user_load

5 user.module	`user_load($array = array())`
6 user.module	`user_load($user_info = array())`
7 user.module	`user_load($uid, $reset = FALSE)`
8 user.module	`user_load($uid, $reset = FALSE)`

Loads a user object.

Drupal has a global $user object, which represents the currently-logged-in user. So to avoid confusion and to avoid clobbering the global $user object, it is a good idea to assign the result of this function to a different local variable, generally $account. If you actually do want to act as the user you are loading, it is essential to call drupal_save_session(FALSE); first. See Safely impersonating another user for more information.

Parameters

$uid: Integer specifying the user ID to load.

$reset: TRUE to reset the internal cache and load from the database; FALSE (default) to load from the internal cache, if set.

Return value

A fully-loaded user object upon successful user load, or FALSE if the user cannot be loaded.

47 calls to user_load()

File

modules/user/user.module, line 361: Enables the user registration and login system.

Code

function user_load($uid, $reset = FALSE) {
  $users = user_load_multiple(array($uid), array(), $reset);
  return reset($users);
}

Comments

Getting values of user define (custom) fields.

Posted by tax14 on February 18, 2011 at 5:00pm

If you have defined custom fields for the user, e.g. firstname, lastname, phone, address, city, etc. and want to get their values, e.g. to display the full username in a block, use $user_fields. For example,

<?php
global $user;
$user_fields = user_load($user->uid);

$firstname = $user_fields->field_firstname['und']['0']['value'];
$lastname = $user_fields->field_lastname['und']['0']['value'];

print  t("Welcome: " . $firstname. ' ' . $lastname) ; 
?>

I think the recommend way is

Posted by 007pig on March 10, 2011 at 6:37pm

I think the recommend way is to use field_get_items() function instead of get the value by array.

Oooh, that's my Drupal 7 blog

Posted by adaddinsane on March 19, 2011 at 11:26am

Oooh, that's my Drupal 7 blog - there's a better blog entry now with a little function to help you, here:

http://drupal7ish.blogspot.com/2011/03/getting-field-data-out-of-entitie...

And now there's a module with

Posted by adaddinsane on September 11, 2011 at 7:53pm

And now there's a module with a couple of very useful functions for extracting field data from entities:

http://j.mp/piHpfH

Fly my pretties...

No role information returned?

Posted by squeakyferret_sf on April 5, 2011 at 9:04pm

So I have this code in a template:

<?php
$thisuser = user_load(array('uid' => '11812'));
?>

which, as far as I understand it, should return a user object for the user with the uid of 11812. And that object should contain an array of roles for that user in this variable:

<?php
$thisuser->roles
?>

But that array doesn't exist.

I've traced through the user_load() function in modules/user/user.module with a debugger, and this code should populate the $user object with that roles array:

<?php
  $result = db_query('SELECT * FROM {users} u WHERE '. implode(' AND ', $query), $params);

  if ($user = db_fetch_object($result)) {
    $user = drupal_unpack($user);

    $user->roles = array();
    if ($user->uid) {
      $user->roles[DRUPAL_AUTHENTICATED_RID] = 'authenticated user';
    }
    else {
      $user->roles[DRUPAL_ANONYMOUS_RID] = 'anonymous user';
    }
    $result = db_query('SELECT r.rid, r.name FROM {role} r INNER JOIN {users_roles} ur ON ur.rid = r.rid WHERE ur.uid = %d', $user->uid);
    while ($role = db_fetch_object($result)) {
      $user->roles[$role->rid] = $role->name;
    }
    user_module_invoke('load', $user_info, $user);
  }
  else {
    $user = FALSE;
  }
?>

Everything's fine up through this line:

<?php
    $user = drupal_unpack($user);
?>

but then, when we hit the next line, which should initialize an empty "roles" array in the $user object, nothing happens:

<?php
    $user->roles = array();
?>

No "roles" array shows up in the object at all. The subsequent db queries work okay, and return the right role information, so this while loop:

<?php
    while ($role = db_fetch_object($result)) {
      $user->roles[$role->rid] = $role->name;
    }
?>

has the proper values in $role->rid and $role->name each time through the loop, but $user->roles still doesn't exist, and the assignments here have no effect.

I'm beating my head against this - I can't figure out what's going on. I know that I can just query the db directly in order to get a user's roles if I really must, but why wouldn't the user_load() code work?

Anyone know what's going on?

Thanks.

Username to UID

Posted by RobW on May 10, 2011 at 1:38am

In Drupal 6 you had the option of specifying a UID or username string as a param in user_load. Now there is only the option of using the UID.

How would you go about getting the UID from username in D7?

user_load_by_name($name)

Posted by thijsvdanker on May 13, 2011 at 2:56pm

Hey RobW,
Checkout the user_load_by_name function.

Friendly reminder to NOT assign results of user_load to $user

Posted by grantlucas on March 21, 2012 at 4:06pm

If you're using user_load to load a user object, make sure that you don't assign the results to a variable name "$user" just incase you included the global $user variable at some point in that function. You will get some pretty unexpected results as you are overwriting who is currently logged in.

I recommend using something like $account instead.