Naming Attributes and Classes

If you create a new class or attribute, please adhere to the following naming rules.

• Use the same name for both the Common-Name (cn) and the LDAP-display-name (lDAPDisplayName) of a new attributeSchema or classSchema object.
• Identify your company with a lower-case prefix in the first section of the name. This prefix can be a DNS name, acronym, or other string that uniquely identifies your company. The prefix ensures that all attributes and classes for a specific company are displayed consecutively when browsing the schema.
• Use a hyphen as the next character (after the prefix).
• Specify an attribute or class name that is unique within your company after the hyphen. This part of the common-name should be descriptive. Don't use cryptic names that are meaningless to developers and viewers of the schema.

For example, if the fictitious Fabrikam company extended the schema by adding an attribute for storing a voice-mail identifier, the cn and lDAPDisplayName of the new attribute could be "fabrikam-VoiceMailID".

If you want your application to have the "Certified for Windows" logo, you must adhere to these schema naming rules. In addition, you must register the company prefix that you use in your schema extension names. To register your company prefix, use the following Web site: <http://msdn.microsoft.com/certification/ad-registration.asp>. For more information about the certification program, see http://msdn.microsoft.com/certification/default.asp.

If you don't specify the lDAPDisplayName of an attribute or class, the system automatically uses the Common-Name to generate one for you. However, the system's algorithm for generating the name may result in name collisions or names that are hard to read. To avoid these problems, we recommend that you explicitly specify the lDAPDisplayName for all of your attributes and classes.

For development and testing purposes you may wish to append a version suffix to the cn and lDAPDisplayName, for example, "fabrikam-VoiceMailID-001". In a distributed development/test environment, a version suffix enables developers to run multiple versions of their software simultaneously. After testing has been completed, you can rename your attribute or class to remove the suffix.

You cannot delete defunct versions of your schema extensions, but you can disable them and rename them with obscure names, as described in Disabling Existing Classes and Attributes.