LDAP_FIRST_MESSAGE(3)

💅 LDAP_FIRST_MESSAGE(3) — like, the whole manual page, bestie

okay so this is a page from the Library Functions Manual for LDAP_FIRST_MESSAGE(3), and it lives in libldap (-lldap) from OpenLDAP. sit down, grab a strawberry drink 🍓, and let's talk about stepping through messages in a result chain, because honestly it's giving "walk the linked list" and it's iconic.

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✨ NAME ✨

ldap_first_message, ldap_next_message, ldap_count_messages — stepping through messages in a result chain 🦋

📚 LIBRARY 📚

OpenLDAP LDAP (libldap, -lldap)

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

#include <ldap.h>

int ldap_count_messages( LDAP *ld, LDAPMessage *result )

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

LDAPMessage *ldap_next_message( LDAP *ld, LDAPMessage *message )

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so these routines are the ones you use to step through the messages in a result chain that you got back from ldap_result(3). for search operations, that result chain can contain referral, entry and result messages — like a lil mixed bag 🎀. and if you need to tell which one is which, the ldap_msgtype(3) function is literally right there for exactly that.

• ldap_first_message() — this one grabs the first message in a result chain. you feed it the result you got back from a call to ldap_result(3), ldap_search_s(3) or ldap_search_st(3), and it hands you back a pointer to the first message in the chain. main character energy, it goes first 👑
• ldap_next_message() — you take that pointer and supply it on a subsequent call to ldap_next_message() to get the next message. then that result gets supplied to the next call to ldap_next_message(), and so on, and so on, forever and ever (jk, see next point). the way it just keeps going 😭
• and when there are no more messages? ldap_next_message() returns NULL. that's your signal that the chain is done, no cap 💀.

these functions are genuinely useful when you're using routines like ldap_parse_result(3) that only operate on the first result in the chain — because sometimes you need to get past that first one, bestie.

want a count of the number of messages in the result chain? just call ldap_count_messages(). and here's the cute part: it can also be used to count the number of remaining messages in a chain — if you call it with a message, entry or reference returned by any of these:

• ldap_first_message()
• ldap_next_message()
• ldap_first_entry(3)
• ldap_next_entry(3)
• ldap_first_reference(3)
• ldap_next_reference(3)

so yeah. it counts. it's flexible. we stan 🫶

😭 ERRORS 😭

if an error happens in ldap_first_message() or ldap_next_message(), NULL is returned. if an error happens in ldap_count_messages(), -1 is returned.

that's it, that's the error section. two return values. memorise them or perish (jk, but like, do memorise them) 💀

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

ldap(3), ldap_search(3), ldap_result(3), ldap_parse_result(3), ldap_first_entry(3), ldap_first_reference(3)

go read those too, iykyk 🧚

🌈 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.

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and that's the whole page, bestie, every last crumb of it 🍓✨ signing off — this was OpenLDAP 2.6.16, dated 2026/10/21, and honestly? slay 💅👑