add user to role

Question

i'm trying to create custom drupal 7 module , i'm using 'user_roles()' function to get all the roles in the system , and then i assign those roles to checkboxes API Form Control

  $form['roles_group'] = array(
  '#type' => 'checkboxes',
  '#options' => drupal_map_assoc(user_roles()),
  '#default_value' => isset($field['roles_group']) ? $field['roles_group'] : '',
  '#required' => TRUE
);

in the display mode i'm getting a list of checkboxes like this :

<input type="checkbox" id="edit-mtc-roles-utilisateur-anonyme" name="mtc_roles[utilisateur anonyme]" value="utilisateur anonyme" class="form-checkbox">

in the :

name="mtc_roles[utilisateur anonyme]"

the system automatically put the human readable name in the 'Name' attribute of the inputs

and that's makes me wonder if there is a drupal 7 function that can assign a role by the 'human readable name' to a specific user , or do i have to fix attr '#options' in the form checkbox API

PS : the same issue with the content types

thanks in advance ^^

Answer 1

Actually you do not assign the user to a role, but the reverse. You assign the role to the user.

First use the following to load the role using the plain langauge role name:

$new_role = user_role_load_by_name($role_name);

This loads the role object.

Then load the specific user using their user id:

$account = user_load($uid);

Then update the roles as follows:

$account->roles[$new_role->rid] = $new_role->name;

And save the user:

user_save($account);

This will add the role to the specified user.