# Accessing LDAP jpegPhoto attribute in Ruby **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [September 22, 2006, 8:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/accessing-ldap-jpegphoto-attribute-in-ruby/69665 "2006-09-22T20:26:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2006, 8:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/accessing-ldap-jpegphoto-attribute-in-ruby/69665/1 "2006-09-22T20:26:15Z")
Hi everyone, In writing my Ruby LDAP application, I’m able (with activeldap) to access any ldap attribute I need - except binary ones. user.uid, for instance would get me the userid of the user. But user.jpegPhoto yields binary rubbish. ``` The excellent documentation for active ldap ``` ([http://ruby-activeldap.rubyforge.org/doc/](http://ruby-activeldap.rubyforge.org/doc/)) showed how to access a userCertificate like so: user.userCertificate = {‘binary’ =\> File.read(‘example.der’)} . I’m unable to replicate something comparable for jpegPhoto. Anyone know how I can display the jpegPhoto attribute properly? ---
**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2006, 8:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/accessing-ldap-jpegphoto-attribute-in-ruby/69665/2 "2006-09-22T20:30:16Z")
On 9/22/06, removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Hi everyone, > In writing my Ruby LDAP application, I’m able (with activeldap) to > access any ldap attribute I need - except binary ones. user.uid, for > instance would get me the userid of the user. But user.jpegPhoto yields > binary rubbish. Have you tried querying this attribute with the Net::LDAP library? It recently acquired some significant improvements in how it handles binary attributes. I can tell you from my own research that some versions of the native-code LDAP libraries (which Ruby/LDAP and ActiveLDAP are based on) have some possibly incorrect behavior with regard to binary values. ---
**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2006, 8:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/accessing-ldap-jpegphoto-attribute-in-ruby/69665/3 "2006-09-22T20:36:17Z")
Sorry to impose further, but I’m a relative newbie to Ruby - what would be the general sort of syntax needed in this situation? ---
**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2006, 8:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/accessing-ldap-jpegphoto-attribute-in-ruby/69665/4 "2006-09-22T20:46:18Z")
On 9/22/06, removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Sorry to impose further, but I’m a relative newbie to Ruby - what would > be the general sort of syntax needed in this situation? I’ll contact you privately. Then if this succeeds we’ll post the results to the list. ---
**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2006, 5:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/accessing-ldap-jpegphoto-attribute-in-ruby/69665/5 "2006-10-10T17:21:40Z")
Since my last post, I’ve made some significant progress on this problem, but am still stuck with some non-workable code. Have a look: [http://p.caboo.se/16721](http://p.caboo.se/16721) Thanks everyone!