Are collective attributes a way of doing Attribute Value Inheritance?

[Stuart Schmukler <Stuart.Schmukler@ncal.kaiperm.org>]

Thank-you, Chris and others for your replies.

C.Ridd says:
> You can't 'override' a collective attribute in a subordinate entry in 
> X.500, but you can explicitly exclude particular collective attributes 
> from being returned with an entry using the collectiveExclusions 
> operational attribute. You can also prevent them from being included 
> using X.500 Content Rules.

I am lost in the terminology.  I'll try to be clearer in the 

We need to do something like Attribute value inheritance in a structured
directory tree like this:

Northern California
     Health Care Professionals
              Care Team Organization
                 Facility
                    Department
                        Role
                          Person
					
Where any of the levels in the organization can have the attribute 
'coveringAddress'.

Given this structure I want to lookup the 'coveringAddress' nearest to the address
that I queried.  I have been writing down OR ("|") based filters that have to be post
processed to find the nearest 'coveringAddress'.

Specifically, given an address Nurse_Jones_RN_DEPT2_FAC4_NCAL in LDAPv3 
I think the query is:

(|(dn=Nurse_Jones=coveringAddress=*)
  (dn=RN_DEPT2_FAC4_NCAL=coveringAddress=*)
  (dn=DEPT2_FAC4_NCAL=coveringAddress=*)
  (dn=FAC4_NCAL=coveringAddress=*)
  (dn=NCAL=coveringAddress=*)
 )

Where the Data base looks like this:
	
	dn=Nurse_Jones
	...

	dn:DEPT2_FAC4_NCAL
	coveringAddress: dn=Head_Nurse
	...

	dn=FAC4_NCAL
	coveringAddress: dn=Building_Manger
	...

  	dn:NCAL
	...

The I am interested in is:

	dn: DEPT2_FAC4_NCAL
	coveringAddress: dn=Head_Nurse

Since the answer may not come back in the order of the clauses I have to post
process the answer. This is extra over head in terms of both network traffic and
client processing time.


I hope that Attribute Value Inheritance can be done at the server without extensions.



---SaS
Make is a great day.