Testing for existence of attributes

[Craig R. <cra...@ep...>]

Net::LDAP experts,

I have a problem that has been bugging me for ages.

I am trying to see if an email address exists within our organization. The =
following is a snippet of code which returns the DN of an entry which match=
es a certain email address:

use Net::LDAP;
$ldap =3D Net::LDAP->new("bartfarst.env.qld.gov.au") or die "$@";
$DS_mesg =3D $ldap->search(base =3D> "o=3Denv,st=3Dqld,c=3Dau",filter =3D> =
"mail=3Dcraig.robinson\@epa.qld.gov.au");
$DS_entry =3D $DS_mesg->shift_entry;
$DS_dn =3D $DS_entry->dn;
print "DN: $DS_dn\n";
$ldap->unbind;

It works great if the email address exists. BUT if the email address does n=
ot exist, I get the following error message:

"Can't call method "dn" on an undefined value at test.pl line 5."

I would prefer a message like:

"Sorry Craig, there is no entry which has this email address"

Does anyone know of a <simple> way of finding out if an entry containing a =
specific attribute exists, or better still, DOES NOT EXIST??

(If you would like to reply off-list, I will summarise and post summary bac=
k to list.)

Cheers, Craig

Craig Robinson
Environmental Protection Agency
Tel: (07) 3006 4629     Fax: (07) 3247 6534
Email: cra...@ep...

Visit us at: http://www.epa.qld.gov.au