S/W request: add flag to LDAPSEARCH to identify version (ITS#971)

[jimd@dutton3.it.siu.edu]

Full_Name: Jim Dutton
Version: 2.0.7
OS: FreeBSD-4.1, Solaris-2.8, NetBSD-1.4.2
URL: ftp://ftp.openldap.org/incoming/
Submission from: (NULL) (131.230.6.142)


Well, now that LDAPSEARCH under OpenLDAP-2.0.7 has radically
changed its output from UMich-3.3, OpenLDAP-1.2.x, and
Netscape-3/4 (ie; full LDIF format and extra informational
lines), it would be a good idea to provide some kind of simple
mechanism that can be used to easily identify the version
and source implementation of LDAPSEARCH so scripts can easily
determine whether they are going to have to alter their data
parsing.

Using LDAPSEARCH from two versions of OpenLDAP and two version	
of Netscape on 4 boxes (Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD) will now be
a bit more complicated since the data returned format for
LDAPSEARCH/OpenLDAP-2.0.7 is no longer (strictly) compatible with the
other LDAPSEARCHs. Then there is the additional complication
of vendor installed LDAPSEARCH.

This is something that probably needs to be kicked up to the
IETF so hopefully all LDAPSEARCH implementations will provide
a simple one line identifier output with a standard flag/option.
Hopefully this one line output will say something like:

  <source/vendor name> <program/distribution version> <comments>

where <comments> might be "LDIF V.x format", or "includes extra
informational output - see '-L' option".

Otherwise scripts will have to be duplicated for different
versions of LDAPSEARCH or code duplicated within scripts to
handle different return data formats. If a standards-approved
flag were available that would return a single line like above,
then modifying and designing new scripts would be easier and
more consistent.