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Netscape Directory SDK 3.0 for C Programmer’s Guide
Chapter 17 Data Types and Structures

LDAPControl

LDAPControl represents a client or server control associated with an LDAP operation. Controls are part of the LDAP v3 protocol. You can use a control to extend the functionality of an LDAP operation.

There are two basic types of controls described in the LDAP v3 protocol:

Server controls are controls that are sent from the client to the server along with an LDAP request. (In some cases, a server can include a control in the response it sends back to the client.)

For example, you can include a server control in a search request to specify that you want the server to sort the search results before sending them back.

Client controls are controls that can extend the client but that are never sent to the server. (As a general example, you might be able to pass a client control to an LDAP API function, which might parse the control and use the data that you've specified in the control.)

Note that the Netscape Directory SDK 3.0 for C does not currently support any client controls.

LDAPControl is defined as follows:

typedef struct ldapcontrol {

   char *ldctl_oid;

   struct berval ldctl_value;

   char ldctl_iscritical;

} LDAPControl, *PLDAPControl;

The fields in this structure are described below:

ldctl_oid
Object identifier (OID) of the control.

ldctl_value
berval structure containing data associated with the control.
If you want to specify a zero-length value, set ldctl_value.bv_len to 0 and ldctl_value.bv_val to a zero-length string.
To indicate that no data is associated with the control, set ldctl_value.bv_val to NULL.

ldctl_iscritical
Specifies whether or not the control is critical to the operation. This field can have one of the following values:
A non-zero value specifies that the control is critical to the operation.
0 specifies that the control is not critical to the operation.

For more information on LDAP controls, see Chapter 14, "Working with LDAP Controls".

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Last Updated: 10/01/98 17:05:28