Fetching entries

Retrieving entries directly

You can retrieve directory entries in two ways, either directly or from a performed search request. If you want to fetch an entry directly, you need to know its absolute distinguished name (DN). To directly fetch an known entry from the directory server, you use Net_LDAP's getEntry() method. It takes two parameters: The DN of the entry and the attributes you want to read from the entry. It returns a Net_LDAP_Entry object if fetching worked, or a Net_LDAP_Error object in case of a failure.

You may also check if the entry exists in the server before you fetch it. This can be achieved by Net_LDAP's dnExists() which takes the DN to test and returns either true or false.

// Defining the DN we want to fetch;
// we want to select the given- and the surname
$dn = 'cn=admin,o=example,dc=org';
$entry = $ldap->getEntry($dn, array('gn', 'sn'));

// Error checking is important!
if (Net_LDAP::isError($entry)) {
	die('Could not fetch entry: '.$entry->getMessage());
}

Retrieving entries from a searchresult

The second way to retrieve entries is from a searchresult. As described in chapter "Search", you access the entries of a search result through the Net_LDAP_Search-object resulting from Net_LDAP's search() method. Each of the following methods return a Net_LDAP_Error-object if something goes wrong, so remember to test for errors! You have several ways to read the entries:

// return all entries:
$entry = $search->entries();

// return sorted by first 'sn' then 'gn', but descending:
$entry = $search->sorted(array('sn', 'gn'), SORT_DESC));

// return entries one by one:
while ( $entry = $search->shiftEntry() ) {
    // do something, like printing the DN of the entry;
    // in a real case, dont forget to test for errors!
    echo "ENTRY: " . $entry->dn();
}