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 4514 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' } ]

(RFC4514 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 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 4515 so that they can be safely used in LDAP filters.

Any control characters with an ASCII 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 4514 so that they can be safely used in LDAP DNs.

The characters ",", "+", """, "\", "<", ">", ";", "#", "=" with a special meaning in section 2.4 of RFC 4514 are preceded by a 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 backslash - 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.

ldap_url_parse ( LDAP-URL [, OPTIONS ] )

Parse an LDAP-URL conforming to RFC 4516 into a hash containing its elements.

For easy cooperation with LDAP queries, the hash keys for the elements used in LDAP search operations are named after the parameters to "search" in Net::LDAP.

In extension to RFC 4516, the socket path for URLs with the scheme "ldapi" will be stored in the hash key named "path".

If any element is omitted, the result depends on the setting of the option "defaults".

OPTIONS is a list of key/value pairs with the following keys recognized:

defaults: A Boolean option that determines whether default values according to RFC 4516 shall be returned for missing URL elements.
If set to TRUE, default values are returned, with "ldap_url_parse" using the following defaults in extension to RFC 4516.

The default port for "ldaps" URLs is 636.
The default path for "ldapi" URLs is the contents of the environment variable "LDAPI_SOCK". If that is not defined or empty, then "/var/run/ldapi" is used.
This is consistent with the behaviour of "new" in Net::LDAP.
The default "host" name for "ldap" and "ldaps" URLs is "localhost".

When set to FALSE, no default values are used.

This leaves all keys in the resulting hash undefined where the corresponding URL element is empty.

To distinguish between an empty base DN and an undefined base DN, "ldap_url_parse" uses the slash between the host:port resp. path part of the URL and the base DN part of the URL. With the slash present, the hash key "base" is set to the empty string, without it, it is left undefined.

Leaving away the "defaults" option entirely is equivalent to setting it to TRUE.

Returns the hash in list mode, or the reference to the hash in scalar mode.

generalizedTime_to_time ( GENERALIZEDTIME )

Convert the generalizedTime string GENERALIZEDTIME, which is expected to match the template "YYYYmmddHH[MM[SS]][(./,)d...](Z|(+/-)HH[MM])" to a floating point number compatible with UNIX time (i.e. the integral part of the number is a UNIX time).

Returns an extended UNIX time or "undef" on error.

Times in years smaller than 1000 will lead to "undef" being returned. This restriction is a direct effect of the year value interpretation rules in Time::Local.

Note: this function depends on Perl's implementation of time and Time::Local. See "Limits of time_t" in Time::Local, "Negative Epoch Values" in Time::Local, and "gmtime" in perlport for restrictions in older versions of Perl.

time_to_generalizedTime ( TIME [, OPTIONS ] )

Convert the UNIX time TIME to a generalizedTime string.

In extension to UNIX times, TIME may be a floating point number, the decimal part will be used for the resulting generalizedTime.

OPTIONS is a list of key/value pairs. The following keys are recognized:

AD: Take care of an ActiveDirectory peculiarity to always require decimals.

Returns the generalizedTime string, or "undef" on error.

Times before BC or after year 9999 result in "undef" as they cannot be represented in the generalizedTime format.

Note: this function depends on Perl's implementation of gmtime. See "Limits of time_t" in Time::Local, "Negative Epoch Values" in Time::Local, and "gmtime" in perlport for restrictions in older versions of Perl.

AUTHOR

Graham Barr <gbarr@pobox.com>

COPYRIGHT

ldap_explode_dn and canonical_dn also