Using the SiteService

Information

This explains basic usage of the Sakai SiteService. This service is used to find out things about Sakai Sites (courses) and look them up by references or contexts. The Site provides access to memberships in the site and allows retrieval and manipulation.

Accessing the SiteService

  • You can use Spring Framework to inject the service or use the cover
  1. Using Spring to get the service for your class (e.g. YourAppClass) (recommended)
    1. Add the SiteService bean to the bean for YourAppClass
      <bean id="org.sakaiproject.yourapp.logic.YourAppClass"
      		class="org.sakaiproject.yourapp.logic.impl.YourAppClassImpl">
      	<property name="siteService"
      		ref="org.sakaiproject.site.api.SiteService" />
      </bean>
      
    2. Add a variable and setter to YourAppClass to use the service in like so:
      private SiteService siteService;
      public void setSiteService(SiteService siteService) {
      	this.siteService = siteService;
      }
      
  2. Using the Component Manager to get the service
    • Note: This is not the recommended method, you should be using Spring to inject the service
    1. Use the CM cover to get the service
      import org.sakaiproject.component.cover.ComponentManager;
      import org.sakaiproject.site.api.SiteService;
      ...
        private SiteService siteService;
      ...
          siteService = (SiteService) ComponentManager.get(SiteService.class);
      

Getting the site reference (for security/authz lookups) from the context

  1. Use the ToolManager service to get the current context
    String currentContext = toolManager.getCurrentPlacement().getContext();
    
    • Note: You could also retrieve the context in other ways, this is just the common one
  2. Use the SiteService to get the site reference from the context
    String siteRef = siteService.siteReference(currentContext);
    

Getting the Site object for the site the current user is currently in

Use the ToolManager service to get the current context and then use the SiteService to get the Site

Site site = null;
try {
	site = siteService.getSite(toolManager.getCurrentPlacement().getContext());
} catch (Exception e) {
	// assume we are not in a site then and do something about it
}

Getting the membership for a Site

Use the SiteService to get the Site and then get the Members from the site

Site site = null;
try {
   site = siteService.getSite(siteId);
   Set<Member> members = site.getMembers();
   for (Member member : members) {
      // do something here
      log.info("Check it out: " + member.getUserEid());
   }
} catch (Exception e) {
	// assume we are not in a site or something died and do something about it
}

Adding memberships to a Site

Use the SiteService to get the Site and then use the methods on Site to add a membership (it can also update and remove memberships)

String userId = getCurrentUserId(); // or some other way of getting the userId
Site site;
try {
    site = siteService.getSite(siteId);
} catch (IdUnusedException e) {
    throw new IllegalArgumentException("Cannot find site by siteId: " + siteId +":"+e, e);
}
String roleId = site.getJoinerRole(); // or some other role
site.addMember(userId, roleId, true, false);
try {
    siteService.saveSiteMembership(site);
} catch (IdUnusedException e) {
    throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid site: " + site.getId() + ":" + e, e);
} catch (PermissionException e) {
    throw new SecurityException("Current user not allowed to update site memberships in site: " + site.getId() + " :"+e, e);
}

Getting the workspace Site for a user (using the userId)

  1. Use the SiteService to get the siteId based on the userId
    String siteId = siteService.getUserSiteId(userId);
    
  2. Use the SiteService to get the Site based on the siteId
    Site workspaceSite = siteService.getSite(siteId);