Why do the ASP.NET Identity interfaces use strings for primary and foreign keys?

Question

I\'m looking at the interfaces on the new ASP.NET Identity classes and the database it creates using Entity Framework Code First. I\'m using the Visual Studio 2013 RC.

Answer 1

The intent was to allow both arbitrary id types (i.e. int, guid, string), but also avoid having serialization/casting issues for the id property.

So you can define your keys however you like and just implement the interface method

public class MyUser : IUser {
  public int Id { get; set; }
  string IUser.Id { get { return Id.ToString(); } }
}