NAME

Net::LDAP::Util - Utility functions

SYNOPSIS

use Net::LDAP::Util qw(ldap_error_text
                       ldap_error_name
                       ldap_error_desc
                      );

$mesg = $ldap->search( .... );

die "Error ",ldap_error_name($mesg) if $mesg->code;

DESCRIPTION

Net::LDAP::Util is a collection of utility functions for use with the Net::LDAP modules.

FUNCTIONS

ldap_error_name ( ERR )

Returns the name corresponding with ERR. ERR can either be an LDAP error number, or a Net::LDAP::Message object containing an error code. If the error is not known the a string in the form "LDAP error code %d(0x%02X)" is returned.

ldap_error_text ( ERR )

Returns the text from the POD description for the given error. ERR can either be an LDAP error code, or a Net::LDAP::Message object containing an LDAP error code. If the error code given is unknown then undef is returned.

ldap_error_desc ( ERR )

Returns a short text description of the error. ERR can either be an LDAP error code or a Net::LDAP::Message object containing an LDAP error code.

canonical_dn ( DN [ , OPTIONS ] )

Returns the given DN in a canonical form. Returns undef if DN is not a valid Distinguished Name. (Note: The empty string "" is a valid DN.) DN can either be a string or reference to an array of hashes as returned by ldap_explode_dn, which is useful when constructing a DN.

It performs the following operations on the given DN:

  • Removes the leading 'OID.' characters if the type is an OID instead of a name.

  • Escapes all RFC 2253 special characters (",", "+", """, "\", "<", ">", ";", "#", "=", " "), slashes ("/"), and any other character where the ASCII code is < 32 as \hexpair.

  • Converts all leading and trailing spaces in values to be \20.

  • If an RDN contains multiple parts, the parts are re-ordered so that the attribute type names are in alphabetical order.

OPTIONS is a list of name/value pairs, valid options are:

casefold

Controls case folding of attribute type names. Attribute values are not affected by this option. The default is to uppercase. Valid values are:

lower

Lowercase attribute type names.

upper

Uppercase attribute type names. This is the default.

none

Do not change attribute type names.

mbcescape

If TRUE, characters that are encoded as a multi-octet UTF-8 sequence will be escaped as \(hexpair){2,*}.

reverse

If TRUE, the RDN sequence is reversed.

separator

Separator to use between RDNs. Defaults to comma (',').

ldap_explode_dn ( DN [ , OPTIONS ] )

Explodes the given DN into an array of hashes and returns a reference to this array. Returns undef if DN is not a valid Distinguished Name.

A Distinguished Name is a sequence of Relative Distinguished Names (RDNs), which themselves are sets of Attributes. For each RDN a hash is constructed with the attribute type names as keys and the attribute values as corresponding values. These hashes are then stored in an array in the order in which they appear in the DN.

For example, the DN 'OU=Sales+CN=J. Smith,DC=example,DC=net' is exploded to: [ { 'OU' => 'Sales', 'CN' => 'J. Smith' }, { 'DC' => 'example' }, { 'DC' => 'net' } ]

(RFC2253 string) DNs might also contain values, which are the bytes of the BER encoding of the X.500 AttributeValue rather than some LDAP string syntax. These values are hex-encoded and prefixed with a #. To distinguish such BER values, ldap_explode_dn uses references to the actual values, e.g. '1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.0=#04024869,DC=example,DC=com' is exploded to: [ { '1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.0' => "\004\002Hi" }, { 'DC' => 'example' }, { 'DC' => 'com' } ];

It also performs the following operations on the given DN:

  • Unescape "\" followed by ",", "+", """, "\", "<", ">", ";", "#", "=", " ", or a hexpair and and strings beginning with "#".

  • Removes the leading 'OID.' characters if the type is an OID instead of a name.

OPTIONS is a list of name/value pairs, valid options are:

casefold

Controls case folding of attribute types names. Attribute values are not affected by this option. The default is to uppercase. Valid values are:

lower

Lowercase attribute types names.

upper

Uppercase attribute type names. This is the default.

none

Do not change attribute type names.

reverse

If TRUE, the RDN sequence is reversed.

escape_filter_value ( VALUES )

Escapes the given VALUES according to RFC 2254 so that they can be safely used in LDAP filters.

Any control characters with an ACII code < 32 as well as the characters with special meaning in LDAP filters "*", "(", ")", and "\" the backslash are converted into the representation of a backslash followed by two hex digits representing the hexadecimal value of the character.

Returns the converted list in list mode and the first element in scalar mode.

unescape_filter_value ( VALUES )

Undoes the conversion done by escape_filter_value().

Converts any sequences of a backslash followed by two hex digits into the corresponding character.

Returns the converted list in list mode and the first element in scalar mode.

escape_dn_value ( VALUES )

Escapes the given VALUES according to RFC 2253 so that they can be safely used in LDAP DNs.

The characters ",", "+", """, "\", "<", ">", ";", "#", "=" with a special meaning in RFC 2252 are preceeded by ba backslash. Control characters with an ASCII code < 32 are represented as \hexpair. Finally all leading and trailing spaces are converted to sequences of \20.

Returns the converted list in list mode and the first element in scalar mode.

unescape_dn_value ( VALUES )

Undoes the conversion done by escape_dn_value().

Any escape sequence starting with a baskslash - hexpair or special character - will be transformed back to the corresponding character.

Returns the converted list in list mode and the first element in scalar mode.

AUTHOR

Graham Barr <gbarr@pobox.com>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 1999-2004 Graham Barr. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

ldap_explode_dn and canonical_dn also

(c) 2002 Norbert Klasen, norbert.klasen@daasi.de, All Rights Reserved.