[thelist] age old question: how to deal with addressbook export

[Ken Schaefer]

: -----Original Message-----
: From: ÕÅí|Îä [mailto:zhangweiwu at realss.com]
: Sent: Sunday, 2 April 2006 2:01 AM
: To: thelist at lists.evolt.org
: Subject: Re: [thelist] age old question: how to deal with addressbook
: export
: 
: ÔÚ 2006-03-21¶þµÄ 20:02 +1100£¬Ken SchaeferдµÀ£º
: > : -----Original Message-----
: > : From: thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org [mailto:thelist-
: > : bounces at lists.evolt.org] On Behalf Of ???
: > : Subject: [thelist] age old question: how to deal with addressbook
export
: > :
: > : Hello. Recently I was working on an company directory project 
: > : where the backend uses LDAP to store  contact (and other information) 
: > : of several thousands of companies. The project is done in php.
: > :
: > : Now the requirement is to export the contact data. I think of CSV. 
: > : But I am not sure how I will handle language information and/or 
: > : multiple values of LDAP, e.g. the company have 3 addresses and 
: > : each of them have 3 languages. Perhaps I should export to some 
: > : spreadsheet format so that I can use different tabs for different 
: > : languages.
: >
: > Why don't you export to LDIF? Most LDAP tools will work with that.
: 
: yes you are 100% correct, and I am not that stupid to ignore LDIF. It is
: too easy to get an LDIF export but our customer work with absolutely no
: LDAP tools. Actually, they don't know what LDAP is and they will not
: accept LDIF file nor accept using Lotus Notes/Thunderbird connected to
: LDAP server, this is what I already tried. But any other suggestions?

Well, since there is a client limitation here, perhaps you could tell us what
they will accept?

Additionally, where are they going to store this information? If they are
going to put it into another LDAP directory, then I would push them to use
LDIF. There are plenty of tools that will work with LDIF built into most
platforms, so I¡¯d be amazed if they are using an OS that doesn¡¯t have such
a tool.

If they are planning to put it into a RDBMS, then perhaps exporting to a
format (like CSV) that is more amenable to being imported into a DB might
make more sense...

Cheers
Ken