Grabbing author name from user object instead of DB [#390030]

I have the RealName module install on my site and noticed it wasn't successfully modifying the name of the author with the Guided Search block. Digging into the code revealed that it was directly referring to the 'name' column within the user table in the database rather than using the user object. The RealName module and potentially other modules made adjustments to the user object, not the database, so with two lines I was able to modify the Author Facet module to get the author name from the object instead. This is done by including the follow code on line 232 before $this->_name = $name; within the author_facet_category function.

	$account = user_load(array('uid' => $uid));
	$name = $account->name;

Here's the completed new function.

  function author_facet_category($uid, $name, $count = NULL) {
    parent::faceted_search_category($count);
    $this->_uid = $uid;
    $account = user_load(array('uid' => $uid));
    $name = $account->name;
    $this->_name = $name;
  }

I've also attached a patch file.

Comment	File	Size	Author
	author_facet.module.patch	313 bytes	pianomansam

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Comments

Comment #1

David Lesieur CreditAttribution: David Lesieur commented 3 March 2009 at 20:05

Calling user_load() for each user name appearing in the guided search will add significant overhead. I am not convinced that supporting modules that alter user names is worth that extra overhead... Do you know many other modules that do such thing? My feeling is that the extra overhead would be a waste for 99% of the sites out there.

We can't really afford to slow down a module that's already performing very costly queries.

Comment #2

pianomansam CreditAttribution: pianomansam commented 3 March 2009 at 20:32

Point well made. I'm not sure of any other modules that would do such a thing. And I can see how this introduces some extra overhead. However, I do have two points to make of my own. First, the current way of finding out the username, i.e. direct DB access, while having low overhead, is not very Drupal like. Second, the default amount of terms to display for other facets is ten. Is ten calls to user_load() too much overhead? I completely understand if this patch doesn't make it to the actual module, but having it here in the issue list will help others who have the same situation that I do.

Comment #3

David Lesieur CreditAttribution: David Lesieur commented 3 March 2009 at 21:08

The overhead will vary from site to site. user_load() runs at least two SQL queries per call, and then other modules may add queries of their own through implementations of hook_user(). If your site is using node profiles, then node_load() is likely to get called too, adding more queries and invoking hook_nodeapi()...

But yes, your patch might be useful to others, thanks for sharing it!

Comment #4

pianomansam CreditAttribution: pianomansam commented 4 March 2009 at 17:19

David Lesieur,

Your comments about the unnecessary overhead got me thinking about how to reduce that but still support other modules. After being inspired by #387840: Embedding forms & alternative for node_load(), I figured I could make a stripped down user object that would have just enough information so the function would work sufficiently. Here's my new code.

  function author_facet_category($uid, $name, $count = NULL) {
    parent::faceted_search_category($count);
    $this->_uid = $uid;
    // $account = user_load(array('uid' => $uid));
    // $name = $account->name;
    $account = new stdClass;
    $account->name = $name;
    $account->uid = $uid;
    $name = {name of function to be called}($account);
    $this->_name = $name;
  }

Comment #5

David Lesieur CreditAttribution: David Lesieur commented 4 March 2009 at 23:50

Yes, this will have much less overhead. You could even wrap your account manipulation code in a if (module_exists('realname')) block, thus preserving the normal behavior for sites that don't have that module.

Comment #6

NancyDru

she/her/hers

English

Boston

CreditAttribution: NancyDru commented 5 March 2009 at 14:21

Did you try a theme('username',...)?

Comment #7

pianomansam CreditAttribution: pianomansam commented 5 March 2009 at 16:13

NancyDru,

Yes I did. Problem with theme('username',...) is that it creates a link to that user's page, rather than applying that facet to the search.

Comment #8

NancyDru

she/her/hers

English

Boston

CreditAttribution: NancyDru commented 5 March 2009 at 20:06

That problem will be fixed in 6.x shortly.

Comment #9

pianomansam CreditAttribution: pianomansam commented 5 March 2009 at 20:55

Glad to hear. Unfortunately I'm stuck in 5.x land

Comment #10

NancyDru

she/her/hers

English

Boston

CreditAttribution: NancyDru commented 13 March 2009 at 14:18

theme('username', $account, array('plain' => TRUE))

Comment #11

pianomansam CreditAttribution: pianomansam commented 13 March 2009 at 15:36

NancyDru,

Tried that. Still outputs <a href="/users/{username}" title="View user profile.">{user real name}</a>. Works ok because it doesn't turn the link into the user account link, but still doesn't just output the real name.