Handling a multi-value attribute question

[David Bantz]

I'm finding myself in sympathy with the customer now.  Customer has populated
values of attributes in accord with widely adopted standards including multiple
values of givenName, in turn based on the fact that many people do have multiple 
givenNames.  And to meet the need to sometimes have a single version of a person's
name for use in displays, the same standards provide for single-valued 
displayName.  [OK, I don't know that customer populates displayName; if they don't
then I'm off base in defending them but the general point remains valid.]

Many people, including me, use a single givenName and simple surname, so
displayName is the same as the ordered string givenName & sn.  It is convenient
for service deployers to assume this is the universal case rather than merely 
common, and build in an assumption that everyone will have a single givenName,
or that identity providers will somehow act as though they do and only populate
(or only release) a single value of givenName.  

Surely that gets the order of things wrong.  That
approach requires humans to conform to unnecessary simplifying assumptions
of developers, rather than developers accommodating humans.  It seems to me
of a piece with insisting that everyone use only ASCII representations of their 
name, or have a surname of no more than 8 characters, or not allow hyphens
in names, each of which I have encountered and regard as a defect in the service 
rather than bad behavior of humans.

Mike, this is an opportunity for you to improve your application by making it more human-friendly!

David Bantz



On Thu, 6 Dec 2012, at 07:52 , Mike Flynn <shibbolethlynda at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I need the separated values.  I had stated that previously.
> 
> From: David Bantz <dabantz at alaska.edu>
> To: Shib Users <users at shibboleth.net> 
> Sent: Thursday, December 6, 2012 8:47 AM
> Subject: Re: Handling a multi-value attribute question
> 
> He doesn't currently have displayName, so currently needs to combine givenName and sn
> in a certificate of completion.  displayName would be an alternative to use in 
> something like a certificate with the person's name.  Presumably the certificate is
> not issued to just "Peter" or "Jane" but  "Peter Smith" or "Jane Mason" - the sort 
> of string that displayName provides.  
> 
> David Bantz

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