Shibboleth Developers

["RL 'Bob' Morgan" <>]

On Fri, 18 Jan 2002 

 wrote:

Skipping to Issue 2:

> Issue 2-- multi-valued Attributes
>
> Did we ever specifically discuss whether multi-valued attributes for
> which the person has multiple values should be passed as one attribute
> or multiple?

Discussed, but I don't think we decided.

> <Attribute AttributeName="eduPersonAffiliation"
>       AttributeNamespace="urn:mace:edu">
>     <AttributeValue>staff</AttributeValue>
> </Attribute>
>
> there are  no additional elements within AttributeValue (ie we don't
> see <Affiliation>staff</Affiliation>).
>
> Which has the distinct  advantage  of very little clutter. However,
> this isn't easily extensible to the multi-valued attribute situation,
> because
>
> <Attribute AttributeName="eduPersonAffiliation"
>       AttributeNamespace="urn:mace:edu">
>     <AttributeValue>staff</AttributeValue>
>     <AttributeValue>student</AttributeValue>
> </Attribute>
>
> isn't legal.

I really don't understand why it's not "legal".  Given the current SAML
schema:

  <complexType name="AttributeType">
    <complexContent>
      <extension base="saml:AttributeDesignatorType">
        <sequence>
          <element ref="saml:AttributeValue"/>
        </sequence>
      </extension>
    </complexContent>
  </complexType>

doesn't the "sequence" mean there can be a, you know, sequence of
elements, each of which is an AttributeValue?

If it doesn't mean that, surely this schema (which is supposed to get
fixed anyway to get rid of the AttributeValueType, I think), can be fixed
to make this be so?  Is there some deep XML reason why multiple values
can't be straightforward?

> a) carry the multiple values within a single AttributeValue by using
> a new  element:
>
> <Attribute AttributeName="eduPersonAffiliation"
>      AttributeNamespace="urn:mace:edu">
>    <AttributeValue xsi:type="eduPerson:AffiliationType">
>      <Affiliation>member</Affiliation>
>      <Affiliation>staff</Affiliation>
>    </AttributeValue>
> </Attribute>

So where does the "<Affiliation>" tag come from?  From an XML schema
definition for the "eduPersonAffiliation" AttributeName?  Does that mean
there has to be XML schema work done for each and every AttributeName?
Can someone show an example of that schema definition?  Sounds like a lot
of (needless) extra work to me.  I find this deeply puzzling.

 - RL "Bob"


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