Re: preserve value order with referential integrity overlay?

[Zhang Weiwu <zhangweiwu@realss.com>]

One dump question, the draft you composed expires at end of 2006, does
that mean this draft will no longer become RFC and (thus?) have no
implementation yet?

Having to require client modification might be the big reason to not
having it implemented, I guess.

å 2007-08-14äç 02:01 -0700ïHoward Chuåéï
> Zhang Weiwu wrote:
> > Hello.
> > 
> > I deployed an LDAP system and a set of applications around it that is
> > highly sensitive to the order of values, e.g first telephoneNumber must
> > be the main contact method, first value of companyRepresentative must be
> > the DN of the main contact person.
> 
> That is a complete misuse of LDAP. Attributes are *SETS* of values. "Sets" are 
> inherently unordered. The LDAP and X.500 specs and plenty of other docs tell 
> you not to rely on the order in which values are returned.
> 
> > What's the best way to solve this problem? I can only think of 1) try to
> > modify source code of slapo-refint to make it maintain order (big
> > problem, never worked on C source code before, 
> 
> Obviously not the way to go.
> 
> or 2) try to use several
> > attributes like "FirstCompanyRepresentative",
> > "SecondCompanyRepresentative", "ThirdCompanyRepresentative"
> 
> Clumsy, and only feasible if you have a fixed limit on the number of values you 
> want to manage.
> 
> You might consider something like
> http://www.highlandsun.com/hyc/drafts/draft-chu-ldap-xordered-xx.html
> which is only slightly less clumsy, and that spec needs to be revised anyway.
> Whatever solution you choose is going to require your clients to be modified to 
> adapt to the solution.