Setting/Getting the Custom Field (Expandos) values

At times during the development, we might end up defining the custom fields on the liferay default entities(User, Organization etc.,) in order to squeeze in the custom attributes that the project requirements dictates. Once they are defined (in the control panel), we can use the below methods to retrieve them

Method 1:

First get the entity here in our example User by using one of the relevant API methods

User user = UserLocalServiceUtil.getUserById(userid);

For setting the value

user.getExpandoBridge().setAttribute(IConstants.EXPANDO_USER_JOB_DESCRIPTION, "some desc" );

For retrieving the value


user.getExpandoBridge().getAttribute(IConstants.EXPANDO_USER_JOB_DESCRIPTION);

Method 2:

Some times due to some security restrictions (from where you access this method) the above method doesn't work.In which case we end up using the Expoandos API to set and get the values from the custom attributes

User user = UserLocalServiceUtil.getUserById(userid);

ExpandoTable table = ExpandoTableLocalServiceUtil.getTable(user.etCompanyId(),User.class.getName(), ExpandoTableConstants.DEFAULT_TABLE_NAME);

ExpandoColumn column = ExpandoColumnLocalServiceUtil.getColumn(user.getCompanyId(),User.class.getName(), table.getName(), "Custom Field Key" );

String strSsouserScreenNamePrefix =  ExpandoValueLocalServiceUtil.getData(user.getCompanyId(),User.class.getName(), table.getName(), column.getName(), user.getUserId(), StringPool.BLANK);