The application developer has a few options for customizing the user profile support provided by IBM WebSphere Application Server. The Related information provides instructions and additional details about each option.
Web applications can maintain several pieces of data about users. You can extend the data representation to allow the collection of arbitrary name-value pairs.
Use the following interface with the com.ibm.websphere.userprofile.UserProfileExtender class to extend a user profile hash table:
com.ibm.websphere.userprofile.UserProfileProperties
This action enables you to place arbitrary name-value pairs in the user profile. Extending the hash table is similar to using the java.util.Dictionary class in the base JDK 1.x, or any of the classes that extend it.
Application developers can customize user profiles by adding columns to the base user profile implementation. Adding new columns is accomplished by implementing the interface:
com.ibm.websphere.userprofile.UserProfileExtender
and extending the base class:
com.ibm.servlet.personalization.userprofile.UserProfile
The application developer can add columns to but not delete columns from the base implementation.
Adding columns is a two-step process, as follows:
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. |
UserProfileExtendedSample.java | Shows how to extend the UserProfile class to add a column
to the user profile for a cellular phone number. The WebSphere Application Server administrator configures 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 nonHTML versions (.java files) that are ready for use.
Application developers can extend the User Profile enterprise bean itself and import legacy databases into the user profile. The main advantage in extending the User Profile enterprise bean is to gain the ability to import existing databases into the user profile. You can also extend this enterprise bean to add columns to the base user profile implementation.