Module dhm.ldapObject

LDAP object helper

Creating a new entry in a directory

Adding a new entry to a directory is simple: first you create a ldapObject with the right dn, then you fill it with the necessary data and finally you commit it to the directory using the modify() function.

 import ldap, ldapObject
 
 # Open a connection to the LDAP directory
 db=ldap.open("ldap", 389)
 db.simple_bind("user", "password")
 
 # Create a new object
 obj=ldapObject.ldapObject("sn=John Doe,ou=People,dc=domain")
 obj["objectClass"].append("inetOrgPerson")
 obj["sn"]="John Doe"
 obj["givenName"]="John"
 
 # Commit changes to the directory
 try:
     obj.modify(db)
 except ldap.LDAPError, e:
     print "Error adding entry %s: %s" % (obj.dn, str(e))

Turning LDAP search results into ldapObjects

Since ldapObject aims to be a minimal class it does not have specific functionality to search in a LDAP directory. However you can easily convert the results from ldap.search_s into a sequence of ldapObjects using map().

  import ldap, ldapObject
  
  # Open a connection to the LDAP directory
  db=ldap.open("ldap", 389)
  db.simple_bind("user", "password")
  
  # Perform a search for all objects with a uid attribute
  results=db.search_s("ou=People,dc=domain", ldap.SCOPE_SUBTREE, "uid=*")
  results=map(ldapObject.ldapObject, results)

Deriving from ldapObject

Simple derived class

 class Office(ldapObject.ldapObject):
         "A simple class to represent an office"
 
         ObjectClasses   = [ "locality", "organizationalUnit" ]
 
         def __init__(self, init=""):
                 "Initialize the Office object"
 
                 ldapObject.ldapObject.__init__(self, init)
 
                 # Add the essential objectClasses
                 for oc in self.ObjectClases:
                         if not oc in self.attr["ObjectClass"]:
                                 self.attr["ObjectClass"].append(oc)
 
                 # Snapshot the current state of the object
                 self._snapshot()
 
         def name(self):
                 '''Return a string with a name for this office. The name is
                 assembled from the location, state and country.'''
 
                 name=[]
                 if self.attr.has_key("l"):
                         name.append(self.attr["l"][0])
                 if self.attr.has_key("st"):
                         name.append(self.attr["st"][0])
                 if self.attr.has_key("c"):
                         name.append(data.Countries[self.attr["c"][0]])
 
                 if len(name):
                         name=", ".join(name)
                 else:
                         name=self.attr["ou"]
 
                 return name

Changing the sort order

The sorting order for classes can be changed by modifying the SortOrder variable. SortOder is a list for tuples containing the attribute to sort on and the direction (one of ldapObject.SORT_ASCENDING or ldapObject.SORT_DESCENDING).

  class Office(ldapObject.ldapObject):
          "A simple class to represent an office"
  
          SortOrder = [
                  ("c",   ldapObject.SORT_ASCENDING), # Sort by country first
                  ("st",  ldapObject.SORT_ASCENDING), # Then by state
            ("l",   ldapObject.SORT_ASCENDING), # And finally sort by city
          ]