How to search upwards starting at a given DN?

[Pop M. <her...@ho...>]

Apologies if this is a FAQ -- I searched the archives but couldn't see
anything quite like what I wanted to do.

I want to write a routine that returns the value of attribute 'Foo' 
for a given dn (which I'll find by setting a filter like 
"email=$mailaddr").

If the attribute doesn't exist, I want to take the dn and search in 
it's parent for the same attribute.  (Now of course the filter will
be different, presumably "Foo=*".)  And so on up the directory tree
until I find it.

Sounds like an exercise in recursion, but I only got the shrink-wrap
off of perl::ldap an hour ago and it sounds like it might be a common
requirement for other people.

Has anyone cracked this and got sample code they'd be willing to share?

TIA,

--herb