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Trail: Java Naming and Directory Interface(TM).
Lesson: Naming and Directory Operations
Naming and Directory Operations
Naming Exceptions
Lookup an Object
List the Context
Add, Replace or Remove a Binding
Rename
Create and Destroy Subcontexts
Attribute Names
Read Attributes
Modify Attributes
Add, Replace Bindings with Attributes
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Home Page > Java Naming and Directory Interface(TM). > Naming and Directory Operations
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Lookup an Object

> To look up an object from the naming service, use `Context.lookup()` and pass it the name of the object that you want to retrieve. Suppose that there is an object in the naming service with the name `cn=Rosanna Lee,ou=People`. To retrieve the object, you would write

> >     Object obj = ctx.lookup("cn=Rosanna Lee,ou=People");

> The type of object that is returned by `lookup()` depends both on the underlying naming system and on the data associated with the object itself. A naming system can contain many different types of objects, and a lookup of an object in different parts of the system might yield objects of different types. In this example, `"cn=Rosanna Lee,ou=People"` happens to be bound to a context object (`javax.naming.ldap.LdapContext`). You can cast the result of `lookup()` to its target class.

> For example, the following code looks up the object `"cn=Rosanna Lee,ou=People"` and casts it to `LdapContext`.

> >     import javax.naming.ldap.LdapContext;
> >     ...
> >     LdapContext ctx = (LdapContext) ctx.lookup("cn=Rosanna Lee,ou=People");

> The complete example is in the file `Lookup.java`.

> There are two new static methods available in Java SE 6 to lookup a name:

> - `InitialContext.doLookup(Name name)`
> - `InitialContext.doLookup(String name)`

> These methods provide a shortcut way of looking up a name without instantiating an InitialContext.

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