Other methods in the interface,
in addition to search(),
read from the directory:
Because the LDAP "search" operation is the primary way in which
data is to be read from the directory, all other methods
use the LDAP "search" operation in one way or another.
This section describes how each method uses this
operation. Examples of how to use each method are available in
The Basics 
trail.
getAttributes()
getAttributes() retrieves attributes associated with the named entry.
This method comes in two forms
(ignoring the overloads that accept java.lang.String
names instead of
Name
names):
The first form is equivalent to the second form, with null
supplied as the retAttrs argument:
getAttributes(name, null);
The retAttrs argument contains the list of attributes to retrieve.
If retAttrs contains an attribute with the special name
"*", or if
retAttrs is null,
then all attributes of the named entry are retrieved.
This method is equivalent to performing an LDAP "search" operation
using the string filter "(objectclass=*)" and a search scope of
SearchControls.OBJECT_SCOPE and asking that the requested attributes be returned.
lookup() and lookupLink()
lookup() and lookupLink() return the object bound to the name.
If a java.io.Serializable,
Reference , or
Referenceable object was previously bound to the name, by using either
bind() or
rebind(), then the result of these methods will be an object constructed
by using the attributes used for storing Java objects.
See the
Representation in the Directory 
lesson for details.
Otherwise, a DirContext object representing the named entry is returned.
These methods are implemented by using an LDAP "search" operation
with the string filter "(objectclass=*)" and a search scope of
SearchControls.OBJECT_SCOPE, and asking for all of the entry's attributes.
If the entry contains Java object-related attributes,
then those attributes are used to
reconstruct the object, as described in the
Representation in the Directory lesson.
The result is then passed to the object factory mechanism,
NamingManager.getObjectInstance(), before being returned to the caller. See the
Reading Objects from the Directory lesson for details.
list() and listBindings()
list() and listBindings() list the named context and return an
enumeration of
NameClassPair or
Binding , respectively.
These methods are implemented by using an LDAP "search" operation
with the string filter "(objectclass=*)"
and a search scope of
SearchControls.ONELEVEL_SCOPE.
list() asks for
the "objectClass" and "javaClassName" attributes
so that the class name of each entry can be determined (
NameClassPair.getClassName() ).
If the "javaClassName" attribute does not exist, the class name is
"javax.naming.directory.DirContext".
The name of each entry (
NameClassPair.getName() ) either is relative to the named context or is an LDAP URL.
The latter is used if a referral or alias has been followed.
listBindings() resembles list(), except that
it asks for all of the entry's attributes.
It will attempt to create for each item in the enumeration an object
(to be returned by
Binding.getObject() ) similar to the way that lookup() creates an object from the data
read from the directory.
