RE: FW: Unable to delete a dn with \\\

["Shaun Scott" <sascott@depot.com.au>]

> Tony Earnshaw writes:
> > 1: Have you tried escaping each backslash with a forward slash?

> Hallvard B Furuseth writes:
> Eh?  The escape character is backslash.  That's probably why there are
> so many of them in that DN already.

> Keep in mind that backslash is also an escape character in the shell,
> so at least in Bourne-type shells you have to duplicate each
> backslash just so it'll reach the command.  If you need to duplicate
> them in the command as well (which I don't know), you'll have to
> quadruple each backslash:-(

This is progress.  The escape character as Hallvard writes is the 
backslash.  Now if I search using:

ldapsearch -xW -D "cn=qmail-ldap, o=Organisation, c=AU" \
  -b "o=Organisation, c=AU" "cn=O\\\\\\\\\\\'Flaherty Sue"

The response is:

#
# filter: cn=O\\\\\\'Flaherty Sue
# requesting: ALL
#

# O\\\'Flaherty Sue, centacare.org, Organisation, AU
dn: cn=O\\\'Flaherty Sue,ou=centacare.org,o=Organisation, c=AU
objectClass: top
objectClass: person
objectClass: qmailuser
cn: O\\\'Flaherty Sue
sn: O\\\'Flaherty Sue
mail: sue.oflaherty@centacare.org
uid: suef
accountStatus: active
userPassword:: 
mailHost: 
mailMessageStore: centacare.org/suef
deliveryMode: localdelivery

# search result
search: 2
result: 0 Success

# numResponses: 2
# numEntries: 1

This is of course the response that I would expect however when I try to
delete the record using:

ldapdelete -xW -D "cn=qmail-ldap, o=Organisation, c=AU" \
  "cn=O\\\\\\\\\\\'Flaherty Sue,ou=centacare.org,o=Organisation, c=AU"

no luck.

However, I did not give up there and after quite a few tries and some 
silly mistakes I got the desired result with:

ldapdelete -xW -D "cn=qmail-ldap, o=Organisation, c=AU" \
  "cn=O\\\\\'Flaherty Sue,ou=centacare.org,o=Organisation, c=AU"

It seems that the escape is not needed on the full dn when deleting
but is however required on the filter when searching.

Thank you, both for your assistance.

Regards,
Shaun Scott