Automatic completion with LDAP

• US 20080059428A1
• Filed: 08/31/2006
• Published: 03/06/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Kinder, Nathan G.
• Granted Patent: US 7,970,758 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/3
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/63 Routing a service request depending on the request content or context

Abstract

A method and apparatus for searching data in a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method, comprising:

receiving at least a portion of an input from a user;

searching entries of a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory to identify which of the entries contain the portion of the input from the client; and

returning to the user information pertaining to the entries.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the information pertaining to the entries is returned to the user without retrieving the entries from the directory.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the portion of the input comprises a plurality of characters and wherein the information pertaining to the entries is returned to the user concurrently with the user inputting the plurality of characters.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the information is one or more entries that may match the input.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the information is an attribute of one or more entries to assist the user to select data stored in the directory.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving an updated portion of the input from the user;

searching the LDAP directory to identify which of the entries contains the updated portion; and

returning to the user the additional information about the entries that is identified as containing the updated portion without retrieving the entries from the directory.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising returning to the user a message indicating that no entries were found to contain the portion.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein if only one of the entries matches the portion, the method further comprises retrieving the one matching entry from the directory.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein returning to the user information about the entries comprises providing an alternative input that does not match the portion of the input.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein returning to the user information about the entries comprises providing a variation to the portion of the input.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the portion comprises receiving the portion in a form field of a user interface.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the form field comprises a HTML form field enabled so that the entries identified as containing the portion of the input entered by a user may be displayed to the user without the user inputting the entire input.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the form field may be enabled with Asynchronous JavaScript and Extensible Markup Language (AJAX).

14. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the portion of the input may be asynchronous to entering the portion of the input by the user.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein searching is performed with a Rich Internet Application engine.

16. The method of claim 6, wherein searching entries is performed asynchronously with receiving the updated portion of the input.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein searching entries is performed asynchronously with returning to the user information pertaining to the entries.

18. An article of manufacture, comprising:

a machine-accessible storage medium including data that, when accessed by a machine, cause the machine to perform operations comprising;

receiving at least a portion of an input from a user;

searching entries of a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory to identify which of the stored entries contain the portion of the input from the client; and

returning to the user information that indicates which entries of the LDAP directory contain the portion of the input.

19. The article of manufacture of claim 18, wherein the machine-accessible storage medium further includes data that, when accessed by a machine, cause the machine to perform operations comprising providing to the user one or more proposed completions to the portion of the input based on the returned information.

20. The article of manufacture of claim 18, wherein the machine-accessible storage medium further includes data that, when accessed by a machine, cause the machine to perform operations comprising:

receiving an updated portion of the input from the user;

searching the LDAP directory to identify which of the entries contains the updated portion; and

returning to the user the additional information about the entries that is identified as containing the updated portion without retrieving the entries from the directory.

21. The article of manufacture of claim 18, wherein the machine-accessible storage medium further includes data that, when accessed by a machine, cause the machine to perform operations comprising providing to the user proposed completions concurrently as the user enters the input.

22. An apparatus, comprising:

a data storage device to store entries of a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory; and

processing logic to receive at least a portion of an input from a user and search the entries of the LDAP directory to identify which of the entries contain the portion of the input from the client, wherein the processing logic is further configured to return to the user information pertaining to the entries.

23. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the processing logic is further configured to return the information to the user without retrieving the entries from the LDAP directory.

24. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the processing logic is further configured to provide the user proposed completions concurrently as the user enters the input.

25. A method of providing proposed completions to input by a user, said method comprising:

receiving at least a portion of an input from the user;

providing the portion of the input to a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory;

receiving information that indicates which entries in the LDAP directory contain the portion of the input from the user; and

providing to the user proposed completions to the portion of the input based on the received information from the LDAP directory.

26. The method of claim 25, further comprising:

detecting a selection by the user of one of the proposed completions; and

retrieving the stored entry from the LDAP directory that corresponds to the selected proposed completion.

27. The method of claim 25, wherein providing the portion of the input to the LDAP directory comprises providing the portion of the input to the LDAP directory via a web server.

28. The method of claim 25, wherein providing the portion of the input to the LDAP directory comprises providing the portion of the input to the LDAP directory via an asynchronous JavaScript and extensible markup language web server.

29. The method of claim 25, wherein providing to the user proposed completions to the portion of the input comprises providing to the user proposed completions concurrently as the user enters the input.

30. The method of claim 25, further comprising receiving information that indicates which entries in the LDAP directory contain equivalents to the portion of the input by the user.