Attribute Name Evaluation and Its Implementation*

In this paper a new and original name evaluation method of attribute names is proposed and elaborated. This method allows an attribute name to be presented in a non-hierarchy fashion and to be evaluated using a hierarchical approach. A three-level name model that supports attribute names for objects in a distributed system and the structure of naming contexts which bind attribute names onto objects are presented. The naming contexts are represented intuitively with a context-graph. To be able to meet the requirements generated form the name service semantics, a name evaluation model suitable for different name services, i.e. the conventional service, the selection service and the enquiry service is used. This model allows the name evaluation to be implemented efficiently. Moreover, to achieve the effectiveness and the efficiency in the implementation of the name evaluation, we have developed a set of algorithms, each of which is for a particular name service. * This work was partly supported by Australian Research Council under Grants A48831034, A49232429 and the Deakin University Research Grant 0504054151.