null value of eduPersonAffiliation

[Curry, Warren]

We have cases where we choose not to maintain an eduPerson  value.  We actually kind of created a local value (contact).  

However we do not populate Eduperson with it.    Thus we have cases where eduperson is null non valued.  We also would not assert those individuals to the federation..  

WHC

-----Original Message-----
From: users-bounces at shibboleth.net [mailto:users-bounces at shibboleth.net] On Behalf Of Keith Hazelton
Sent: Thursday, December 05, 2013 1:50 PM
To: Shib Users
Subject: Re: null value of eduPersonAffiliation

In my own mind (maybe only there, we'll see), "Prior members" would be a fine case for an eP{S}Affiliation value of "affiliate". If your local apps need something more specific, mint a local affiliation (or isMemberOf) value and train the apps to look for that.

 --Keith
____________
On 12/05/13, David Bantz  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> For a person with no eduPersonAffiliation, my script in the attribute resolver [which otherwise works to clean up some issues with source directory values] errs as follows:
> 
> 
> 16:16:57.758 - ERROR [edu.internet2.middleware.shibboleth.common.attribute.resolver.provider.attributeDefinition.ScriptedAttributeDefinition:129] - eduPersonAffiliation produced a null attribute
> 16:16:57.758 - WARN [edu.internet2.middleware.shibboleth.idp.profile.saml2.AbstractSAML2ProfileHandler:480] - Error resolving attributes for principal 'dabantz'. No name identifier or attribute statement will be included in response
> 
> 
> 
> Is a "null attribute" different from an attribute with null value?
> 
> 
> "Null value" seems appropriate in this case in which the directory record had no values of eduPersonAffiliation. [Prior members retain need to access some information resources, such as getting tax records or transcripts]. I could add "affiliate"value but that may be counter to the spirit of the advice in the schema definition (http://macedir.org/specs/eduperson/#eduPersonAffiliation):
> 
> > For the sake of completeness, if for some reason the institution carries digital identity information for people with whom it has no affiliation according to the above definitions, the recommendation is simply not to assert eduPersonAffiliation values for those individuals.
> 
> 
> 
> David Bantz
> U Alaska