Re: Where to start as a developer

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

At 10:26 PM 8/14/2005, Pupeno wrote:
>Hello,
>I am interested in developing an application that will connecto to an openldap 
>server to read and write information (but I am not interested in developing 
>OpenLDAP itself, unless it is neede).
>Where should I start ?

First you need to understand that implementing a program
that connects to an OpenLDAP server is implementing an
LDAP client.  You needed use OpenLDAP Software to implement
this LDAP client, but you may.  And when implemented,
regardless of whether you use OpenLDAP Software or not,
your LDAP client should be able to work with any LDAP
server.

>I ha.e searched for information regarding this but I couldn't find it (on 
>http://www.openldap.org). I imagine I'd be linking against libldap or 
>something like that and using some functions provided there... is that 
>documented ?

See:
  ldap(3) (incomplete documentation)
  doc/drafts/draft-ietf-ldapext-ldap-c-api-xx.txt (expired specification)
  client/tools/ldap*.c (hairy examples)

The project also provides Java LDAP (http://www.openldap.org/jldap)
and a C++ interface to libldap (contrib/ldapc++).  There are, of
course, plenty of other alternatives.

Kurt