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Natively Connect to LDAP Objects in PHP


The CData ODBC driver for LDAP enables you to create PHP applications with connectivity to LDAP objects. Leverage the native support for ODBC in PHP.

Drop the CData ODBC Driver for LDAP into your LAMP or WAMP stack to build LDAP-connected Web applications. This article shows how to use PHP's ODBC built-in functions to connect to LDAP objects, execute queries, and output the results.

Configure a DSN

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

To establish a connection, the following properties under the Authentication section must be provided:

  • Valid User and Password credentials (e.g., Domain\BobF or cn=Bob F,ou=Employees,dc=Domain).
  • Server information, including the IP or host name of the Server, as well as the Port.

  • BaseDN: This will limit the scope of LDAP searches to the height of the distinguished name provided.

    Note: Specifying a narrow BaseDN may greatly increase performance; for example, cn=users,dc=domain will only return results contained within cn=users and its children.

Establish a Connection

Open the connection to LDAP by calling the odbc_connect or odbc_pconnect methods. To close connections, use odbc_close or odbc_close_all.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC LDAP Source","user","password");

Connections opened with odbc_connect are closed when the script ends. Connections opened with the odbc_pconnect method are still open after the script ends. This enables other scripts to share that connection when they connect with the same credentials. By sharing connections among your scripts, you can save system resources, and queries execute faster.

$conn = odbc_pconnect("CData ODBC LDAP Source","user","password"); ... odbc_close($conn); //persistent connection must be closed explicitly

Create Prepared Statements

Create prepared statements and parameterized queries with the odbc_prepare function.

$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM User WHERE CN = ?");

Execute Queries

Execute prepared statements with odbc_execute.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC LDAP Source","user","password"); $query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM User WHERE CN = ?"); $success = odbc_execute($query, array('Administrator'));

Execute nonparameterized queries with odbc_exec.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC LDAP Source","user","password"); $query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Id, LogonCount FROM User");

Process Results

Access a row in the result set as an array with the odbc_fetch_array function.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC LDAP objects Source","user","password"); $query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Id, LogonCount FROM User"); while($row = odbc_fetch_array($query)){ echo $row["Id"] . "\n"; }

Display the result set in an HTML table with the odbc_result_all function.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC LDAP objects Source","user","password"); $query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM User WHERE CN = ?"); $success = odbc_execute($query, array('Administrator')); if($success) odbc_result_all($query);

More Example Queries

You will find complete information on the driver's supported SQL in the help documentation. The code examples above are LDAP-specific adaptations of the PHP community documentation for all ODBC functions.

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LDAP Icon LDAP ODBC Driver

The LDAP ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live LDAP directory services, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

Access LDAP objects like you would a database - define custom tables for any ObjectClass, and then perform SQL queries through a standard ODBC Driver interface.

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