python-ldap error

I kept running into a

{'desc': 'Bad parameter to an ldap routine'}

error while trying to add a record from django. Turns out that in the form validation, I had a few fields defined as IntegerFields which means i was passing

('uidNumber', 5001)

instead of

('uidNumber', '5001')

to python-ldap. Casting to an ascii string works. Unicode doesn't