LEX Online Manual Content

Single Filter Editor

The Single Filter editor dialog can be used to show or edit a single criterion in an LDAP filter:

The LDAP filter editor

Dialog elements

Attribute

This pulldown menu determines the name of the attribute which the filter criterion is based on.

Op

You can set the operator for the LDAP filter value criteria here. so you don't have to enter the operator manually. The available operators depend on the syntax of the regarding attribute. The >= and <= operators for example are only valid for numeric values, but not for strings. LEX shows you automatically all the operators which are allowed in the given situation. For some attribute values, wildcards cannot be used - this fact is also shown by LEX:

Picking the filter operator

Situations in which you use this dialog

So if you have a filter which consists of two criteria, it could be configured by opening every criteria in it's own Single Filter editor:

Editing complex filters in single steps

For this reason, the Single Filter editor is used when you are constructing a filter in the Filter Factory constructor. It is also used if you are directly in the Filter Factory and the filter string consists of only one single criterion (otherwise the Edit button is disabled).

Editing a simple filter in one step

There is also a third occasion for using the Single Filter Editor: When you select an attribute in a list and use the Menu Option Tools - Use attribute in Filter Factory. This option lets you use a given attribute value of an object for the LEX Filter Factory. In this case, the single filter editor is opened with a prepared value value:

Building a filter directly from an attribute

You can see the current Filter Factory content and configure additional options:

Will this filter replace the current Filter Factory content or not? => Option Replace current filter in Filter Factory.
If we do not replace the current Filter Factory content, do we use AND or OR to merge the filters? => Options Current filter AND this one and Current filter OR this one.
Global Search Button: Instead of building a complex LDAP filter in the Filter Factory, you can just grab one attribute here and do a quick global search with it. Global means that a directory search is started with the current filter string in the dialog. The search base is the current LDAP root container of your connection.
Open Factory: This button opens the Filter Factory where the filter from this dialog is already inserted into the factory content.
OK: This button just sets the Filter Factory content according to the values in this dialog.
Cancel: This button aborts the operation without changing the content of the Filter Factory.

Single Filter Editor for Attribute Syntaxes

There are a lot of different forms of appearance of the single filter dialog. In fact, LEX can check the attribute name against the directory schema when you choose one in the Attribute dropdown text box. If the schema was evaluated correctly, LEX can detect the attribute syntax - the filter editor dialog is customized then for this particular data type. So you don't have to know the complicated LDAP filter syntax or the data type syntax of the attribute! There are the following customizations available:

Filter Editor for Strings
This is the basic filter editor, it is used for all kind of strings and for distinguished name attributes. It is also used if the directory schema could not be evaluated. The handling is described in the manual topic about the Editor for String Attributes.
Filter Editor for Integers
This editor lets you enter the filter value as decimal, hex, or bit string. You even can filter for single bits in bit field values. The handling is described in the manual topic about the Editor for Integer Attributes.
Filter Editor for Booleans
This editor gives the possibility to choose between the two boolean values FALSE and TRUE.
Filter Editor for Date and Time
This editor can set filter values for date and time filter values. No matter what syntax the regarding values need - this filter editor can handle it. So normal UTC time strings could look like

(modifyTimeStamp>=20050405162400Z)

in a filter. For a Microsoft Timestamp value, it has to be the 100 nanosecond steps since 12:00 AM, January 1, 1601:

(lastLogonTimestamp<=128849013600000000)

And in Novell eDirectory environments, the timestamp maybe has to be expressed as the number of seconds 12:00 midnight Jan 01 1970, UTC:

(syncTimeEvent=1255781168#1#22)

So the editor calculates always the correct filter string for you - that's very convenient. You even can set relative times, for example if you want to know who was active in the last month:

The handling of this editor is described in the manual topic about the Editor for Date and Time Attributes, the manual topic about the Editor for Microsoft Timestamp Attributes, and the manual topic about the Editor for Novell Timestamp Attributes
Filter Editor for Binary Data
This is used when you want to set a filter for any binary attribute, as well as for bitmaps or NT security descriptors. If you enter data into this filter editor, it can be converted from ASCII to the appropriate LDAP filter format.
Filter Editor for Large Integers
This is the filter editor for Microsoft Large Integer attributes. The handling is described in the manual topic about the Editor for Microsoft Large Integer Attributes.
Filter Editor for MS SIDs
This is the filter editor for Microsoft Interval attributes. The handling is described in the manual topic about the Editor for Microsoft Security Identifiers Attributes.
Filter Editor for MS Intervals
This is the filter editor for Microsoft SID attributes. The handling is described in the manual topic about the Editor for Microsoft Interval Attributes.
Filter Editor for MS DNwithBinary / MS DNwithString
This is the filter editor for Microsoft DNwithBinary and DNwithString attributes. The handling is described in the manual topics about the Editor for Microsoft DN with Binary Attributes and the Editor for Microsoft DN with String Attributes.
Filter Editor for Novell Attribute Syntaxes
There are a lot of proprietary Novell eDirectory attribute syntaxes. Each of them is a combination of several different values, mixed together in one attributes. The filter editor is automatically customized for building the filter string based upon the single values.

The handling of all these editor is described in the manual topics about the
- Editor for Novell Object ACL Attributes,
- Editor for Novell Path Attributes,
- Editor for Novell EMailAddress Attributes,
- Editor for Novell Backlink Attributes, and the
- Editor for Novell Typed Name Attributes.
Filter Editor for Bit Flags Attributes
LEX comes with several different filter editors for special attributes which represents a numeric flag value. The following attributes in Active Directory environments can be edited in LDAP filters with specific editors: userAccountControl, groupType, searchFlags, systemFlags.

The handling of all these editor is described in the manual topics about the
Editor for Bit Flag Attributes,