LDAP_FIRST_ENTRY(3)

💅 LDAP_FIRST_ENTRY(3) — Library Functions Manual ✨

okay so bestie, welcome to LDAP_FIRST_ENTRY(3), literally one of the most useful little corners of the manual. this is the page about parsing and counting LDAP result entries, and once you get it, you're gonna feel so main character about it, i promise 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

ldap_first_entry, ldap_next_entry, ldap_count_entries — the LDAP result entry parsing and counting routines 🌸

🎀 LIBRARY 🎀

OpenLDAP LDAP (libldap, -lldap) — that's the library, that's the vibe, that's the flag you link with 💖

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

#include <ldap.h>

int ldap_count_entries( LDAP *ld, LDAPMessage *result )

LDAPMessage *ldap_first_entry( LDAP *ld, LDAPMessage *result )

LDAPMessage *ldap_next_entry( LDAP *ld, LDAPMessage *entry )

🌈 DESCRIPTION 🌈

These routines are the ones you use to parse results you received from ldap_result(3), or from the synchronous LDAP search operation routines ldap_search_s(3) and ldap_search_st(3). like, the search happened, the results are back, and now you need to actually walk through them. that's this. no cap 💅

ldap_first_entry() is the one that gets you the first entry in a chain of search results. you hand it the result exactly as it came back from a call to ldap_result(3) or ldap_search_s(3) or ldap_search_st(3), and it returns a pointer to the first entry in that result. iconic behavior honestly ✨

That pointer is meant to be passed along on a subsequent call to ldap_next_entry() to get the next entry, and that result should be passed to the next call to ldap_next_entry(), and so on, and so on, like the world's most well-behaved little relay race 🏃‍♀️. ldap_next_entry() returns NULL when there are no more entries — so NULL here is not a crisis, it's just the finish line, bestie 🏁

The entries you get back from these calls are what you use in calls to the routines described in ldap_get_dn(3), ldap_first_attribute(3), ldap_get_values(3), etc. (the etc. is doing a lot of work there but we respect it) 💜

And if you just want a count of how many entries are in the search result, that's ldap_count_entries(). one call, one number, no drama 🍓

🔥 ERRORS 🔥

so if something goes wrong in ldap_first_entry() or ldap_next_entry(), NULL is returned and the ld_errno field in the ld parameter is set to indicate the error. yes, NULL again — i know, it's also the "no more entries" value, so please check ld_errno and don't just assume, okay? this is a vibe check moment 😭

If an error occurs in ldap_count_entries(), -1 is returned, and ld_errno is set appropriately. 💀

See ldap_error(3) for a description of possible error codes. go read it, it's the receipt 🧾

🌟 SEE ALSO 🌟

• ldap(3)
• ldap_result(3)
• ldap_search(3)
• ldap_first_attribute(3)
• ldap_get_values(3)
• ldap_get_dn(3)

👑 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 👑

OpenLDAP Software is developed and maintained by The OpenLDAP Project <http://www.openldap.org/>. OpenLDAP Software is derived from the University of Michigan LDAP 3.3 Release. shoutout to the OGs 🫶✨

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and that's the whole page, bestie, you ate 💅 this was OpenLDAP 2.6.16, dated 2026/10/21 — mwah, go parse some entries 🌸🎀🦋