RFC 1823 (rfc1823) - Page 3 of 22

The LDAP Application Program Interface

RFC 1823                        LDAP API                     August 1995


   Results and errors are returned in an opaque structure called
   LDAPMessage.  Routines are provided to parse this structure, step
   through entries and attributes returned, etc. Routines are also
   provided to interpret errors. The next sections describe these
   routines in more detail.

4.  Calls for performing LDAP operations

   This section describes each LDAP operation API call in detail. All
   calls take a "connection handle", a pointer to an LDAP structure
   containing per-connection information.  Many routines return results
   in an LDAPMessage structure. These structures and others are
   described as needed below.

4.1.  Opening a connection

   ldap_open() opens a connection to the LDAP server.

              typedef struct ldap {
                      /* ... opaque parameters ... */
                      int     ld_deref;
                      int     ld_timelimit;
                      int     ld_sizelimit;
                      int     ld_errno;
                      char    *ld_matched;
                      char    *ld_error;
                      /* ... opaque parameters ... */
              } LDAP;

              LDAP *ldap_open( char *hostname, int portno );

      Parameters are:

      hostname Contains a space-separated list of hostnames or dotted
               strings representing the IP address of hosts running an
               LDAP server to connect to. The hosts are tried in the
               order listed, stopping with the first one to which a
               successful connection is made;

      portno   contains the TCP port number to which to connect. The
               default LDAP port can be obtained by supplying the
               constant LDAP_PORT.

   ldap_open() returns a "connection handle", a pointer to an LDAP
   structure that should be passed to subsequent calls pertaining to the
   connection. It returns NULL if the connection cannot be opened. One
   of the ldap_bind calls described below must be completed before other
   operations can be performed on the connection.



Howes & Smith                Informational