Clarification of the ldap_read command syntax:  

If you just want to pull certain attributes from an object and you already know it's dn, the ldap_read command can do this as illustrated below.  It will be less overhead than ldap_search.

The string base_dn which is normally used to set the top context for a recursive ldap_search is used slightly differently with this command.  It is used to specify the actual object with the full dn.  (Hopefully this saves someone else a couple hours trying this command out.)

<?php
$ds = ldap.myserver.com // your ldap server
  $dn = "cn=username,o=My Company, c=US"; //the object itself instead of the top search level as in ldap_search
  $filter="(objectclass=*)"; // this command requires some filter
  $justthese = array("ou", "sn", "givenname", "mail"); //the attributes to pull, which is much more efficient than pulling all attributes if you don't do this
      $sr=ldap_read($ds, $dn, $filter, $justthese);
          $entry = ldap_get_entries($ds, $sr);

echo $entry[0]["mail"][0] . "is the email address of the cn your requested";
echo $entry[0]["sn"][0] . "is the sn of the cn your requested";
ldap_close($ds);
?> 

This prints out the specified users mail and surname for example.

In the previous example the

$ds = ldap.myserver.com // your ldap server

should be 

$ds = ldap_connect( "ldap.myserver.com" ) ; // your ldap server

The array in the attributes parameter needs to be an indexed array with numeric keys in ascending order. Like this:

Array
(
    [0] => this
    [1] => is
    [2] => a
    [3] => test
)

If there are missing keys in the array, then no result will be returned. This will not work:

Array
(
    [0] => this
    [1] => is
    [3] => test
)

For those debugging a wrapper, akin to symfony's client wrapper for these functions and since there is crap documentation on a full cycle of pulling a single record vs multiple, etc.

For this one:
YOU MUST call ldap_get_entries after this function call. 

AND PLEASE if you implement a wrapper, prime it with the initial entry else it makes no sense to execute without returning something easily visible as successful.

WHEN query->execute() and you get a collection.. make sure the entry field in the collection has at least the first entry primed.. wasted so much time because it was looking empty. 

AND this entire adapter needs to be wrapped with a less retarded usage pattern via an STL lib wrapper, mysticism( bad design) begone.
123.. not 4290234~"wds

Thanks for your time

This differs from ldap_search() by not recursing down to sub-entries.  if you know the dn of the item you're looking for and only want info on that entry, use ldap_read() and pass it the full dn of the item you want.

It also seems that you'd alway want something like objectclass=* for the filter, since you're only searching on one entry.