$kirby->impersonate()

Become any existing user or disable the current user

$kirby->impersonate(string|null $who = null, Closure|null $callback = null): mixed

Parameters

Name	Type	Default	Description
$who	`string`or`null`	`null`	User ID or email address, `null` to use the actual user again, `'kirby'` for a virtual admin user or `'nobody'` to disable the actual user
$callback	`Closure`or`null`	`null`	Optional action function that will be run with the permissions of the impersonated user; the impersonation will be reset afterwards

Return type

mixed

If called without callback: User that was impersonated; if called with callback: Return value from the callback

This method modifies the existing $app object it is applied to and returns it again.

Exceptions

Type	Description
`Throwable`

`$who`

There are four options for the $who parameter:

a username (impersonates the specific user with their permissions)
'kirby' (impersonates the allmighty user with full permissions)
'nobody' (disables the currently logged in user)
null (resets the impersonation)

Examples

<?php

$kirby = kirby();
$kirby->impersonate('kirby');

page('notes/a-great-article')->update([
  'author' => 'Homer Simpson'
]);

The impersonation will be active for all code that runs in the current request after the call to $kirby->impersonate(). If you want to limit the impact to a single operation, call the method with a callback (see below).

With callback

If you only want a single operation to run with different privileges, use a callback:

<?php

$kirby = kirby();
$result = $kirby->impersonate('kirby', function () {
  page('notes/a-great-article')->update([
    'author' => 'Homer Simpson'
  ]);

  return 'this will be returned to $result above';
});

The impersonation automatically gets reset to the previous value after the callback returns.