DirectorySearcher Example

The following code examples show how to search for all users in a domain. It contains some basic required tasks such as using a C# try-catch or Visual Basic .NET try-catch-finally statement to catch errors and error handling for all the errors that can be thrown by the DirectorySearcher object.

Try
   ' Bind to the users container.
    Dim entry As New 
          DirectoryEntry("LDAP://CN=users,DC=fabrikam,DC=com")

    ' Create a DirectorySearcher object.
    Dim mySearcher As New DirectorySearcher(entry)

    ' Create a SearchResultCollection object to hold a collection
    ' of SearchResults returned by the FindAll method.
    Dim result As SearchResultCollection = mySearcher.FindAll()
   
    ' Create an object to hold a single result from the 
    ' result collection.
    Dim resEnt1 As SearchResult

    ' Get search results. For more information, 
    ' see Getting Search Results.
    ' 
    ' This sample uses Try...Catch to catch errors.
    ' Create an Exception object. For more information, 
    ' see System.Exception.

Catch Exception1 As System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException
    Console.WriteLine(Exception1.Message)

Catch Exception2 As InvalidOperationException
    Console.WriteLine(Exception2.Message)

Catch Exception3 As NotSupportedException
    Console.WriteLine(Exception3.Message)

End Try   

try
{
    // Bind to the users container.
    DirectoryEntry entry = new DirectoryEntry("LDAP://CN=users,DC=fabrikam,DC=com");
    // Create a DirectorySearcher object.
    DirectorySearcher mySearcher = new DirectorySearcher(entry);
    // Create a SearchResultCollection object to hold a collection of SearchResults
    // returned by the FindAll method.
    SearchResultCollection result = mySearcher.FindAll();
    // Get search results. For more information, see Getting Search Results.
    // ...
    // This sample uses Try...Catch to catch errors.
    // Create an Exception object. For more information, see System.Exception.
}
catch (System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException)
{
    System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException exception = new System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException();
    Console.WriteLine(exception);
}
catch (InvalidOperationException)
{
    InvalidOperationException InvOpEx = new InvalidOperationException(); 
    Console.WriteLine(InvOpEx.Message);
}
catch (NotSupportedException)
{
    NotSupportedException NotSuppEx = new NotSupportedException();
    Console.WriteLine(NotSuppEx.Message);
}

See Also

Reference

System.DirectoryServices
DirectorySearcher

Concepts

Searching the Directory

Other Resources

Directory Synchronization Search Technology Sample

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