Jifty::CurrentUser(3pm) 				User Contributed Perl Documentation				   Jifty::CurrentUser(3pm)

NAME

       Jifty::CurrentUser - Base class and basic implementation of current user object

DESCRIPTION

       Most applications need to have a concept of who the current user is. So Jifty supports this concept internally. Every Jifty::Object (which
       most things in Jifty are descended from) except the CurrentUser itself is instantiated with a Jifty::CurrentUser subclass as a parameter to
       the creator.

       This class describes (and implements a trivial version) of the access control API that a Jifty application needs to implement to provide
       user-based access control

       It's generally expected that your application will override this class if you want any sort of access control.

   new
       Creates a new Jifty::CurrentUser object.  Calls _init, an app-specific initialization routine.

       If you call it with the "_bootstrap" argument, Jifty will set the user up as a bootstrap user, who's usually allowed to do just about
       anything without any access control

   _init
       Applications should override this method to provide any application-specific user loading code. The built-in

       If you do nothing, code similar to this will be called by _init.

	   sub _init {
	       my $self = shift;
	       my %args = (@_);
	       if (keys %args and UNIVERSAL::can(Jifty->app_class('Model', 'User'), 'new')) {
		   $self->user_object(Jifty->app_class('Model', 'User')->new(current_user => $self));
		   $self->user_object->load_by_cols(%args);
	       }
	       return 1;
	   }

       That is, it will attempt to load the columns given in the model named "App::Model::User" (where App is the name of your application class).
       If your notion of a user object isn't a typical Jifty model or named something else, you will definitely need to override this method. If
       you need to perform any additional initialization for user objects, you may want to override this as well.

   superuser
       A convenience constructor that returns a new CurrentUser object that's marked as a superuser. Can be called either as a class or object
       method.

   user_object
       This gets or sets your application's user object for the current user. Generally, you're expected to set and load it in the "_init" method
       in your Jifty::CurrentUser subclass.

   id
       Returns 0 if we don't have a user_object.  When we do have a user_object, return that user's id.

   current_user
       Every class in a Jifty application has a "current_user" method that returns the user who's doing things, in the form of a
       Jifty::CurrentUser object a subclass thereof.  For the somewhat obvious reason that you can't actually lift yourself up by tugging on your
       own bootstraps, a Jifty::CurrentUser object return itself rather than another "Jifty::CurrentUser" object.

AUTHENTICATION AND AUTHORIZATION

       To use Jifty's built-in authentication and authorization system, your user objects need to implement the following API methods:

   password_is STRING
       Your user_object should have a method called "password_is" which returns true if passed a string that matches the user's current password.

   username
       Return a string which identifies the user in some way.

   auth_token
       Return a string which proves that the user is who they claim to be.  A simple way to do this, for example, would be to hash the username
       and some server-side secret.

RIGHTS AND ACCESS CONTROL

       In any system that relies on users' rights to perform actions, it's sometimes necessary to walk around the access control system. There are
       two primary cases for this:

   is_superuser
       Sometimes, while the system is running, you need to do something on behalf of a user that they shouldn't be able to do themselves. Maybe
       you need to let a new user sign up for your service (You don't want to let any user create more users, right?) or to write an entry to a
       changelog. If the user has the "is_superuser" flag set, things still get read from the database, but the user can walk around any and all
       ACL checks. Think "Neo" from the Matrix. The superuser can walk through walls, stop bullets and so on.

   is_bootstrap_user
       When your system is first getting going, you can't assume anything. There probably aren't any rights in the system to check. A user with
       the "is_bootstrap_user" flag set is a self-reliant superuser. Nothing is read from the database, no ACLs are checked.  You probably never
       need to do anything with bootstrap users.

   current_user_can ACTION
       For a current user object, the current user can always "read", but never write or do anything else.

   jifty_serialize_format
       Serializes as the user_object.

SEE ALSO

       Jifty::Object, Jifty::Plugin::User

LICENSE

       Jifty is Copyright 2005-2010 Best Practical Solutions, LLC.  Jifty is distributed under the same terms as Perl itself.

perl v5.14.2							    2010-12-10						   Jifty::CurrentUser(3pm)