NAME¶

Net::LDAP::LDIF - LDIF reading and writing

SYNOPSIS¶

 use Net::LDAP::LDIF;
 $ldif = Net::LDAP::LDIF->new( "file.ldif", "r", onerror => 'undef' );
 while ( not $ldif->eof ( ) ) {
   $entry = $ldif->read_entry ( );
   if ( $ldif->error ( ) ) {
     print "Error msg: ", $ldif->error ( ), "\n";
     print "Error lines:\n", $ldif->error_lines ( ), "\n";
   } else {
     # do stuff
   }
 }
 $ldif->done ( );

DESCRIPTION¶

Net::LDAP::LDIF provides a means to convert between Net::LDAP::Entry objects and LDAP entries represented in LDIF format files. Reading and writing are supported and may manipulate single entries or lists of entries.

As when reading an entire file into memory with perl normally, take into account the possibility of memory use when loading an LDIF file in one go.

SPECIAL FEATURES¶

By default, Net::LDAP::LDIF supports reading attribute values from URLs of type "file://".

When Gisle Aas' LWP module package is installed, Net::LDAP::LDIF uses it to also support reading data from the URL types supported by these modules; most prominently "http://", "https://", and "ftp://" resources. This extended feature is dynamically detected at runtime.

CONSTRUCTOR¶

new ( FILE [[, MODE ], OPTIONS ] )

Open the file with the given mode.

"FILE" may be the name of a file or an already open filehandle. If "FILE" begins or ends with a "|" then "FILE" will be passed directly to "open".

"MODE" can be any of the modes allowed for Perl's open() function, potentially extended by PerlIO layers as described in perlopentut. Alternatively, it can be one of the mode indicators "r", "r+", "w", "w+", "a", "a+" known from C's fopen() function, which get mapped to their Perl counterparts. If "MODE" is omitted, it defaults to "r" for reading.

"OPTIONS" is a list of name/value pairs, recognizing:

METHODS¶

read_entry ( )

Read one entry from the file and return it as a "Net::LDAP::Entry" object.

eof ( )

Returns true when the end of the file is reached.

write_entry ( ENTRY [, OPTIONS ], ... )

Write entries to the LDIF file.

The arguments accepted are a list of entries, optionally interspersed with options belonging to the preceding entry.

For each entry, "OPTIONS" is a list of key-value pairs, recognizing:

write_version ( )

If the object's version is defined, this method allows one to explicitly write the version before an entry is written.

If not called explicitly, it gets called automatically when writing the first entry.

version ( [ VERSION ] )

If called without arguments it returns the version of the LDIF file or undef if no version has been set. If called with an argument it sets the LDIF version to VERSION.

According to RFC 2849 currently the only legal value for VERSION is 1.

handle ( )

Returns the file handle the "Net::LDAP::LDIF" object reads from or writes to.

done ( )

This method signals that the LDIF object is no longer needed. If a file was opened automatically when the object was created it will be closed. This method is called automatically via DESTROY when the object goes out of scope.

error ( )

Returns error message if error was found.

error_lines ( )

Returns lines that resulted in error.

current_entry ( )

Returns the current "Net::LDAP::Entry" object.

current_lines ( )

Returns the lines that generated the current "Net::LDAP::Entry" object.

next_lines ( )

Returns the lines that will generate the next "Net::LDAP::Entry" object.

AUTHOR¶

Graham Barr <gbarr@pobox.com>.

Please report any bugs, or post any suggestions, to the perl-ldap mailing list <perl-ldap@perl.org>.

COPYRIGHT¶

Copyright (c) 1997-2004 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.