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.

[Visual Basic .NET]

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 Else
	Dim exception As New System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException()
	Console.WriteLine(exception)
Catch Else
	Dim InvOpEx As New InvalidOperationException()
	Console.WriteLine(InvOpEx.Message)
Catch Else
	Dim NotSuppEx As New NotSupportedException()
	Console.WriteLine(NotSuppEx.Message)

End Try

[C#]
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);
}