ldap_str2dn() and ldap_dn2str() reentrant?

[Michael Ströder]

HI!

Routinely in the C module part of python-ldap all calls to libldap functions
are wrapped by a thread lock. But I wonder whether that's really necessary for
all of them, especially regarding ldap_str2dn() and ldap_dn2str().

Ciao, Michael.

[Michael Ströder]

Post by Michael Ströder
Routinely in the C module part of python-ldap all calls to libldap functions
are wrapped by a thread lock. But I wonder whether that's really necessary for
all of them, especially regarding ldap_str2dn() and ldap_dn2str().

Mainly for python-ldap this question boils down to whether ldap_bv2dn_x() and
ldap_bv2rdn_x() are re-entrant. Glancing over these it seems they are
re-entrant. But it would be nice if one of the OpenLDAP developers could
confirm that.

Ciao, Michael.

[Howard Chu]

Post by Michael Ströder

Post by Michael Ströder
Routinely in the C module part of python-ldap all calls to libldap functions
are wrapped by a thread lock. But I wonder whether that's really necessary for
all of them, especially regarding ldap_str2dn() and ldap_dn2str().

Mainly for python-ldap this question boils down to whether ldap_bv2dn_x() and
ldap_bv2rdn_x() are re-entrant. Glancing over these it seems they are
re-entrant. But it would be nice if one of the OpenLDAP developers could
confirm that.

*You're* an OpenLDAP developer... ;)

Yes, these functions are re-entrant. I would say most of libldap's functions
*don't* need any locking. The only really important thing is to call
ldap_init() once in the main program before any threads start, to make sure
that all of the global library options get parsed before threading occurs.
Beyond that, if you make sure that only one thread can use an LDAP handle at a
time, there's no really re-entrancy issues to speak of.

Of course, there are no guarantees on underlying libraries that libldap uses,
like SASL, OpenSSL, etc... If you need those features in a threaded program,
you need to use libldap_r because libldap doesn't do any thread initialization
for those other libraries.