man Net::LDAP::Filter (3): representation of LDAP filters

SYNOPSIS

use Net::LDAP::Filter;
$filter = Net::LDAP::Filter->new( $filter_str );

DESCRIPTION

The Net::LDAP::Filter object lets you directly manipulate LDAP filters without worrying about the string representation and all the associated escaping mechanisms.

CONSTRUCTOR

new ( [ FILTER ] ): Create a new object. If FILTER is given, parse it.

METHODS

parse ( FILTER )

Parse FILTER, updating the object to represent it.

as_string

Return the filter in text form.

print ( [ FH ] )

Print the text representation of the filter to FH, or the currently selected output handle if FH is not given.

negate ( )

Logically negate/invert the filter object so that it matches the opposite set of entries as the original.

Instead of simply negating the text form by surrounding it with the not operator, the negation is done by recursively applying De Morgan's law.

Here is an example:

 (|(&(cn=A)(cn=B))(|(!(cn=C))(cn=D)))

gets negated to

 (&(|(!(cn=A))(!(cn=B)))(&(cn=C)(!(cn=D))))

FILTER SYNTAX

Below is the syntax for a filter given in RFC 4515 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4515.txt

 filter       = "(" filtercomp ")"
 filtercomp   = and / or / not / item
 and          = "&" filterlist
 or           = "|" filterlist
 not          = "!" filter
 filterlist   = 1*filter
 item         = simple / present / substring / extensible
 simple       = attr filtertype value
 filtertype   = equal / approx / greater / less
 equal        = "="
 approx       = "~="
 greater      = ">="
 less         = "<="
 extensible   = attr [":dn"] [":" matchingrule] ":=" value
                / [":dn"] ":" matchingrule ":=" value
 present      = attr "=*"
 substring    = attr "=" [initial] any [final]
 initial      = value
 any          = "*" *(value "*")
 final        = value
 attr         = AttributeDescription from Section 4.1.4 of RFC 4511
 matchingrule = MatchingRuleId from Section 4.1.8 of RFC 4511
 value        = AttributeValue from Section 4.1.5 of RFC 4511
 Special Character encodings
 ---------------------------
    *               \2a, \*
    (               \28, \(
    )               \29, \)
    \               \5c, \\
    NUL             \00

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This document is based on a document originally written by Russell Fulton <[email protected]>.

AUTHOR

Graham Barr <[email protected]>

Please report any bugs, or post any suggestions, to the perl-ldap mailing list <[email protected]>.