RE: Display name attribute

[David Chadwick <d.w.chadwick@iti.salford.ac.uk>]

Date sent:      	Fri, 30 Apr 1999 08:39:16 +0200
To:             	d.w.chadwick@iti.salford.ac.uk
From:           	Roland Hedberg <roland@catalogix.ac.se>
Subject:        	RE: Display name attribute
Copies to:      	ietf-ldapext@netscape.com

> Hi!
>
> I'm a bit confused because for some reason I only get David's
> comments.
>

There was at least one message that came to me but not to the list,
but I still replied to the list as several people were following the
thread.

> ----chunk cut out---

> So, you David might be able to, and know how to, key in a's and
> o's with umlauts when you are looking for "Patrik Fältström". But
> my guess is that you would be part a minority then.
>

You have a good point here about multi-lingual character sets and
the lack of facilities for input and display.

> Hence, to be kind to you guys we have stored, for everyone with
> non-ASCII characters in their name, two versions of it; one which is the
> real one and one which is the "anglicized" version (With all diacriticals
> removed). This so you can search for our illustrious AD.
>

Agreed, but I would see these as both being stored in the CN
attribute, which is after all multi-valued

> For historical reasons the one used in the DN is the "anglicized" version.
>

LDAPv2 could not cater for anything else, so you pretty much had
to use ASCII didn't you.

> So, now we have the choice; either to rebuild our directories changing the
> DN of all those who have names with non-ASCII characters or just simply to
> add displayName. That is if, we as you are proposing, should have the real
> name being part of the DN.
>

Good, I follow that. So you have both ASCII and local character set
variants in CN, with ASCII as the RDN. THe local character set CN
value is also repeated in display name, so that local systems can
display the real name to the users. THis makes sense, and
presumably the display names would still be unique (given that the
CNs were)

But this solution falls down once you extend it to multiple countries
and character sets. EG. suppose we have an Arab and CHinese
directory, both with CNs (RDNs) in ASCII, for global interop, and
both with display names in their local language. Unfortunately, when
the Arab reads a Chinese entry he now sees the Chinese
characters from display name, and not the ASCII ones from CN that
were intended (and vice versa for the Chinese person). So how do
you solve that? Ignore display name attributes except from the local
server?

> Another usage I can see for displayName is when people change
> their name. I don't know why but some people do that when they get
> married. In such cases changing the displayName would cause a lot
> less grievance than changing the DN.
>

But only for local users, if remote users are still using the CN
attribute. I think in this case a real change of DN is needed.

David

> -- Roland
>
>


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David Chadwick
IT Institute, University of Salford, Salford M5 4WT
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