USER.DOC

Documenting the Wikipedia User object.

(DISCLAIMER: The documentation is not guaranteed to be in sync with
the code at all times. If in doubt, check the table definitions
and User.php.)

Database fields:

  user_id
    Unique integer identifier; primary key. Sent to user in
    cookie "$WikiUserOpts".

  user_name
    Text of full user name; title of "user:" page.  Displayed
    on change lists, etc.  Sent to user as cookie "$WikiUserName".
    Note that user names can contain spaces, while these are
    converted to underscores in page titles.

  user_rights
    Comma-separated list of rights. Right now, only "sysop",
    "developer", and "bot".

  user_password
    md5 has of user login password.  If user option to
    remember password is set, this is stored in cookie
    "$WikiUserPassword".

  user_email
    User's e-mail address. (Optional, used for user-to-user
    e-mail and password recovery.)

  user_options
    A urlencoded string of name=value pairs to set various
    user options. Some of these (but not all) are encoded into
    the cookie "$WikiUserOpts".

The user object encapsulates all of the settings, and clients
classes use the getXXX() functions to access them. These functions
do all the work of determining whether the user is logged in,
whether the requested option can be satisfied from cookies or
whether a database query is needed. Most of the settings needed
for rendering normal pages are set in the cookie to minimize use
of the database.

Options
  The user_options field is a list of name-value pairs.  The
  following option names are used at various points in the system:


Cookies

  $WikiUserName
    Plain text user name directly from database

  $WikiUserPassword
    From the database; only set if the user's options are set
    to remember passwords.

  $WikiUserOpts
    User ID and various options encoded into a compact string;
    for example, "12e0q0s2h0u1j0n1f0y0".  The first string of digits
    is the ID; the rest of the string a flag-letter plus number
    pairs representing a few important options:

      e = "encoding" (index into array)
      q = "quickBar" (0=none, 1=left, 2=right)
      s = "skin" (0=standard, 1=startrek, 2=nostalgia, 3=cologneblue)
      h = "showHover" (1=true)
      u = "underlineLinks" (1=true)
      j = "justify" (1=true)
      n = "numberHeadings" (1=true)
      f = "viewFrames" (1=true)
      y = 1 if user_rights include "is_sysop"