Editing Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (section)

===Delete===
To delete an entry, an LDAP client transmits a properly formed delete request to the server.<ref>[http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4511#section-4.8 RFC4511: delete request]</ref>
* A delete request must contain the distinguished name of the entry to be deleted
* Request controls may also be attached to the delete request
* Servers do not dereference aliases when processing a delete request
* Only leaf entries (entries with no subordinates) may be deleted by a delete request. Some servers support an operational attribute <code>hasSubordinates</code> whose value indicates whether an entry has any subordinate entries, and some servers support an operational attribute <code>numSubordinates</code><ref>[http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-boreham-numsubordinates-01 Boreham Draft (numSubordinates)]</ref> indicating the number of entries subordinate to the entry containing the <code>numSubordinates</code> attribute.
* Some servers support the subtree delete request control permitting deletion of the DN and all objects subordinate to the DN, subject to access controls. Delete requests are subject to access controls, that is, whether a connection with a given authentication state will be permitted to delete a given entry is governed by server-specific access control mechanisms.