Re: Returning matched values only from a search operation

[mcs@netscape.com (Mark C Smith)]

Sean Mullan wrote:
> 
> The search operation defined by X.511 contains a BOOLEAN
> matchedValuesOnly argument, which if true returns only the values
> in a multi-valued attribute which match the specified filter
> (as opposed to all the values).
> 
> This seems like a very useful feature, but does not appear to
> be enabled by the LDAP search operation. Has there been an
> LDAP control to add this functionality?
> 
> For example, the matchedValuesOnly control could be combined with
> an extensible certificate matching rule to only return the matching
> certificates from an entry's multi-valued userCertificate attribute.

I don't remember all of the discussion, but I think this was left out of
LDAPv3 in order to simplify the protocol.  In my experience, this bell
(or is it a whistle?) is not desperately needed by LDAP applications
because most applications are content with retrieving all of the values
and examining the values themselves.  That isn't really much more work
for the application or inefficient as long as (1) the application knows
how to compare the values and (2) there are not dozens or hundreds of
values.

-- 
Mark Smith
iPlanet Directory Architect / Sun-Netscape Alliance
My words are my own, not my employer's.   Got LDAP?