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Identity Objects

Identity objects are returned by the authentication service and made available in the request. Identities provides a method getIdentifier() that can be called to get the primary id value of the current log in identity.

The reason this object exists is to provide an interface that makes it implementations/sources:

// Service
$authenticationService
    ->getIdentity()
    ->getIdentifier()

// Component
$this->Authentication
    ->getIdentity()
    ->getIdentifier();

// Request
$this->request
    ->getAttribute('identity')
    ->getIdentifier();

The identity object provides ArrayAccess but as well a get() method to access data. It is strongly recommended to use the get() method over array access because the get method is aware of the field mapping:

$identity->get('email');
$identity->get('username');

The get() method can also be type-hinted via IDE meta file, e.g. through IdeHelper.

If you want, you can use property access, however:

$identity->email;
$identity->username;

The default Identity object class can be configured to map fields. This is pretty useful if the identifier of the identity is a non-conventional id field or if you want to map other fields to more generic and common names:

$identity = new Identity($data, [
    'fieldMap' => [
        'id' => 'uid',
        'username' => 'first_name'
    ]
]);

Creating your own Identity Object

By default the Authentication plugin will wrap your returned user data in an IdentityDecorator that proxies methods and property access. If you want to create your own identity object, your object must implement the IdentityInterface.

Implementing the IdentityInterface on your User class

If you’d like to continue using your existing User class with this plugin you can implement the Authentication\IdentityInterface:

namespace App\Model\Entity;

use Authentication\IdentityInterface;
use Cake\ORM\Entity;

class User extends Entity implements IdentityInterface
{
    /**
     * Authentication\IdentityInterface method
     */
    public function getIdentifier()
    {
        return $this->id;
    }

    /**
     * Authentication\IdentityInterface method
     */
    public function getOriginalData()
    {
        return $this;
    }

    // Other methods
}

Using a Custom Identity Decorator

If your identifiers cannot have their resulting objects modified to implement the IdentityInterface you can implement a custom decorator that implements the required interface:

// You can use a callable...
$identityResolver = function ($data) {
    return new MyCustomIdentity($data);
};

//...or a class name to set the identity wrapper.
$identityResolver = MyCustomIdentity::class;

// Then pass it to the service configuration
$service = new AuthenticationService([
    'identityClass' => $identityResolver,
    'identifiers' => [
        'Authentication.Password'
    ],
    'authenticators' => [
        'Authentication.Form'
    ]
]);