InfoCenter Home >
4: Developing applications >
4.4: Personalizing applications >
4.4.2: Keeping user profiles >
4.4.2.2: Customizing the base user profile support >
4.4.2.2.2: Adding columns to the base user profile implementation

4.4.2.2.2: Adding columns to the base user profile implementation

The base implementation of the user profile is contained in the class:

com.ibm.servlet.personalization.userprofile.UserProfile

It contains the columns discussed in section 4.4.2.1. The application developer can add columns to the base implementation, but cannot delete columns from it.

Adding columns is a two-step process, as follows:

  1. Extend the UserProfile class.
  2. Modify your existing servlets to use the new columns.

Several examples are available to demonstrate how to extend the base user profile implementation and utilize the extension with a servlet.

Example Description
UPServletExample.java Demonstrates how a servlet opens a user profile and prints the fields contained within it
UserProfileExtendedSample.java Shows how to extend the UserProfile class to add a column to the user profile for a cellular phone number.

The WebSphere administrator needs to configure the User Profile Manager to point to the extended class.

UPServletExampleExtended.java Shows how to modify the UPServletExample servlet to include the cellular phone number in the output
UserProfileExtended.java Shows how to extend a hash table to place arbitrary name/value pairs into the user profile
UPServletExtended.java Shows how to extend the servlet. When any of the newly added columns are removed or replaced, look for the table named "USERPROFILE" in the database to which the user profile is configured and drop that table.

The examples are encoded in HTML for viewing in a browser. The documentation directory also contains non-HTML versions (.java files) that are ready for use.

Go to previous article: Extending data represented in user profiles Go to next article: Accessing user profiles from a servlet

 

 
Go to previous article: Extending data represented in user profiles Go to next article: Accessing user profiles from a servlet