstTextBox"},{"Key":"Field1Choice","Value":"SchoolName"}]},{"SectionName":"Workflow Settings","UserSettings":[{"Key":"Primart Thing","Value":"Blabla bla"},{"Key":"Allowable Tries","Value":"3"},{"Key":"Extra Value","Value":"Gigity"}]}]Grigsby

In the above string k = ... example, note that it returns null because the data is "Primart Thing" and not "Primary Thing".

Hope this helps someone out there.