=head1 NAME

Net::LDAP::LDIF - LDIF reading and writing

=head1 SYNOPSIS

 use Net::LDAP::LDIF;

 $ldif = Net::LDAP::LDIF->new( "file.ldif", "r", onerror => 'undef' );
 while( not $ldif->eof ( ) ) {
   $entry = $ldif->read_entry ( );
   if ( $ldif->error ( ) ) {
     print "Error msg: ", $ldif->error ( ), "\n";
     print "Error lines:\n", $ldif->error_lines ( ), "\n";
   } else {
     # do stuff
   }
 }
 $ldif->done ( );

=head1 DESCRIPTION

B<Net::LDAP::LDIF> provides a means to convert between
L<Net::LDAP::Entry> objects and LDAP entries represented in LDIF
format files. Reading and writing are supported and may manipulate
single entries or lists of entries.

As when reading an entire file into memory with perl normally, take
into account the possibility of memory use when loading an LDIF file
in one go.

=head1 CONSTRUCTOR

=over 4

=item new ( FILE )

Open the file read-only. C<FILE> may be the name of a file or an
already open filehandle. If C<FILE> begins or ends with a C<|> then
C<FILE> will be passed directly to C<open>.

=item new ( FILE, MODE, OPTIONS )

Open the file with the given C<MODE>, eg "w" or "a". C<FILE> may be
the name of a file or an already open filehandle. If C<FILE> begins or
ends with a C<|> then C<FILE> will be passed directly to C<open>.

=over 4

=item encode =E<gt> 'none' | 'canonical' | 'base64'

Some DN values in LDIF cannot be written verbatim and have to be encoded
in some way:

=over 4

=item 'none'

The default.

=item 'canonical'

See L<Net::LDAP::Util/canonical_dn>.

=item 'base64'

Use base64.

=back

=item onerror =E<gt> 'die' | 'warn' | undef

Specify what happens when an error is detected.

=over 4

=item 'die'

C<Net::LDAP::LDIF> will croak with an appropriate message.

=item 'warn'

C<Net::LDAP::LDIF> will warn with an appropriate message.

=item undef

C<Net::LDAP::LDIF> will warn with an appropriate message if C<-w> is
in effect.  The method that was called will return C<undef>.

=back

=item change =E<gt> 1

Write entry changes to the LDIF file instead of the entries itself.
I.e. write LDAP operations acting on the entries to the file instead of the entries contents.

=item lowercase =E<gt> 1

Convert attribute names to lowercase when writing.

=item sort =E<gt> 1

Sort attribute names when writing entries according to the rule:
objectclass first then all other attributes alphabetically sorted

=item version =E<gt> '1'

Set the LDIF version to write to the resulting LDIF file.

According to RFC 2849 currently the only legal value for this option is I<1>.

When this option is set Net::LDAP::LDIF tries to adhere more strictly to the
LDIF specification in RFC2489 in a few places.

The default is I<undef> meaning no version information is written to the LDIF file.

=item wrap =E<gt> 78

Number of columns where output line wrapping shall occur.

Default is 78. Setting it to 40 or lower inhibits wrapping.

=back

=back

=head1 METHODS

=over 4

=item read_entry ( )

Read one entry from the file and return it as a C<Net::LDAP::Entry>
object.

=item eof ( )

Returns I<true> when the end of the file is reached.

=item write_entry ( ENTRIES )

Write the entries to the LDIF file.

=item write_version ( )

If the object's version is defined, this method allows to explicitely
write the version before an entry is written.

If  not called explicitely, it gets called automatically when writing
the first entry.

=item version ( [ VERSION ] )

If called without arguments it returns the version of the LDIF file
or undef if no version has been set.
If called with an argument it sets the LDIF version to VERSION.

According to RFC 2849 currently the only legal value for VERSION is I<1>.

=item handle ( )

Returns the file handle the C<Net::LDAP::LDIF> object reads fromi
or writes to.

=item done ( )

This method signals that the LDIF object is no longer needed. If a
file was opened automatically when the object was created it will be
closed. This method is called automatically via DESTROY when the
object goes out of scope.

=item error ( )

Returns error message if error was found.

=item error_lines ( )

Returns lines that resulted in error.

=item current_entry ( )

Returns the current C<Net::LDAP::Entry> object.

=item current_lines ( )

Returns the lines that generated the current C<Net::LDAP::Entry>
object.

=item next_lines ( )

Returns the lines that will generate the next C<Net::LDAP::Entry>
object.

=back

=head1 AUTHOR

Graham Barr E<lt>gbarr@pobox.comE<gt>.

Please report any bugs, or post any suggestions, to the perl-ldap
mailing list E<lt>perl-ldap@perl.orgE<gt>.

=head1 COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 1997-2004 Graham Barr. All rights reserved. This program
is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the
same terms as Perl itself.

=cut
