The Jndi API Tutorial and Reference: Building Directory-Enabled Java Applications
Authors: Rosanna Lee, Scott Seligman
Venue:  (2000)

From the Book:How to Use This Book This book teaches you how to write directory-enabled Java™ applications by using the Java Naming and Directory Interface™ (JNDI). It is divided into two parts: a tutorial and a reference. It is intended as a tutorial and reference only for the JNDI and not for the rest of the Java Platform. For a tutorial-style presentation of the class libraries in the rest of the Java Platform, see The Jav™ Tutorial and The JFC Swing Tutorial, by Mary Campione and Kathy Walrath, and The Java™ Tutorial Continued, by Mary Campione, Kathy Walrath, Allison Huml, and the Tutorial team. For a reference-style presentation of the class libraries in other parts of the Java Platform, see The Java™ Class Libraries books by Patrick Chan, Rosanna Lee, and Douglas Kramer. This book also does not explain any part of the Java programming language. Several books are available for learning the language. These include The Java™ Programming Language, by Ken Arnold and James Gosling, and The Java™ Language Specification, by James Gosling, Bill Joy, and Guy Steele. Following is an overview of this book. Tutorial The first part of this book is a tutorial. It is modeled after The Java Tutorial, by Mary Campione and Kathy Walrath. Trails and Lessons The tutorial consists of six trails-programming lessons grouped together by topic. To learn about a certain topic, go to the Table of Contents, decide which trail meets your needs, and go through the lessons in that trail. For example, if you are interested in writing a service provider,select the Building a Service Provider trail. You can read the tutorial sequentially or select trails in any order. However, some of the beginner trails are prerequisites for the more advanced trails. The first page of a trail contains a high-level overview of the trail. It lists, describes, and provides references to all of the lessons on the trail. It also provides a detailed table of contents of the lessons in the trail. Each lesson begins with an introduction to the material in the lesson. Most lessons contain many examples. Trying the examples as you go along will help you to understand the concepts discussed in each lesson. Links The online version of this tutorial is filled with hyperlinks to sections inside and outside of the tutorial. In this hardcopy version of the tutorial, these hyperlinks have been handled as follows. A link to a section, lesson, or trail within the tutorial is replaced by a cross reference, annotated by a page number. A link to a method, class, interface, or package in the JNDI has been removed. Use instead the reference part of this book to look up the item. A link to an Internet RFC or Internet-draft has been removed. These documents may be accessed both from the CD that accompanies this book and the Web site at http://www.ietf.org. A link to an external document or software has been replaced by the item's URL. These files may also be found on the accompanying CD. A link to a sample program or configuration file has been removed. Simply find the file on the accompanying CD (see later in this Preface for instructions). Examples All of the code examples in the tutorial have been compiled and run by using the following software. The FCS version of the Java™ 2 SDK, Standard Edition, v1.2 on either Solaris or Windows NT or both The 1.2.1 version of the JNDI class libraries The 1.2.2 version of the LDAP service provider The 1.2 Beta 2 version of the file system service provider Most of the complete examples are available both online from the JNDI Web site (http://java.sun.com/products/jndi/tutorial) and on the accompanying CD. This tutorial is located in the Tutorials/jndi directory on the CD. Each trail resides in its own directory, under which are located subdirectories for each lesson within the trail. The examples and related files used in a lesson are found in the src subdirectory of the lesson's directory. For example, the examples in the Naming Operations lesson in The Basics trail are found in the Tutorials/jndi/basics/naming/src directory. Tools and utilities for configuring the examples are found in the directories Tutorials/jndi/config/fs and Tutorials/jndi/config/LDAP. We strongly encourage you to try the examples that accompany this tutorial as you go along. To do that, you will need the JNDI classes and a v1.1.2 or higher version of the Java Platform software, such as the JDK software (http://java.sun.com/products/jdk). The JDK provides a compiler that you can use to compile Java programs. It also provides an interpreter for running Java applications. To run Java applets, you can use the JDK Applet Viewer or any Java-compatible Web browser, such as the HotJava™ browser. Online Version The complete online tutorial is available both on the accompanying CD and from the JNDI Web site. The title page of each lesson contains a URL for the corresponding lesson online. Reference The second part of this book is a reference. Its format is similar to a dictionary's in that it is designed to optimize the time that it takes for you to look up information about a class or class member. Package Overviews The package overviews briefly describe each package and its classes. Each overview includes a general description about the package, as well as diagrams that show the inheritance hierarchy of its classes. Alphabetical Reference of Classes This part covers the alphabetical listing of the classes from the following five packages: javax.naming javax.naming.directory javax.naming.event javax.naming.ldap javax.naming.spi The classes are ordered alphabetically without regard to package. Each is described in its own chapter that contains a picture of the class hierarchy, a class description, a member summary, and descriptions for each member. Most examples for the class or items within the class are found in the tutorial part of this book. Class Hierarchy Diagram Each chapter starts with a class diagram like that shown in Figure i. This diagram shows all of the ancestors of the class, its siblings, its immediate descendents, and any interfaces that it implements. In these diagrams, if a package name precedes a class or interface name, then the class or interface is not in the same package as the current class. In the diagrams, the different kinds of Java entities are distinguished visually as follows: The interface: A rounded rectangle The class: A rectangle The abstract class: A rectangle with an empty dot The final class: A rectangle with a black dot Classes with subclasses: A rectangle with a small black triangle in the lower-right corner The class or interface being described in the current chapter is shaded grey. A solid line represents extends and a dotted line represents implements. Class Description In the class description, we describe all of the properties of the class. For example, the discussion of the properties of the Context interface includes information on how names and environment properties are treated. Describing in one place all of a class's available properties and how they behave makes learning all of the class's capabilities much easier than if that data is scattered throughout the member descriptions. Any terminology used in the member descriptions is introduced and described in the class descriptions. For more information at any time, you should go to the class description. Member Summary The member summary is intended to help you quickly grasp the key points of the class. It groups the members into categories that are specific to that class. For example, in the Name interface the Update Methods category lists all methods concerning updates. It is intended as a quick summary of the class's members, so it does not contain any syntax information other than the name of the member. As an example, following is the member summary for Attributes. Notice that all overloads of a method or constructor share the same entry. MEMBER SUMMARY Update Methods put() Adds a new attribute to this attribute set. remove() Removes an attribute from this attribute set. Copy Method clone() Makes a copy of this attribute set. Query and Access Methods get() Retrieves the attribute with the given attribute identifier from this attribute set. getAll() Retrieves an enumeration of the attributes in this attribute set. getIDs() Retrieves an enumeration of the identifiers of the attributes in this attribute set. isCaseIgnored() Determines whether the attribute set ignores the case of attribute identifiers when retrieving or adding attributes. size() Retrieves the number of attributes in this attribute set. Member Descriptions The member descriptions appear in alphabetical order within a class chapter regardless of what kind of method or field they are. This is done to make locating a member proceed as fast as possible. Overloaded methods are grouped in one member description because they share very similar functionality. The different overloaded forms are typically provided as a convenience for the programmer when specifying parameters. For instance, some overloads eliminate parameters by providing common defaults. To describe overloads with missing parameters, we use a phrase of the form "if the parameter p is not specified, then it defaults to the value 3.14." Other overloads take different representations of a value. For example, one overload could take a particular parameter as an integer, whereas another could take the same parameter as a string that contains an integer. Each member description contains some or all of the following fields. PURPOSE A brief description of the purpose of this member SYNTAX The syntactic declaration of this member DESCRIPTION A full description of this member PARAMETERS The parameters accepted by this member, if any, listed in alphabetical order RETURNS The value and its range returned by this member, if any EXCEPTIONS The exceptions and errors thrown by this member, if any, listed in alphabetical order SEE ALSO Other related classes or members, if any, listed in alphabetical order OVERRIDES The method that this member overrides, if any EXAMPLE A code example that illustrates how this member is used (usually a reference to an example in the tutorial part of this book) Typographical Conventions Used in This Book Lucida Sans Typewriter is used for examples, syntax declarations, class names, method names, values, and field names. Italic is used when defining a new term and for emphasis. Additional Information about This Book Errata and additional information about this book and other books in the Java Series are available at the following URL: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/ Please send feedback about this book to the following: jndi-book@java.sun.com