Re: Nick names search extension

[Steven Legg <s.legg@trl.telstra.com.au>]

The way we dealt with this issue in Telstra's directory server was through
the approximate match filter item. The server is configured with a list
of whole value and/or keyword synonyms per attribute type. In the case
of commonName or givenName "Bill=William" and "Bob=Robert" are typically
registered. If a filter specifies an approximate match on "Bill" then the
server will also try "William", and any other registered synonyms of "Bill".
Similarly "William" in the filter will match "Bill" in an entry.
If the filter specifies an equality match then only the entries matching
"Bill" are returned.

Since the issue of alternate names is handled during matching we don't need
to add extra attributes or extra values to entries, people get to use their
preferred name in their entry, and operators don't need to try all the
variations on a name to get a match.


Steven Legg
Telstra Research Laboratories


Ringer, Oded wrote:
> 
> Think about a person that is known as Will and doesn't want to appear as
> Bill as his nick name. We wouldn't want to force him to have this other name
> as part of his entry.
> 
> However, since it is a common knowledge that Bill=William,  When 411
> operators are asked to find a William they're making the extra step and
> looking up Bill as well.
> 
> Of course we could hard code this into the LDAP client application and make
> it part of the matching rule. But the right place to store this knowledge is
> centrally. (Otherwise, we would have to redeploy clients if we think of a
> new nick-name.)
> 
> 
> -Oded 
> 
> Oded Ringer  212-902-7939
> Goldman, Sachs & Co.
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Erik Skovgaard [mailto:eskovgaard@geotrain.com]
> Sent: Friday, November 06, 1998 12:40 PM
> To: Ringer, Oded; ietf-ldapext@netscape.com
> Subject: Re: Nick names search extension
> 
> 
> Oded,
> 
> I am not sure why you would want to use a control for that.  Why not just
> put the nicknames in the name attribute?  The cn attribute is multi-valued
> in the standard schema (I have to make this qualification given the many
> different schemae that seem to be published).  Only one of the values of
> this attribute is distinguished, of course, but you can search on the rest.
> 
> Cheers,                   ....Erik.
> 
> ---------------------------------------
> Erik Skovgaard
> GeoTrain Corp.
> Enterprise Directory Engineering Services
> http://www.geotrain.com
> 
> At 11:36 98/11/06 -0500, Ringer, Oded wrote:
> >One server side control that can be very useful is the ability to search by
> >nick names. 
> >That is, encapsulating the knowledge that:
> >"William" = "Will" = "Bill" = "Billy" = "Wilberto" = "Willem"
> >
> >Than, applications looking for Billy will be able to leverage this
> centrally
> >stored functionality and find the person even if his name is actually
> >William.
> >
> >This feature will be highly appreciated by enterprises looking to deploy a
> >meta-directory.
> >
> >-Oded
> >
> >Oded Ringer  212-902-7939
> >Goldman, Sachs & Co.
> >
> >
> >
> 
>