plone.api.get_roles(username=userid) breaks if username != userid

[fongtech]

When use with collective.emaillogin4, userid can be different from username.

So the api should be
plone.api.user.get_roles(userid=None, user=None, obj=None, inherit=True)
not
plone.api.user.get_roles(username=None, user=None, obj=None, inherit=True)

[zupo]

IIUC, the proper way would be to update all api methods that use the "username" parameter to also take the "userid" parameter (in cases where username does not equal userid).

[adamcheasley]

Yesterday @mattss and I discovered a potential bug in api.user.get that may indeed be related to the above issue. I will see if I can write some tests to expose this problem.

[jaroel]

Different userids and usernames are really common.
People get married and get a different username (emailaddress or fullname). The userid usually stays the same.
Please do not assume username and userid are the same. They are not.

[cedricmessiant]

We also had a problem once with the difference between userid and username. It would be nice to be able to use either username or userid/user_id

[adamcheasley]

Out current work around is to first use api.user.get to lookup the user, as this takes either username or userid, then pass the user object into api.user.get_roles

[jaroel]

What needs to be done, and who is going to do it?

[adamcheasley]

IMO, what needs to be done is we should change the signatures of every function (except possibly api.user.create) that accepts username to also accept userid, as @zupo suggests.
I should be able to look at this at some point.

[adamcheasley]

Sorry, I've been too busy to look at this one recently. Anyone should feel free to take it on.

[jensens]

the whole naming is crap, usally we have in authorization systems a login and a userid, and thats the confusion.
BUT PAS itself uses the terms userid and username, where username is used for login.
https://github.com/zopefoundation/Products.PluggableAuthService/blob/master/Products/PluggableAuthService/interfaces/authservice.py#L30

THEN PAS uses the term login in its credentials, see
https://github.com/zopefoundation/Products.PluggableAuthService/blob/master/Products/PluggableAuthService/interfaces/plugins.py#L65 and
https://github.com/zopefoundation/Products.PluggableAuthService/blob/master/Products/PluggableAuthService/interfaces/plugins.py#L87

So I would prefer to unify naming in Plone to

• userid as the thing that never changes
• login as the thing one uses to type into the login field.

[jaroel]

YES! Awesome! 💃

[pbauer]

👍

[jaroel]

Any takers? I would really love to see this resolved before shipping plone.api with Plone 5.

[jaroel]

See https://github.com/plone/plone.api/compare/userid_everywhere

[jaroel]

See https://github.com/plone/plone.api/tree/204_username_to_login