h2. LDIF and DSML

Entries are stored in the *LDAP* database in a format that is not readable. This is not convenient when one wants to manipulate entries as text. Hopefully, two formats have been defined that allows a user to describe an entry using a text editor. 

One small issue is that some of the attributes may be binary, therefore they cannot be described using a text. We also have to deal with non ASCII characters, like european accents or languages like Japanese. 

We will see how those constraints can be fulfilled by the two formats, *LDIF* and *DSML*.

h3. LDIF Format

The *LDIF* format is a full ASCII text format. It can be used to describe a full entry, and therefore can be injected into a LDAP server, but it can also be used to apply some modifications on existing entries.

It is described in the *[RFC2849|http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2849.txt]*.

The *LDAP API* has three classes that can be used to manipulate a *LDIF* entry:
* *[DIRAPI:LdifEntry]* : contains the entry when it has been parsed, but can also be created from scratch. We can get the entry exported in the *LDIF* format.
* *LdifReader* : This class is able to read a _String_ or a file which contains *LDIF* framed entries, and produces a list of *LdifEntry*.
* *LdifUtils* : 

TO BE CONTINUED