Best way to disconnect from ldap?

[John Gordon]

I'm writing an application that interacts with ldap, and I'm looking
for advice on how to handle the connection.  Specifically, how to
close the ldap connection when the application is done.

I wrote a class to wrap an LDAP connection, similar to this:

    import ldap
    import ConfigParser

    class MyLDAPWrapper(object):

        def __init__(self):

            config = ConfigParser.SafeConfigParser()
            config.read('sample.conf')
        
            uri = config.get('LDAP', 'uri')
            user = config.get('LDAP', 'user')
            password = config.get('LDAP', 'password')

            self.ldapClient = ldap.initialize(uri)
            self.ldapClient.simple_bind_s(user, password)

My question is this: what is the best way to ensure the ldap connection
gets closed when it should?  I could write an explicit close() method,
but that seems a bit messy; there would end up being lots of calls to
close() scattered around in my code (primarily inside exception handlers.)

Or I could write a __del__ method:

        def __del__(self):
            self.ldapClient.unbind_s()

This seems like a much cleaner solution, as I don't ever have to worry
about closing the connection; it gets done automatically.

I haven't ever used __del__ before.  Are there any 'gotchas' I need to
worry about?

Thanks!

-- 
John Gordon                   A is for Amy, who fell down the stairs
gordon at panix.com              B is for Basil, assaulted by bears
                                -- Edward Gorey, "The Gashlycrumb Tinies"