explicit vs implicit attributes names

[Michael Ströder]

Jerome Alet wrote:
> 
> I'd want to retrieve complete LDAP entries from my server,
> including createTimestamp and modifyTimestamp (where available)

These are so-called operational attributes.

> But if I pass None as the attributes to retrieve, I only
> receive attributes which I've created myself, not "server"'s
> attributes like the two mentionned above.

This is not really a python-ldap issue.

> I have to explicitely pass all attributes names + "createTimestamp"
> and al, and I find this completely inconvenient.

Maybe ['*',"createTimestamp"] helps.

> Is there a simple solution to not have to explicitely name all
> attributes ?

OpenLDAP supports draft-zeilenga-ldap-opattrs which enable you to request 
all operational attributes with ['+']. All user and operational attributes 
can be retrieved from an OpenLDAP server with ['*','+']. This does not work 
for other LDAP servers which do not support draft-zeilenga-ldap-opattrs.

Furthermore expect all weird things to happen with various LDAP server 
products. E.g. Domino/LDAP does not process ['*'] properly. Not sure whether 
they fixed it during the last year...

Ciao, Michael.