Yii How to getState() and display the variable - php

Question

Im currently doing login and result are worked fine. However , I wish to get the firstname and lastname of the user from DB.
As I know getState() able to get the variable data from the DB.
Following bellow is the code for login:
$username = $_POST['username'];
$userpass = $_POST['userpass'];
$record=Games::model()->findByAttributes(array('email'=>$username));
if($record===null){
//somethings
}else if($this->checkPassword($record->password,$userpass)){
//somethings
}else
{
$this->_id=$record->id;
$this->_email=$record->email;
Yii::app()->user->setState('id', $record->id);
Yii::app()->user->setState('email', $record->email);
Yii::app()->user->setState('firstname', $record->firstname);
Yii::app()->user->setState('lastname', $record->lastname);
//go to somethings
}
In View
<?php
$username_first = Yii::app()->user->getState('firstname');
$username_last = Yii::app()->user->getState('lastname');
?>
<a href="#" ><?php echo $username_first.' '.$username_last; ?></a>
What is the problem of my code in view ? Any better suggestion to getState() the data I need ?
Updated :
I tried print out in controller ... it worked ... but why view cant ?
print_r(Yii::app()->user->getState('firstname'));

Answer 1

getState() is not dedicated to get variable from database. As Yii's official document defines it:
Returns the value of a variable that is stored in user session.
By setting state you store your variable's value into user session and you can get that value via getState().
As a suggestion, when you use getState(), pass a default value into the second parameter like below:
$email=Yii::app()->user->getState('email',NULL);
if(!is_null($email)) //do something
It is even better to check state before getting it by hasState() like below:
if(Yii::app()->user->hasState('email')){
$email=Yii::app()->getState('email',NULL);
}
Another note is that, it is better to get stored values in Controller and pass them to the view, not getting them in view. Take a look:
Controller
$email=Yii::app()->user->getState('email'); //it is better to check it via has state, and also passing a default value
$this->render('view',array(
'userEmail'=>$email
));
View
<h2><?php echo $email; ?></h2>
UPDATE
There is a condition that you may need to just get stored value into session (by setState()), So you can just do like below in view:
if(Yii::app()->user->hasState('firstname')) { echo Yii::app()->user->getState('firstname'); } //All done