Question

I have a shopping cart like application running on SharePoint 2007.

I’m running a very standard update procedure on a list item:

            using (SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb())
            {
                web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;
                SPList list = web.Lists["Quotes"];
                SPListItem item = list.GetItemById(_id);
                item["Title"] = _quotename;
                item["RecipientName"] = _quotename;
                item["RecipientEmail"] = recipientemail;
                item["IsActive"] = true;
                item.Update();
                site.Dispose();
            }

This item updates properly, however it briefly appears as modified by System Account. If I wait a second and refresh the page, it shows up again as modified by CurrentUser.

This is an issue because on Page_Load I am retrieving the item that is marked as Active AND is listed as Modified By the CurrentUser. This means as a user updates his list, when the PostBack finishes, it shows he has no active items.

Is it the web.AllowUnsafeUpdates? This is necessary because I was getting a security error before.

What am I missing?

Answer 1

First off, it’s not AllowUnsafeUpdates. This simply allows modifying of items from your code.

It’s a bit hard to tell what’s going on without understanding more of the flow of your application. I would suggest though that using Modified By to associate an item to a user may not be a great idea. This means, as you have discovered, that any modification by the system or even potentially an administrator will break that link.

I would store the current user in a custom field. That should solve your problem and would be a safer design choice.