Re: Finding a maximum attribute value

["Kurt D. Zeilenga" <Kurt@OpenLDAP.org>]

At 11:24 AM 11/29/00 -0300, Salvador Ramirez wrote:
> Perhaps this question is more suitable for openldap-software
>but I already sent it there and I have received no response. I
>hope you can help me.

Check the openldap-software archives.  This topic was discussed
to some length last week.  As the issues regarding this question
are quite general, I'll summarize here.

> I have entries on a directory with an integer attribute. I'm 
>interested on getting the entry on the directory with the maximum
>value on this attribute. How can I do this?

Without any extension to LDAP, the client must request the
return of all entries which contain the attribute (using search)
and then select the entry with the highest value.

There are extensions which can help.  In particular, the
server-side sort control can be used to sort the entries
prior to their return.  This control can be combined with
paging (or other) controls to limit the return to only the
first entry.

OpenLDAP doesn't support these controls.