Clean distinction between UID database column and USERNAME database column?

[rotdrop]

Hi there,

reading the source code I have the impression that the use of the UID column and the USERNAME column got somewhat mingled in the code. My understanding is the following (?):

• UID column is only used internally in THIS app in order to have a fast index in the users table and a fast join column to map users to groups
• USERNAME is actually the Nextcloud UID (i.e. User::getUID()) and thus is a string value

I now see some problems:

• e.g. in GroupBackend::usersInGroup() the internal UID column is passed back to Nextcloud. Should not this be a list of username values, i.e. the list of Nextcloud-UID?

  user_sql/lib/Backend/GroupBackend.php

  Line 369 in 91e8cac

  $uids = $this->groupRepository->findAllUidsBySearchTerm(

• as stated in confusion between uid and name #184 a similar problem occurs with the BELONGS_TO_ADMIN query which is used by GroupBackend::isAdmin().

This also means that perhaps the example given in README.md cannot work this way, as that one has exactly this setup?

I have also the impression that the search queries generally use the Nextcloud-UID (i.e. username) to find rows, but query the values of the user_sql::uid column.

OTOH, the password check routines in this app use the username column to verify the password, but all other parts of the code search the user_sql::uid column, but pass search terms from the Nextcloud UID (which should refer to the user_sql::username column?).

[rotdrop]

So my primary question is: what was the intended purpose of the username column?