If you have coded using LDAP libraries you should have notice about functions that ends with and without “_s”. That “s” means synchronous: the functions return when the operation is finished. The functions without the “s” are asynchronous: the functions return instantaneously without waiting for the end of the operation. The idea behind async functions is that you can call several LDAP functions to do different things and then you can pick the results when you need them, without blocking the program.
I’m writing this post because you should be careful using these functions. Today I was writing a small Python script to modify some object from a DIT and I lost 30 minutes trying to figure out why the script wasn’t working. I was using the function “bind()” and then “search_s()”. The second didn’t return anything but If I searched using the command line tools with the same parameters I got the objects. What was the problem? I missed the “_s” at the end of “bind()”. I was using the async version so I was calling “search_s()” before the end of the bind operation. 
