Using Special Characters

When entering command options on the command line, you may need to escape characters that have special meaning to the command-line interpreter, such as space ( ), asterisk (*), backslash (\\), and so forth. For example, many DNs contain spaces, and you must enclose the value in double quotation marks ("") for most UNIX shells:

-D "cn=Barbara Jensen,ou=Product Development,dc=example,dc=com"

Depending on your command-line interpreter, you should use either single or double quotation marks for this purpose. Refer to your operating system documentation for more information.

In addition, if you are using DNs that contain commas, you must escape the commas with a backslash (\\). For example:

-D "cn=Patricia Fuentes,ou=People,o=example.com Bolivia\\,S.A."

Note that LDIF statements after the ldapmodify command are being interpreted by the command, not by the shell, and therefore do not need special consideration.