Best Practice to check if a user exist

Question

Am I missing something here? There should be a method to check if a user exist, which doesn't throw an error if it doesn't. EnsureUser() is not applicable, because that method creates a new user if it doesn't exist.

At the time, this is what I do, but I think it should be easier in some way.

var userName = @"DOMAIN\UserName"
var userString = string.Empty;
try
{
  SPUser user = web.AllUsers[userName];
  userString = user.ID + ";#" + user.LoginName;
} 
catch (Exception e)
{
  //The user does not exist, but it's okay
  Console.WriteLine("The user does not exist, but it's okay: " +e.InnerException);
}

7 years later.... I don't see why we wouldn't just use EnsureUser. No harm in ensuring the user for the site collection as far as I can tell. — tarjeieo, Jun 29 '18 at 09:51

score 7 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 03 '11 at 21:06

7

Personally, I'd use this:

  var user = web.AllUsers.Cast<SPUser>().FirstOrDefault(u => u.LoginName == userName);
  if (user != null) 
  {
    ...
  }

answered Aug 03 '11 at 21:06

Bill Yang

203
2
6

1

This is big performance gap – IAfanasov Apr 25 '12 at 06:23

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 17 '13 at 08:42

5

You should use:

using (SPSite site = new SPSite(_upa))
{

    SPServiceContext context = SPServiceContext.GetContext(site);
    UserProfileManager _upaManager = new UserProfileManager(context);

    // Chek if user exists
    if( _upaManager.UserExists("mydomain\\myuser")}
    {
        // The user exists
    }
    else{
        // The User doesn't exists
    }
}

answered Dec 17 '13 at 08:42

MadSurfer

51
1
1

At UserProfileManager declaration it throws error if user profile doesn't exists:
"An exception of type 'Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfileApplicationNotAvailableException' occurred in Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.dll but was not handled in user code

Additional information: UserProfileApplicationNotAvailableException_Logging :: UserProfileApplicationProxy.GetRawPartitionID has null proxy"
– love thakker Apr 13 '16 at 11:49

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 16 '11 at 08:16

3

If you have an email address you could use GetByEmail then check for null - cleaner than throwing Exceptions I reckon.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sharepoint.spusercollection.getbyemail.aspx

answered Mar 16 '11 at 08:16

James Love

25,512
2
45
77

Yep, James is correct that you can get it by email or id, and you have to do all that exception handling if you want to get user by login. Maybe it would been better if AllUsers["username"] could return null if it doesnt find such user, but it can be job for a extension method. – Andriy Shvay Mar 16 '11 at 08:30
I don't want to query for e-mail, since most people have several, and it's not certain which e-mail is associated with the user profile. – tarjeieo Mar 16 '11 at 08:52
3

In SP2007, GetByEmail will throw SPException if the email address is not found. – Bill Yang Aug 03 '11 at 20:57
2

@Bill: Just had a look, it seems to do that in 2010 as well... that's a pretty bad implementation to be honest. – James Love Aug 03 '11 at 21:07

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 20 '12 at 22:55

I offer another practice - query UsesInfoList:

                            using (var site = p)
                            {
                                using (var root = site.RootWeb)
                                {
                                    var query = new SPQuery();
                                    query.ExpandRecurrence=false;
                                    query.ExpandUserField = false;
                                    query.Query =string.Format(
                                        @"<Where><Eq><FieldRef Name=""Name"" /><Value Type=""Text"">{0}</Value></Eq></Where>", 
                                        newLogin);
                                    var items = root.SiteUserInfoList.GetItems(query);
                                    if (items == null || items.Count == 0)
                                    {
                                        continue;
                                    }
                                    var userID = items.OfType<SPListItem>().First().ID;
                                    var user = root.SiteUsers.GetByID(userID);
                                    if (!user.LoginName.Equals(newLogin))
                                    {
                                        throw new InvalidOperationException("Unable to get user id by CAML " + query.Query);
                                    }
                                    user.Name = fullName;
                                    user.Email = newEmail;
                                    user.Update();
                                }
                            }
                        }
                        catch (Exception err)
                        {
                            Log.Error(err);
                            buf.AppendLine(err.ToString());
                        }

Best Practice to check if a user exist

4 Answers4

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