#include <ldap.h> int ldap_count_messages( LDAP *ld, LDAPMessage *result ) LDAPMessage *ldap_first_message( LDAP *ld, LDAPMessage *result ) LDAPMessage *ldap_next_message( LDAP *ld, LDAPMessage *message )
These routines are used to step through the messages in a result chain received from ldap_result(3). For search operations, the result chain can contain referral, entry and result messages. The ldap_msgtype(3) function can be used to distinguish between the different message types.
The ldap_first_message() routine is used to retrieve the first message in a result chain. It takes the result as returned by a call to ldap_result(3), ldap_search_s(3) or ldap_search_st(3) and returns a pointer to the first message in the result chain.
This pointer should be supplied on a subsequent call to ldap_next_message() to get the next message, the result of which should be supplied to the next call to ldap_next_message(), etc. ldap_next_message() will return NULL when there are no more messages.
These functions are useful when using routines like ldap_parse_result(3) that only operate on the first result in the chain.
A count of the number of messages in the result chain can be obtained by calling ldap_count_messages(). It can also be used to count the number of remaining messages in a chain if called with a message, entry or reference returned by ldap_first_message() , ldap_next_message() , ldap_first_entry(3), ldap_next_entry(3), ldap_first_reference(3), ldap_next_reference(3).