ldap_sort

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huntz at huntz dot org
18-May-2005 12:12


About the note of ccblanket at yahoo dot com...



Nice tip, but on line 2 of your example we need to use $ldapSortAttributes and not $ldapSortAttribues :-)



So, the whole correct function is:



<?php

   $ldapFilterAttributes = array ('givenname', 'sn', 'mail');

   $ldapSortAttributes = array('sn', 'givenname');

  

   $ldapFilter = "(&(sn='')(givenname=''))";

  

   $ldapBaseDN = 'ou=users, dc=example, dc=com';

  

   $search = @ldap_search($ldapConnect, $ldapBaseDN, $ldapFilter, $ldapFilterAttributes) ;

   if (!($search)) {

       die("Unable to search LDAP server");

   }



   foreach ($ldapSortAttributes as $eachSortAttribute) {

       if (in_array($eachSortAttribute, $ldapFilterAttributes)) {

           ldap_sort($this->connect, $search, $eachSortAttribute);

       }

   }



   $results = ldap_get_entries($this->connect, $search);



print_r($results);

?>

ccblanket at yahoo dot com
06-Mar-2005 01:30


It is interesting people are using all these methods to sort multi-attribute results from LDAP searches. Well, here is a simpler one. Just use ldap_sort once for each sort attribute in the reverse order of importance.



--hikmet



<?php

    $ldapFilterAttributes = array ('givenname', 'sn', 'mail');

    $ldapSortAttribues = array('sn', 'givenname'); // ie. sort by givenname, then by sn

    

    $ldapFilter = "(&(sn='')(givenname=''))";

    

    $ldapBaseDN = 'ou=users, dc=example, dc=com';

    

    $search = @ldap_search($ldapConnect, $ldapBaseDN, $ldapFilter, $ldapFilterAttributes) ;

    if (!($search)) {

        die("Unable to search LDAP server");

    }



    // lets sort the results by firstname if firstname is in the results

    foreach ($ldapSortAttributes as $eachSortAttribute) {

        if (in_array($eachSortAttribute, $ldapFilterAttributes)) { // making sure we don't accidentally try to sort against an inexisting field

            ldap_sort($this->connect, $search, $eachSortAttribute);

        }

    }



    // and here is the result

    $results = ldap_get_entries($this->connect, $search);

?>

ben at xsusio dot com
04-Sep-2004 05:33


If you are wanting to sort by multiple attributes, for instance ordering by last name and then first name,  try this function. This is similar to "ORDER BY lastname, firstname"  in SQL.



This function uses an insertion sort algorithm, which is somewhat faster then the old-fashoned bubble sort.  The second argument is an array containing the attributes you want to sort by. (this functon won't do descending or ascending..  feel free to add it!)



<?php

/**

 * @param array $entries

 * @param array $attribs

 * @desc Sort LDAP result entries by multiple attributes.

*/

function ldap_multi_sort(&$entries, $attribs){

    for ($i=1; $i<$entries['count']; $i++){

        $index = $entries[$i];

        $j=$i;

        do {

            //create comparison variables from attributes:

            $a = $b = null;

            foreach($attribs as $attrib){

                $a .= $entries[$j-1][$attrib][0];

                $b .= $index[$attrib][0];

            }

            // do the comparison

            if ($a > $b){

                $is_greater = true;

                $entries[$j] = $entries[$j-1];

                $j = $j-1;

            }else{

                $is_greater = false;

            }

        } while ($j>0 && $is_greater);

        

        $entries[$j] = $index;

    }

    return $entries;

}

?>

zbaizman at yahoo dot com
07-Aug-2004 09:15


This note may be self-evident, but the functionality of ldap_sort threw off this sometime user of relational databases.



The following code will NOT do what you expect:



<?php



// omitted calls to connect and and bind to LDAP server...



// attributes we want to retrieve from LDAP server

$ldap_attributes = array ( 'cn', 'o', 'mail' ) ;



// retrieve attributes from matching entries

$search_results = ldap_search ( $ldap_conn, 'dc=example,dc=org', '(objectclass=*)', 0, 500, 30 ) ;



// sort entries by last name ('sn')

ldap_sort ( $ldap_conn, $search_results, 'sn' ) ;



?>



The entries will NOT be sorted by last name. Why not? Because LDAP doesn't function like a RDBMS; you cannot sort a result set on an arbitrary field, regardless of whether you "selected" it. You must always include the attribute by which you want to sort your entries among the requested attributes (add 'sn' to $ldap_attributes, in this case).



Hope this is helpful to some other folks who scratched their heads when they tried to sort entries and it didn't work out...

helmut dot patay at scandio dot de
22-Apr-2004 06:02


If you want to sort the search results based on any attribute reverse,

please do not use the examples above containing two loops!

You will end up in changing php.ini with increasing the value

of 'max_execution_time' dramatically. No one will use your website

again!

I have used the following construct and it works very well:



// write this function

function myReverseCnCmp( $a, $b ) {

    // Note: $b comes before $a because of reverse ordering

    return strcasecmp( $b[cn][0], $a[cn][0] );

}



// search

$sr = ldap_search( $ds, $baseDn, $filter );



// before reading the entries, you must sort normally

// in my example I use the attribute 'cn' for sorting

// instead of cn you can use any other attribute

ldap_sort( $ds, $sr, "cn" )



// read the entries

$entries = ldap_get_entries( $ds, $sr );



// now sort the array reverse with usort

usort( $entries, "myReverseCnCmp" );



// now $entries is sorted reverse based on "cn"



// This runs at least 5 times faster than the double loop

// solutions



// Note: If you want to sort reverse based on dynamic

// attribute names, you must do some if's or switch'es,

// but it's really fast!

john at benden dot co dot uk
12-Apr-2004 07:30


An alternative for multivalue sorting for ldap queries:



function cmp($a,$b) {

   global $fld1,$fld2,$fld3; // getting the fld defs from the main routine

   global $info; // get search results from the main routine

   $d=strcasecmp($info[$a][$fld1][0], 

                        $info[$b][$fld1][0]);

   if ($d==0) {

     $d = strcasecmp($info[$a][$fld2][0], 

                             $info[$b][$fld2][0]);

     if ($d==0) {

       $d= strcasecmp($info[$a][$fld3][0], 

                             $info[$b][$fld3][0]);

     }

   }

   if ($d==0) {

      return 0;

   } else {

      return ($d>0)? 1 : -1;

   }

}

//

// connect to the directory server

//

$ds=ldap_connect("localhost",389); 

ldap_bind($ds,"","");

//

// setup the search

//

$basedn="o=org";

$search="(sn=foo)"

$searchattr=array('sn','givenname','desc','telephonenumber',

'cn','mail');

//

// do the search

//

$sr=ldap_search($ds, $basedn, $search,$searchattr);

//

// verify that the search was ok

//

if (ldap_count_entries($ds,$sr)==0) {

   echo "<BR><H1>No results</H1>";

} else {

   // some results found

   // get the search results

   $info = ldap_get_entries($ds, $sr);

   // setup the sorting fields

   $fld1="sn";

   $fld2="givenname";

   $fld3="desc"; // there maybe a better attribute

   uksort($info,"cmp"); // use a key sort

   //

   // Setup results

   //

   echo "<table><tr><th>Name</th>";

   echo "<th>Phone</th> <th>Mail</th>";

   echo "<th>desc</th> </tr>";

   while (list($i, $value) = each($info)) {

      echo "<tr><td>" . $info[$i]["cn"][0] . "</td><td>";

      echo $info[$i]["telephonenumber"][0] . "</td><td>";

      echo $info[$i]["mail"][0] . "</td><td>";

      echo $info[$i]["desc"][0] . "</td></tr>"; 

   }

   echo "</table>";

   ldap_free_result($sr);

}



ldap_close($ds);



i hope this helps!

askgopal at sify dot com
04-Sep-2003 11:07


Here's a simple LDAP sort function I wrote:



function sort_ldap_entries($e, $fld, $order)

{

    for ($i = 0; $i < $e['count']; $i++) {

        for ($j = $i; $j < $e['count']; $j++) {

            $d = strcasecmp($e[$i][$fld][0], $e[$j][$fld][0]);

            switch ($order) {

            case 'A':

                if ($d > 0)

                    swap($e, $i, $j);

                break;

            case 'D':

                if ($d < 0)

                    swap($e, $i, $j);

                break;

            }

        }

    }

    return ($e);

}



function swap(&$ary, $i, $j)

{

    $temp = $ary[$i];

    $ary[$i] = $ary[$j];

    $ary[$j] = $temp;

}



so that it can be invoked like:



    $entries = sort_ldap_entries($entries, 'mail', 'A'); // sort entries by ascending order of mail



where,

    `$entries' is the array returned by ldap_get_entries() function.



This might be useful to those who still run older versions of PHP (<= 4.2.0) on their web servers :-)

rieflin at tdontspam dot salem dot k12 dot va dot us
20-Dec-2002 07:58


The note from Sean on 14-Nov-2002 was of great help to me but I had to change one line for it to work.



In the example below, change the line ...

ldap_sort = ($ldap_connection,$search_return,"givenname");

to ldap_sort ($ldap_connection,$search_return,"givenname");

and everything should work fine.  



Sean's code.................

The following is a working example of how to use the ldap_sort function ...



$search_return = ldap_search($ldap_connection,$ldap_base,$search_filter);

ldap_sort = ($ldap_connection,$search_return,"givenname");

$entries = ldap_get_entries($ldap_connection,$search_return);



This will take the returned search sort it by the "givenname" attribute. It has to be done BEFORE you call ldap_get_entries.

sean dot ogrady at sheridanc dot on dot ca
15-Nov-2002 07:04


The following is a working example of how to use the ldap_sort function ...



$search_return = ldap_search($ldap_connection,$ldap_base,$search_filter);

ldap_sort = ($ldap_connection,$search_return,"givenname");

$entries = ldap_get_entries($ldap_connection,$search_return);



This will take the returned search sort it by the "givenname" attribute. It has to be done BEFORE you call ldap_get_entries.

jason dot sokolowski at rotork dot com
07-Sep-2002 04:51


Something real simple i wrote to sort directory searches by a persons last name.



for($i=0;$i<$result["count"];$i++)

{



$lastname = $result[$i]["sn"][0];



$lnames["$i"]=$lastname;



}//for i



@asort($lnames);

matthew dot j dot gray at uwrf dot edu
26-Jun-2002 05:47


This function applies strcmp() to each attribute (given by sortfilter) in order to sort the entries returned by the server.  To order search results ascending by last name, try passing "sn" as the sortfilter argument.  This function does not play nice with multi-valued attributes.

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ldap_sort

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