<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN"><html><head><!--Copyright (c) 1999, 2006, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER. This code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify itunder the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 only, aspublished by the Free Software Foundation.  Oracle designates thisparticular file as subject to the "Classpath" exception as providedby Oracle in the LICENSE file that accompanied this code. This code is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUTANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY orFITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public Licenseversion 2 for more details (a copy is included in the LICENSE file thataccompanied this code). You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License version2 along with this work; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA. Please contact Oracle, 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA 94065 USAor visit www.oracle.com if you need additional information or have anyquestions.--></head><body bgcolor="white"> Extends the <tt>javax.naming</tt> package to provide functionalityfor accessing directory services. <p>This package defines the directory operations of the Java Naming andDirectory Interface<font size=-2><sup>TM</sup></font> (JNDI). &nbsp;JNDI provides naming and directory functionality to applicationswritten in the Java programming language.  It is designed to beindependent of any specific naming or directory serviceimplementation.  Thus a variety of services--new, emerging, andalready deployed ones--can be accessed in a common way. <p>This package allows applications to retrieve and update attributesassociated with objects stored in a directory, and to search forobjects using specified attributes. <h4>The Directory Context</h4> The <tt>DirContext</tt>interface represents a <em>directory context</em>.It defines methods for examining and updating attributes associated with a<em>directory object</em>, or <em>directory entry</em> as it is sometimescalled.<p>You use	<tt>getAttributes()</tt> to retrieve the attributes associated with a directory object (for which you supply the name).Attributes are modified using <tt>modifyAttributes()</tt>. You can add, replace, or remove attributes and/or attribute valuesusing this operation.<p><tt>DirContext</tt> also behaves as a naming contextby extending the <tt>Context</tt> interface in the <tt>javax.naming</tt> package.This means that any directory object can also providea naming context. For example, the directory object for a person might containthe attributes of that person, and at the same time providea context for naming objects relative to that personsuch as his printers and home directory. <h4>Searches</h4><tt>DirContext</tt> contains methods for performing content-based searching of the directory.In the simplest and most common form of usage, the applicationspecifies a set of attributes--possibly with specific values--to match, and submits this attribute set, to the <tt>search()</tt> method.There are other overloaded forms of <tt>search()</tt>that support more sophisticated <em>search filters</em>.  <h2>Package Specification</h2> The JNDI API Specification and related documents can be found in the<a href="../../../../technotes/guides/jndi/index.html">JNDI documentation</a>. @since 1.3 </body></html>