Re: Deleting a DN with leading Space Character

[Pierangelo Masarati <ando@sys-net.it>]

Garry Thomas wrote:

> Hi,
> 	I have an entry in the directory that has a leading space as follows
>
> dn: uid= username,dc=domain,dc=com
>
> I cannot workout how to use ldapdelete to delete this entry, either by specifying the DN on the command line, or in a file.
>
> I have a file called userdel.ldif which has the following
>
> dn: uid= username,dc=domain,dc=com
>
> But when I execute ldapdelete I get
>
> Delete Result: Invalid DN syntax (34)
> Additional info: invalid DN
>
> I've tried "escaping" the space with a backslash, and a few other ideas (like using quotes all over the place), but I can't get rid
> of it...
>  

Apparently no one asked you the right question: what version of slapd 
are you using?  Any recent/decent version of OpenLDAP software wouldn't 
let such an entry appear in a database, because the leading space would 
have been trimmed from the prettified form of the DN that is actually 
read in; at the same time, no matter how many unquoted leading/trailing 
spaces you use in the delete request, they would simply be trimmed 
before proceeding to the database for the actual operation.  An escaped 
space would appear as such, as "\20" in the database.  Earlier versions 
of OpenLDAP software were a bit loose on this (I'm talking about 2.0 and 
earlier), so I suspect you're using something like that.  In such case, 
the only chance you can fix that datum is slapcat/manual editing/slapadd.

p.


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