VMS Help DCE_CDS, cdscp, DESCRIPTION, Elements of a CDS Command, Attributes  *Conan The Librarian (sorry for the slow response - running on an old VAX)

   Every CDS entity has attributes, which are pieces or sets of data
   associated with that entity.  Attributes can reflect or affect the
   operational behavior of an entity, record the number of times a
   particular event or problem occurred since the entity was last
   enabled, and uniquely distinguish an entity from any other entity.
   Some attributes have a single value; others contain a set of values.

   CDS attributes are identified by ISO object identifiers (OIDs).
   Every CDS attribute name maps to an OID and a corresponding data
   type.  Usually, client applications define the name of an attribute
   and its data type.  Application programmers should never need to
   modify (except for the purpose of foreign language translation) the
   existing CDS labels associated with the unique OIDs in the
   cds_attributes file.  However, programmers can obtain new OIDs from
   the appropriate allocation authority, create new attributes for
   their own object entries, and then append them to the existing list.
   The OID and data type of each attribute are stored in the file
   DCE$COMMON:[ETC]CDS_ATTRIBUTES.DAT.  Descriptions of the CDS data
   types that applications can use are in the cdsclerk.h file.

   All entities have show commands that you can use to display the
   names and values of specific attributes or all attributes.  When
   you display an attribute that has more than one value, the show
   command lists each value for the attribute separately.  When there
   are multiple values for an attribute, the command first lists the
   attribute name on a line ending with a colon, then the parts of the
   value.

   For more information about CDS attributes, see the DCE Directory
   Service module in the DCE Administration Guide.