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he Netscape Directory SDK Programmer's Guide documents the Netscape Directory SDK, a development kit for writing LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) applications. (For an explanation of LDAP, see Chapter 1, "Understanding LDAP.")

Who Should Read This Guide?

This guide is intended for use by C programmers who want to enable new or existing applications to connect to, search, and update LDAP servers.

What's in This Guide?

This guide explains how to use the Directory SDK to enable applications to interact with LDAP servers. The guide documents the LDAP API, which consists of data structures and functions used to communicate with LDAP servers.

This manual is organized into three parts:

Table 1 describes each chapter in more detail.
Finding information In this manual
To do this: See this chapter:
Learn more about LDAP and the Directory Server Chapter 1, "Understanding LDAP"
Understand the components of the Directory SDK and how to compile your own applications Chapter 2, "Using the Directory SDK"
Write a program that connects, searches, and updates an LDAP server Chapter 3, "Writing LDAP Clients"
Search an LDAP server for entries Chapter 4, "Searching the Directory"
Create a search filter or parse a filter configuration file Chapter 5, "Using Filter Configuration Files"
Add, update, or remove a directory entry from an LDAP server Chapter 6, "Adding and Updating Entries"
Interpret an LDAP URL Chapter 7, "Working with LDAP URLs"
Look up the description of a data structure Chapter 8, "Data Structures"
Look up the description of a function Chapter 9, "Functions"
Look up the description of a status code returned by an API function Chapter 10, "Status Codes"
Learn more about distinguished names (DNs) Appendix A, "Distinguished Names"
Find information on attribute types and values Appendix B, "Entries and Attributes"
Write a multi-threaded client Appendix C, "Writing Multithreaded Clients"
Use the LDAP command-line utilities Appendix D, "LDAP Command-Line Utilities"

Conventions in This Book

Monospaced font
This typeface is used for sample code and code listings, API and language elements (such as function names and class names), filenames, pathnames, directory names, HTML tags, and any text that must be typed on the screen. (Monospaced italic font is used for placeholders embedded in code.)

Italics
Italics type is used for book titles, emphasis, variables and placeholders, and words used in the literal sense.

Boldface
Boldface type is used for glossary terms and tutorial steps.

|
The vertical bar is used as a separator for user interface elements. For example, File | New means you should click the File menu and select New; Server Status | Log Preferences means you should click the Server Status button in the Server Manager and click the Log Preferences link.

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Last modified: March 31, 1997
Copyright © 1997 Netscape Communications Corporation