ldap_connect question

the ldap_connect man page states that calling ldap_connect with no arguements should return the link identifier to the open ldap connection. in the following code i find that the script stops before writing the second printf statement: $LDAP_CONNECTION = ldap_connect($MY_LDAP_SERVER); printf("<br>stop1.1 ==> LDAP_CONNECTION -->%d<--", $LDAP_CONNECTION); printf("<br>stop1.2 ==> current link id -->%d<--", ldap_connect()); the first printf statement tells me that the link id is 1. if i use "ldap_connect('')", then i get a link id of 2; it seems as though ldap_connect is trying to connect to a null server name. if i use "ldap_connect" then i get a link id of 0. any ideas?