Feature request: Implement `equals` and `hashcode` for the `SearchRequest` class

[yeikel]

Description:

Implement equals and hashCode for the SearchRequest class.

Reason:

I am working on creating a cache to map SearchRequest objects to their corresponding LDAP responses to avoid unnecessary LDAP queries. However, the absence of equals and hashCode methods in the SearchRequest class makes it difficult to compare two SearchRequest instances effectively. This limitation prevents the use of SearchRequest as a key in the caching logic

Requirements

• equals should compare all relevant fields of SearchRequest (e.g., baseDN, scope, filter, attributes, etc.) to determine logical equivalence between two instances.
• hashCode should generate a consistent hash based on the same fields used in equals.
• Ensure the implementation adheres to the contract of equals and hashCode

Alternatives

• The SDK could provide caching options by default to avoid unnecessarily lookups. I suspect that this is a larger ask
• I may be able to use toString() but that method is expected to be used for a different use case

[yeikel]

@dirmgr Does this feature request make sense and/or would you accept an external contribution adding it?

I'd be happy to send a pull request!

Thank you!

[dirmgr]

This is something that could be included in a future release, although I'm not in a position to work on it immediately. If provided, it wouldn't be appropriate to just provide it for search requests, but for all types of requests and responses, including at least some level of support for request and response controls.

As noted in CONTRIBUTING.md, we do not currently accept third-party contributions to the LDAP SDK.

[yeikel]

This is something that could be included in a future release, although I'm not in a position to work on it immediately. If provided, it wouldn't be appropriate to just provide it for search requests, but for all types of requests and responses, including at least some level of support for request and response controls.

Thanks, I am not looking for it immediately. It's a nice to have

Do you have a suggestion to accomplish this in the meantime?

I considered looking into object introspection features via reflection, but if you have any other suggestions, please let me know

For example, is ToString stable enough to be considered?

As noted in CONTRIBUTING.md, we do not currently accept third-party contributions to the LDAP SDK.

Good to know. Admittedly, I didn't read that and assumed that you would. This is the first OSS project I see that doesn't. Sorry for that!