finding the max value of an attribute

Hi every when searching values in the LDAP directory, it certainly has occured to everybody to have to find the maximum value of an attribute. e.g. when defining a new user in the directory you might specify one more than the maximum value of all uidNumber attributes as the new user's uidNumber.

i was looking at RFC 2254 and 4515, but could not find anything obvious.

is there a way to find the maximum value of an attribute and possibly the DN to whom it belongs only using ldap-search (no perl or php prgramming)?

or did i just oversee something obvious?

any hint is very much appreciated. thank you very much.

suomi