On 17/1/06 10:22, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hello, > > I am having a problem getting a base64 encoded attribute from an ldap > server. > > When I am doing an ldapsearch from a unix commandline I get the attribute > correctly: > > QWxhZGRpbjpvcGVuIHNlc2FtZQ== > > decoding ( decode_base64($encoded) ) it gives me the rigt content > > Carlsson Bil Âerebro AB > > > When getting it from Ldap using Net::Ldap I get unencryted somthing like > this > > Carlsson Bil Âerebro > > I have read nearly everything a could find but didn't anything how to > extract the attribute correctly as a base64 as which it is saved in the > ldap directory. > > Can anybody please give me a hint?
LDAP does *not* encode attribute values using base-64, as it is a binary protocol. What you are seeing from "ldapsearch" is LDIF output - because LDIF is a text file format it requires that certain kinds of values be base-64 encoded *in the file*. For the definition of "certain kinds of values", see the LDIF spec - RFC 2849. A good approximation is "non-ASCII", but see the RFC for details. Net::LDAP returns you the actual attribute value. Perl scalars can hold binary values, so what you get is what the server sends you. In this case, an LDAPv3 server should be sending you UTF-8 (or if you're sufficiently unlucky to be using an LDAPv2 server you should be getting T.61. Non-conformant LDAPv2 servers will send you ISO-8859-1 instead.) Cheers, Chris
