bug#64160: master; Implement various enhancements in ldap.el and EUDC

[Filipp Gunbin]

Hi Jens,

On 19/06/2023 23:16 +0200, Jens Schmidt wrote:

> On 2023-06-19  17:13, Filipp Gunbin wrote:
>
>> Ok, I now see that it's about different things, let's move back this
>> discussion to 64089.
>
> Problem is that the result of my plans in bug#64160 would be more or
> less a complete rewrite of `ldap-search-internal'.  For example, our
> LDAP server returns underscores in its attribute names, which I would
> have accounted for ... in a clean and configurable way and strictly
> backward compatible, of course.  I'd like to optionally have the record
> attributes sorted in the order they came in from EUDC.  I'd like to
> optionally get rid of temporary files, since Emacs should be more than
> capable to parse the base64-encoded attributes instead.  And so on and
> so forth ... there is really much room for improvement in that
> function.
>
> Now from your previous comments I got the impression that we have a
> different approach on coding and that you are somewhat opposed to changes.
>
> So I'd rather leave the changes in my private repository and save us
> both time and energy.
>
> Feel free to close this bug.

No, that's not my position to be opposed to changes.  Patches are always
welcome.  I just keep in mind that who knows which ldap servers are
deployed out there (and clients, but I guess OpenLDAP is de facto
standart now), and we should be careful when changing things.  Also,
it's worth noting that seemingly few people use ldap.el, so we won't
notice the break immediately, but rather when Emacs release comes out.

Let's discuss each issue separately, as they arise, and see what comes
out.  From what you described - that certainly doesn't look like a
"complete rewrite".

I'd just like to note that perhaps I will be opposed to getting rid of
temporary files.  process-connection-type is not forced to pipe, so you
may have tty sometimes, and receiving binary data over it is not
reliable.

Thanks,
Filipp