<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=iso-8859-1"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">I'm finding myself in sympathy with the customer now. Customer has populated<div>values of attributes in accord with widely adopted standards including multiple</div><div>values of givenName, in turn based on the fact that many people do have multiple </div><div>givenNames. And to meet the need to sometimes have a single version of a person's</div><div>name for use in displays, the same standards provide for single-valued </div><div>displayName. [OK, I don't know that customer populates displayName; if they don't</div><div>then I'm off base in defending them but the general point remains valid.]</div><div><br></div><div>Many people, including me, use a single givenName and simple surname, so</div><div>displayName is the same as the ordered string givenName & sn. It is convenient</div><div>for service deployers to assume this is the universal case rather than merely </div><div>common, and build in an assumption that everyone will have a single givenName,</div><div>or that identity providers will somehow act as though they do and only populate</div><div>(or only release) a single value of givenName. </div><div><br></div><div>Surely that gets the order of things wrong. That</div><div>approach requires humans to conform to unnecessary simplifying assumptions</div><div>of developers, rather than developers accommodating humans. It seems to me</div><div>of a piece with insisting that everyone use only ASCII representations of their </div><div>name, or have a surname of no more than 8 characters, or not allow hyphens</div><div>in names, each of which I have encountered and regard as a defect in the service </div><div>rather than bad behavior of humans.</div><div><br></div><div>Mike, this is an opportunity for you to improve your application by making it more human-friendly!</div><div><br></div><div>David Bantz</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><div><div>On Thu, 6 Dec 2012, at 07:52 , Mike Flynn <<a href="mailto:shibbolethlynda@yahoo.com">shibbolethlynda@yahoo.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; position: static; z-index: auto; "><div><span>I need the separated values. I had stated that previously.</span></div><div><br></div> <div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div dir="ltr"> <font size="2" face="Arial"> <hr size="1"> <b><span style="font-weight:bold;">From:</span></b> David Bantz <<a href="mailto:dabantz@alaska.edu">dabantz@alaska.edu</a>><br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> Shib Users <<a href="mailto:users@shibboleth.net">users@shibboleth.net</a>> <br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Thursday, December 6, 2012 8:47 AM<br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: Handling a multi-value attribute question<br> </font> </div> <br>
He doesn't currently have displayName, so currently needs to combine givenName and sn<br>in a certificate of completion. displayName would be an alternative to use in <br>something like a certificate with the person's name. Presumably the certificate is<br>not issued to just "Peter" or "Jane" but "Peter Smith" or "Jane Mason" - the sort <br>of string that displayName provides. <br><br>David Bantz<br></div></div></div></div></blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>