<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12pt"><div><span>Thanks, Michael. That makes total sense. I'll encourage this school to migrate off of pine and elm /snicker</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> Michael A Grady <mgrady@unicon.net><br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> Shib Users <users@shibboleth.net> <br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Thursday, December 6, 2012 7:36 AM<br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: Handling a multi-value attribute question<br> </font> </div> <br>
<br>On Dec 6, 2012, at 9:28 AM, Cantor, Scott wrote:<br><br>> On 12/6/12 10:20 AM, "Mike Flynn" <<a ymailto="mailto:shibbolethlynda@yahoo.com" href="mailto:shibbolethlynda@yahoo.com">shibbolethlynda@yahoo.com</a>> wrote:<br>> <br>>> But, I am curious - Why is givenName a multi-value attribute? We have<br>>> nickname... Was there a specific scenario that created a need for<br>>> multiple values for these?<br>> <br>> Because it's an LDAP attribute and LDAP is for searching primarily.<br><br>Yes, nowadays with so many people using web browsers for their mail, and having other ways to "search" for someone, it can be easy to forget that LDAP had, as at least one its primary purposes, finding people to send your email to. And different email clients (Eudora, Outlook, etc., back before web mail/browser as email client) composed their default LDAP search queries in different ways (varying which LDAP attributes were
searched, how and if a "wildcard" search was done, etc.). It was particularly important at that time to populate multiple values into some of the standard name fields in order to maximize the likelihood that searches from multiple different email clients would "succeed". And this can still be an issue for those who still use a mail client, perhaps even increasing again with the use of mobile devices and apps.<br><br>Note that "nickname" was never, at that time, a field that standard email clients used as a search field, so it was useless for that purpose. I don't know if that has changed over the years or not.<br><br><br>> <br>> -- Scott<br>> <br>> <br>> --<br>> To unsubscribe from this list send an email to <a ymailto="mailto:users-unsubscribe@shibboleth.net" href="mailto:users-unsubscribe@shibboleth.net">users-unsubscribe@shibboleth.net</a><br><br><br>--<br>Michael A. Grady<br>Senior IAM Consultant, Unicon, Inc.<br><br>--<br>To
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