What is the best way to return the User (Creator) in the result set of a KeywordQuery against SharePoint search?

Question

I am using SharePoint KeywordQuery class to query SharePoints search. When processing the record set which is returned I need the userId/user profile of the user which created the entry.

I tried to use the "Author" property, but that seems to contain only the PreferredName of the user.

Do I need to manually map a new property to do this, or which metadata property do I need to include in the result set?

EDIT: I need a property from the search Index which contains the unique identifier (user id. record id, account name ...) for the user. The Author property seems to contain the preferred name and is not unique.

I am currently mapping AuthorUserId to the search index and adding this to my query, but there should be an easier way

Answer 1

Select AccountName and use that. This will give you <domain>\<loginName>.

If necessary you can then load the SPUser from that with SPContext.Current.Web.EnsureUser(loginName)

EDIT: Here is how to use XSLT extension functions to retrieve SPUser from Author.

• Create a public class with a public method called something like RenderUserName(string author) and create logic to fetch user name from accountname (depending on what properties you could go for UserProfile or SPUser)
• Add a namespace to your XSLT <xsl:stylesheet> element, that matches the classname: xmlns:YourClass="urn:YourNameSpace"
• In code call the function as any OOB function: <xsl:value-of select="YourClass:RenderUserName(Author)"/>. Note that you can also pass variables to functions using the $myVariablesyntax