While the API for user and group management does form the core of the patUser library, it's not all there is on display. patUser also includes a number of utility functions that can come in handy for certain specialized tasks.

These functions include identifying users and groups by different criteria (such as name or email address); keeping track of the URLs visited by the user so as to generate a user trail; maintaining user account statistics for auditing purposes; and providing exception-handling routines for more graceful error handling.

They give the details on how to:

• make exceptions,
• track the user's history through the site,
• perform a natural selection search on user data,
• how to identify users,
• record stats about the user's activities

With this tutorial they finish off the series, providing a good solid overview of the patUser package. If you're just now reading the series, be sure to check out part one and part two.

patUser can do a lot more than just handle user authentication - the library also comes with a large number of methods designed to make the task of managing user data as simple and efficient as possible. Over the course of this second installment, I'm going to show you how these methods work, and how they can be used to quickly create scripts to view, add, edit and delete users (and user attributes) from your database. Keep reading!

They build on the previous article's foundation (and database) to insert some new user information for manipulation and output. They then give some sample code to pull all of the users from the database, pull details for each user (including additional fields created in a database update), and limiting the results based on one of the fields.

They also include another database table and the needed code to help organize the users into groups. They also include the functionality to add and remove groups and users as well as adding and removing people to/from groups directly from the patUser setup. Finally, they finish it with a few "real life" examples to help it all make sense together.

They take the time to explain what the patUser package is all about, including where to grab the latest copy from. There's a SQL file that comes with the installation to help you get started and will be what the tutorial is based around. They provide a basic example of adding and authenticating a user, breaking it down into chunks to explain it.

They also include a method to make the patUser system use a plain HTTP authentication instead of integrating into a template - sometimes a simpler, quicker approach for validating users.