ldap3 and ezldap compatibility

At its heart, ezldap is is an extension to the ldap3 package, specifically the ldap3.Connection class. The ezldap Connection class extends ldap3.Connection with additional convenience methods and streamlines working with an active LDAP connection. ezldap is 100% compatible with the ldap3 API with a few notable exceptions:

Differences in search

The search_list(), search_list_t(), and search_df() methods provide differently formatted output than ldap3’s search() (which is still available for use). search_list() treats returned entries as a list of dicts, one for each entry, with each attribute/objectClass/DN as a list in the dict. ldap3’s search() returns a list of nested dictionaries, with DNs, objectClasses, and attributes handled separately. This simplification was made for convenience - ldap3’s deep nesting of search results and inconsistent output format was inconvenient to parse and prone to error.

LDIF parser

The ezldap LDIF parsing and writing functions work in the same manner as the search functionality and produce identical output. As such, the LDIF writing tools and ldapadd/ldapchange functionality will only work when used with the corresponding ezldap functions.