Handling a multi-value attribute question

[Cantor, Scott]

On 12/6/12 9:46 AM, "Mike Flynn" <shibbolethlynda at yahoo.com> wrote:

>I am an SP and I have about 140 educational institutions that connect to
>me via SAML.  We allow the passing of attributes to us to personalize the
>user's experience on our site.  A typical set is MAIL, SN, GIVENNAME,
>EPPN.  I have one school that passes
> GIVENNAME with multiple values.  In a typical scenario where I get a
>single value, it allows us to greet the user by name on the site as well
>as personalize other elements.  In this instance, with multiple values,
>how do I know which value to use?

Formally speaking, a multi-valued attribute doesn't have a sort order and
you should be able to pick any value. If that bothers the source, then
they need to revisit their use of multiple values.

Just because something can be multi- doesn't mean it has to be, and just
because they populate it in LDAP for search doesn't mean they can't do
something different for SAML.

So in essence, you can't be expected to do their work for them and if you
handle multiple values appropriately (I.e., not displaying all of them),
then you've done your part.

-- Scott