Re: How many names and addresses can you have for ID card

On Tue, 04 Apr 2006 11:10:49 GMT, axel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

In uk.legal Alex Heney <me8@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
What makes you think that a standard relational DBS model a la
Oracle would be used?

the fact that it is a perfectly good model for the application, and is
tried and trusted technology.

In fact it would be *totally* the wrong kind of approach to use.

Why?

A directory system a la LDAP or X.500 would be a much more natural
approach.

This allows records to be added to an entry, but in such a way that
endless variations or alternatives of the same type of information
can be added.

For example instead of having a field as might exist in a relational
DBS for an email address, there will be an attribute of type 'email'.

It would be unlikely to be a field in a relational database, since it
is obviously something which an individual can have many of.

But there is no need for a particular amount of space to be reserved
for 'email'. An entry may have any number of atrributes which are
of type email, be it zero, ten or a hundred. If someone acquires
another ten email addresses, they are simply added to his entry as
a trivial operation.

This also applies, of course, to a relational databases model.

If designed properly - but that applies just as much to any other
model.

True. An LDAP/X500 system most likely will be implemented using an
underlying DBS although the implementation details are irrelevant.
However the data model that is presented to the user is not that
of a RDBS, so in essence the design is there.

The same applies to any other type of attribute... name, address,
telephone number.

This is why many organisations use a directory to organise contact
information about their employees instead of a relational DBS...
there is far more flexibility.

You haven't told us anything about any additional flexibility.

The flexibility exists in that the data for each entry is available
as a very natural list to which attributes can be added, modified
and deleted without any reference to tables or fields.

A typical entry might look something like (simplified):

dn: uid=746484,dc=somedomain,dc=com
objectClass: inetOrgPerson
uid: 746484
cn: john
cn: johnny
cn: john smith
cn: john a. smith
cn: john andrew smith
sn: smith
mail: js@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
mail: js@xxxxxxxxx
mail: johnny@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
telephoneNumber: 01818181818
telephoneNumber: 0757575757
userPassword: {MD5}welfnelnfwelfnwelkfn

This is actually the format which is used for exporting and importing
data. Essentially it provides a very human readable means of
organising data. This could be achieved by an RDBS but the use of
a directory system sidesteps the complex DBS design which would be
needed in favour of an existing model.

Of course a schema would have to be designed for any ID card
directory system... the example above used 'inetOrgPerson', but
the design of a schema involves specifying what atrributes an entry
may or must have, and the allowable format for such attributes
(e.g. integer, alphanumeric, jpeg, maximum lengths and so on),
but not how this data will be represented internally.

Of course a new LDAP/X500 implementation would be required for an
ID scheme rather than using an existing off-the shelf product.
But this is totally logically distinct from anything to do
with the data side of matters.

The downside is that searches are limited (although directory
systems are usually optimized for reading with updating being a
slower procedure.

Are you talking about OBJECT ORIENTED databases?

MM
.

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