ADSI Properties and Attributes

Attributes are sometimes referred to as properties. This can cause confusion. This documentation uses the following definitions for properties and attributes.

Properties are named values associated with a programming object. For example, the IADs interface exposes properties such as Class and Name.

Attributes are the data associated with objects in a directory service. For example, a user object will have an attribute called cn which contains a string that is the common or relative distinguished name of the object. Attributes are accessible through ADSI interface methods such as IADs.Get and IADs.Put.

For more information about ADSI properties and attributes, see:

• The ADSI Attribute Cache
• Single vs. Multiple Value Attributes
• Active Directory Operational Attributes