Problems with DirectoryEntry

[Drew Burchett]

I am working with Active Directory in C# and trying to read and set certain
attributes. To set an attribute, I have the following code:

DirectoryEntry de = new DirectoryEntry(); //This is assigned to a
DirectoryEntry from a search result.

de.Properties["telephoneNumber"].Value = telephoneNumber;
de.CommitChanges();

The code above works perfectly unless telephoneNumber is an empty string.
How can I either assign an empty string to the value, or remove any value
that is there?

 

[Colby Africa]

How about de.Properties["telephoneNumber"].Clear?

Colby

 

[Drew Burchett]

Thank you, but that didn't seem to work either.

 

[Willy Denoyette [MVP]]

Thank you, but that didn't seem to work either.

How about de.Properties["telephoneNumber"].Clear?

Colby

Are you sure that this (optional) property exists, you cant change the
value of a non-existing property, you have to add it first like this:

de.Properties["telephoneNumber"].Add(""); // add property and set it's
value to an empty string.

Willy.

 

[Drew Burchett]

Yes. I've used ADSI edit to go into the Active Directory and see for
certain that the property exists.

Also, in stepping through the code, I found that setting the property to
empty or calling Clear either one will remove the property, but it appears
that it never gets saved when I call CommitChanges. Not sure what would be
causing that since CommitChanges never throws an exception and won't return
any error codes.

Thank you, but that didn't seem to work either.

How about de.Properties["telephoneNumber"].Clear?

Colby

Are you sure that this (optional) property exists, you cant change the
value of a non-existing property, you have to add it first like this:

de.Properties["telephoneNumber"].Add(""); // add property and set it's
value to an empty string.

Willy.

 

[Willy Denoyette [MVP]]

Yes. I've used ADSI edit to go into the Active Directory and see for
certain that the property exists.

Also, in stepping through the code, I found that setting the property to
empty or calling Clear either one will remove the property, but it appears
that it never gets saved when I call CommitChanges. Not sure what would
be causing that since CommitChanges never throws an exception and won't
return any error codes.

Thank you, but that didn't seem to work either.

How about de.Properties["telephoneNumber"].Clear?

Colby

Are you sure that this (optional) property exists, you cant change the
value of a non-existing property, you have to add it first like this:

de.Properties["telephoneNumber"].Add(""); // add property and set it's
value to an empty string.

Willy.

Ok I see, the thelephoneNumber cannot be an empty string, *empty* strings
(strings with 0 length) are not valid attribute in AD, that means that when
you set a value to "" , that the property gets deleted.
So, you need to set the value to a valid number or set it to a single space
" " or whatever value that is indicative for a non valid number. Much better
IMO is to delete the property if no value exists for the property.

Willy.
,