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Principal Searcher seems to do a great job when building a filter to find an object with a particular value. What about without? For example How do I build a filter to exclude everyone with "Joe" in their name. The code below would not work. 

        PrincipalContext ctx = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain);
        UserPrincipal qbeUser = new UserPrincipal(ctx);
        PrincipalSearcher srch = new PrincipalSearcher(qbeUser);

         //this is the problem line.  How to format to exclude values with Joe?
         qbeUser.Name != "*Joe*"; 

        srch.QueryFilter = qbeUser;
        foreach (var found in srch.FindAll())
         { do something to non Joe users... }

....

Fred B
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1 Answers1

4

Seems it's not possible with PrincipalSearcher.

Two possible workaround:

  1. Use PrincipalSearcher to get all users and filter at client side

    PrincipalContext ctx = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain);
UserPrincipal qbeUser = new UserPrincipal(ctx);
PrincipalSearcher srch = new PrincipalSearcher(qbeUser);

srch.QueryFilter = qbeUser;
foreach (var found in srch.FindAll())
{ //filter out users with "Joe" in its name }

  2. Use DirectorySearcher

    DirectoryEntry de = new DirectoryEntry("LDAP://domain.com/dc=domain,dc=com", "user", "pwd");
DirectorySearcher srch = new DirectorySearcher(de);

srch.Filter = "(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user)(!(name=*Joe*)))";
srch.SearchScope = SearchScope.Subtree;
// add the attributes
srch.PropertiesToLoad.Add("distinguishedName");
using (SearchResultCollection results = srch.FindAll())
{
    foreach (SearchResult result in results)
    {
        string dn = result.Properties["distinguishedName"][0] as string;
        Console.WriteLine("- {0}", dn);
    }
}
baldpate
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  • Thanks. yeah I eventually did something like option 1. It feels really inefficient to run through the list twice. I had been trying to get away from directory searcher with the assumption that MS was replacing it with this principle approach so -must me more efficient? Perhaps not. – Fred B Dec 26 '14 at 21:49