Alias Objects: Find the "Aliased Object Name" with Novell's ActiveX Controls

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Wolfgang Schreiber
Manager Developer Support
Novell, Inc.

01 Nov 2001

The problem with reading Alias objects through Novell's ActiveX controls is that the controls automatically de-reference the Alias objects. This means that only information about the object referenced by the alias, rather than alias object, is returned.

Assume that you have an Alias object called "Chef" that refers to a real user object (the Aliased Object) "Admin."

If you read an Alias object (e.g., Chef) into an NWEntry variable, all subsequent operations will work on the Aliased Object (Admin). Also, properties like NWEntry.Layout.Name will return the layout of the Aliased object ("User"), instead of returning the layout name "Alias."

You cannot even read the only (mandatory) attribute of an Alias object, the field "Aliased Object Name," because every read attempt is run against the referenced object (e.g., user Admin) that does not have such attribute. You can only read the properties of the Aliased Object.

This makes it rather difficult to determine, what the name and location of that Aliased Object is (e.g., in which the Admin user object resides).

If you have an NWDir entry X, that contains the Alias object Chef, you can read the "Aliased Object Name" utilizing the NWDirQuery control - set the properties of NWDirQuery1 like this:

NWDirQuery1.Filter 'Alias(CN=" & X.ShortName & ")"
NWDirQuery1.FullNameX.Parent
NWDirQuery1.Fields "Aiased Object Name"
NWDirQuery1.SearchScope qrySearchSubordinates
NWDirQuery1.SearchMode qrySearchSynchronous
NWDirQuery1.MaximumResults 1
NWDirQuery1.SortKeys 'CN'

Then, after calling NWDirQuery1.Search, the query results will contain the alias object with the "Aliased Object Name" attribute.

* Originally published in Novell AppNotes

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