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User attributes

Updated

Shows how to use the Agora Chat SDK to implement managing user attributes.

After joining a Chat channel, a user can update information such as the nickname, avatar, age, and mobile phone number as needed. These are known as user attributes.

This page shows how to use the Chat SDK to implement managing user attributes.

User attributes are stored on the Chat server. If you have security concerns, Agora recommends that you manage user attributes yourself.To ensure information security, app users can only modify their own user attributes. Only app admins can modify the user attributes of other users.

Understand the tech

The Chat SDK uses ChatUserInfoManager to retrieve, set, and modify user attributes. The following are the core methods:

  • updateOwnInfo: Set and update user attributes.
  • fetchUserInfoById: Retrieve the user attributes of the specified user.
  • fetchOwnInfo: Retrieve the user's own user attributes.

Prerequisites

Before proceeding, ensure that you meet the following requirements:

  • You have integrated the Chat SDK, initialized the SDK and implemented the functionality of registering accounts and login. For details, see Chat SDK quickstart.
  • Have a thorough understanding of the API call frequency limit, the maximum size of all the attributes of a specified user, and the maximum size of all user attributes in an app. For details, see Known limitations.

Implementation

This section shows how to manage user attributes and contacts with the methods provided by the Chat SDK.

Set user attributes

Chat users can set and update their own attributes. Refer to the code example to set user attributes:

// Update the user attributes.
// All the user attributes except user ID can be updated.
// You can update one or more attributes with each method call.
ChatClient.getInstance()
  .userManager.updateOwnUserInfo({
    nickName,
    avatarUrl,
    mail,
    phone,
    gender,
    sign,
    birth,
    ext,
  })
  .then(() => {
    console.log("update userInfo success.");
  })
  .catch((reason) => {
    console.log("update userInfo fail.", reason);
  });

Keys listed in the following table are used by default when user attributes are set on the client side, including the nickname, avatar URL, contact information, email address, gender, signature, birthday and extension fields. When you call the RESTful API to set or delete these user attributes, you must pass in the following keys to make sure that the client can obtain the settings from the server:

FieldTypeDescription
nicknameStringThe user nickname, which can contain at most 64 characters.
avatarurlStringThe user avatar URL, which can contain at most 256 characters.
phoneStringThe user's phone number, which can contain at most 32 characters.
mailStringThe user's email address, which can contain at most 64 characters.
genderNumberThe user gender: 1：Male; 2：Female;(Default) 0: Unknown;Other values are invalid.
signStringThe user's signature, which can contain at most 256 characters.
birthStringThe user's birthday, which can contain at most 256 characters.
extStringThe extension fields.

Retrieve user attributes

You can use fetchUserInfoById to retrieve the user attributes of the specified users. For each method call, you can retrieve the user attributes of a maximum of 100 users.

Refer to the following code example:

// Specify one or more user IDs.
const userIds = ["tom", "json"];
// Call fetchUserInfoById
ChatClient.getInstance()
  .userManager.fetchUserInfoById(userIds)
  .then((users) => {
    console.log("get userInfo success.", users);
  })
  .catch((reason) => {
    console.log("get userInfo fail.", reason);
  });

Retrieve the user's own attributes

Call fetchOwnInfo to fetch the user attributes of the local user:

ChatClient.getInstance()
  .userManager.fetchOwnInfo()
  .then((users) => {
    console.log("get userInfo success.", users);
  })
  .catch((reason) => {
    console.log("get userInfo fail.", reason);
  });

Next steps

This section introduces extra functions you can implement in your app using user attributes and contact management.

Manage user avatar

The Chat SDK only supports storing the URL address of the avatar file rather than the file itself. To manage user avatars, you need to use a third-party file storage service.

To implement user avatar management in your app, take the following steps:

  1. Upload the avatar file to the third-party file storage service. Once the file is successfully uploaded, you get a URL address of the avatar file.
  2. Set the avatarUrl parameter in user attributes as the URL address of the avatar file.
  3. To display the avatar, call fetchUserInfoById to retrieve the URL of the avatar file, and then render the image on the local UI.

Create and send a namecard using user attributes

Namecard messages are custom messages that include the user ID, nickname, avatar, email address, and phone number of the specified user. To create and send a namecard, take the following steps:

  1. Create a custom message and set the event of the custom message as userCard.
  2. Add userId, nickname, and avatarUrl as fileds in ext. Send the custom message.

The following is sample code for creating and sending a namecard message:

// Customize the message.
const event = "userCard";
// You can also add more fields in ext
const ext = { userId: "userId", nickname: "nickname", avatarUrl: "avatarUrl" };
const msg = ChatMessage.createCustomMessage(targetId, event, chatType, {
  params: JSON.parse(ext),
});
// Call sendMessage to send the customized message.
ChatClient.getInstance()
  .chatManager.sendMessage(msg!, new ChatMessageCallback())
  .then(() => {
    console.log("send message success.");
  })
  .catch((reason) => {
    console.log("send message fail.", reason);
  });

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