[Openinteract-help] SPOPS::LDAP bug with MAY attributes

[Kutter M. <mar...@er...>]

Hi * !

There is a little flaw in SPOPS::LDAP when it comes to attributes which are
defined as "MAY" in the ldap objectclass definition. These attributes are
optional, they may be present or not. 

When storing a new LDAP object, SPOPS stores all attributes, including
undefined ones (unless these are listed in "skip_undef" - more later). 

If an optional attribute is stored with an undefined value, this normally
results in an LDAP schema error (something like "value not permitted by
syntax"). 

Adding all optional attributes to "skip_undef" works well for storing new
objects ("insert" calls): they are simply ignored, thus not included, which
is exactly what "MAY" means. 

But deleting an optional attribute from an already stored object ("update"
call) does not work this way: Deleting the attribute means setting it to
undef in SPOPS - and as undefined values are skipped, the removal of the
attribute is not stored in the LDAP directory. 

I would suggest the addition of a config parameter ("ldap_must_fields") as a
solution. 

The "save_insert" method should regard this parameter in the opposite way of
skip_undef: All attributes that are mentioned in "ldap_must_fields" are
included in the LDAP::Entry object to save, all other undefined attributes
are not. 

The "save_update" method should check for undefined attributes and delete
them from the Net::LDAP object (unless they are mentioned in skip_undef).

This solution would remove the need to "abuse" skip_undef for optional ldap
attributes (and the side effect of impossible removal).

Another possible solution would be the retrieval of LDAP schemata for SPOPS
objects and automatically not setting resp. deleting "MAY" attributes if
these are empty - but this should be harder to implement.

Regards,

Martin Kutter