ldap_sort(3LDAP)					      LDAP Library Functions						  ldap_sort(3LDAP)

NAME

       ldap_sort, ldap_sort_entries, ldap_sort_values, ldap_sort_strcasecmp - LDAP entry sorting functions

SYNOPSIS

       cc[ flag... ] file... -lldap[ library... ]
       #include <lber.h>
       #include <ldap.h>

       ldap_sort_entries(LDAP *ld, LDAPMessage **chain, char *attr,
	    int (*cmp)());

       ldap_sort_values(LDAP *ld, char **vals, int (*cmp)());

       ldap_sort_strcasecmp(char *a, char *b);

DESCRIPTION

       These  functions are used to sort lists of entries and values retrieved from an LDAP server. ldap_sort_entries() is used to sort a chain of
       entries retrieved from an LDAP search call either by DN or by some arbitrary attribute in the entries.  It takes  ld, the  LDAP	structure,
       which  is only used for error reporting,  chain, the list of entries as returned by ldap_search_s(3LDAP) or ldap_result(3LDAP). attr is the
       attribute to use as a key in the sort or NULL to sort by DN, and  cmp is the comparison function to use when comparing values (or  individ-
       ual  DN components if sorting by DN). In this case,  cmp should be a function taking two single values of the  attr to sort by, and return-
       ing a value less than zero, equal to zero, or greater than zero, depending on whether the first argument is less than, equal to, or greater
       than the second argument. The convention is the same as used by qsort(3C), which is called to do the actual sorting.

       ldap_sort_values()  is  used  to sort an array of values from an entry, as returned by ldap_get_values(3LDAP). It takes the LDAP connection
       structure  ld, the array of values to sort  vals, and  cmp, the comparison function to use during the sort. Note that  cmp will be passed a
       pointer to each element in the vals array, so if you pass the normal char ** for this parameter, cmp should take two char **'s as arguments
       (that is, you cannot pass  strcasecmp or its friends for  cmp). You can, however, pass the function ldap_sort_strcasecmp()  for	this  pur-
       pose.

       For example:

	      LDAP *ld;
	      LDAPMessage *res;
	      /* ... call to ldap_search_s(), fill in res, retrieve sn attr ... */

	      /* now sort the entries on surname attribute */
	      if ( ldap_sort_entries( ld, &res, "sn", ldap_sort_strcasecmp ) != 0 )
		   ldap_perror( ld, "ldap_sort_entries" );

ATTRIBUTES

       See attributes(5) for a description of the following attributes:

       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     |	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   |
       |Availability		     |SUNWcsl (32-bit)		   |
       |			     |SUNWcslx (64-bit) 	   |
       |Interface Stability	     |Evolving			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

SEE ALSO

       ldap(3LDAP), ldap_search(3LDAP), ldap_result(3LDAP), qsort(3C), attributes(5)

NOTES

       The  ldap_sort_entries()  function  applies  the  comparison  function to each value of the attribute in the array as returned by a call to
       ldap_get_values(3LDAP), until a mismatch is found. This works fine for single-valued attributes, but may  produce  unexpected  results  for
       multi-valued attributes. When sorting by DN, the comparison function is applied to an exploded version of the DN, without types. The return
       values for all of these functions are declared in the <ldap.h> header file.  Some functions may allocate memory which must be freed by  the
       calling application.

SunOS 5.11							    27 Jan 2002 						  ldap_sort(3LDAP)