The Utility set defines commonly used values for the Class 1 types -- values that would otherwise need to be defined in several attribute sets. In addition, metatdata access points for database records are defined. When database records describe resources, the metatdata access points for the database records may need to be distinguished from the metadata access points for the resources. For example, a MARC record, created in English, might describe a French book. In this case the language of the MARC record (English) would be searchable by a "language" access point provided by the Utility set, while the language of the book (French) would be searchable by an access point specified elsewhere.

Following is a list of the Class 1 attribute types, and for each type, the values defined by the Utility set. Enumerated values assigned to attributes are summarized below.

1. Access Point
   1. Record Date/time
      A date (or date and time) associated with the record. May be used in conjunction with a functional qualifier, such as: 'creation' (to mean "date/time of creation of record"), 'modification' (to mean "date/time record last modified"), etc., or it may be used unqualified, in which case it is a date/time assigned by the server to be associated with the record.
   2. Record Agent
      Identifies a person, institution, or process that acts upon the database record. May be qualified by a semantic qualifier to indicate "person", "institution", or "process" and may be qualified by a functional qualifier, for example, 'creation', to indicate the type of action.
   3. Language of Record
      Search terms used with this access point should be taken from "ISO 639-2:1998. Codes for the Representation of Names of Languages -- Part 2: Alpha-3 Code." See Language Codes for Use in Z39.50.
   4. Local Control Number of Record
      An identifier string (integer or character string) assigned by the server that uniquely identifies a record in the database.
   5. Cost to Retrieve Record
      The cost (expressed as IntUnit) that the client will incur if it subsequently retrieves the full record. This access point may be used for example to limit a search to records where the cost of retrieval is less than a specified amount. (When the server does not charge for retrieval a cost of zero may be assumed.)
   6. Record Syntax
      A record syntax (expressed as an object identifier) supported for the database record. This access point may be used to limit the results to include records deliverable in a specific syntax. (Thus a search might create a large result set, where all except a few records are available only in a format that the client cannot support; the client may use this access point to narrow the result set to records it can support.) Note that the use of this attribute in a search does not mean that the resulting records, when subsequently retrieved, will necessarily be supplied in the given syntax, unless the present request explicitly specifies that syntax.
   7. Database Schema
      This access point may be used to limit the results to include records available in a specific database schema (expressed as an object identifier).
   8. Score
      See Rank.
   9. Rank
      Access points Score and Rank pertain to relevancy ranking for ranked retrieval. The server may assign a score and/or a rank to a result set record. The score or rank applies to the record relative to other records in the result set. A score is an integer between zero and 100. The rank of a record is an integer from 1 to N, where N is the result set size. (Note that a higher score means more relevant, while a lower rank means more relevant.) It is assumed that if record A has a better (higher) score than record B, then it will also have a better (lower) rank, however score and rank differ in the following respect: no two records in the result set have the same rank, and for every integer between 1 and N (where N is the result set size) there is exactly on record with that rank; on the other hand, more than one result set record may share the same score, and there need not be a record for every possible score. The reason for defining both attributes (Score and Rank) is that some ranked retrieval systems score records while others rank records. These two attributes may be used to restrict a result to some threshold value, for example "records with a score greater than 50" or "records with a rank less than 10".
   10. Result Set Position
       This attribute may be used to limit the size of the result set. For example the operand:

       Result Set Position "less than or equal" 10

       could be included in the query to restrict the result set to 10 or less records. Note that the Rank access point can be used for the same purpose; this attribute is defined because a server might support this function though it may not support ranking. The rank of a record is not necessarily its result set position; furthermore, the result set position of a record might change (if the result set is sorted) but its rank should not change.
   11. All Access Points
       When the origin uses 'All Access Points' it is asking the server to search for the term via all supported access points.
   12. Anywhere in Record
       When the origin uses 'Anywhere in Record' it is asking the server to search for the term anywhere it may occur within the record, subject to the server's search capability and interpretation of what "anywhere within the record" means. The server might search commonly used access points, or it might search the entire content of the record. (The following sentence was added March 2003.) A search with a single operand where the Comparison attribute is Always Matches (value 1) and the Access Point attribute is Anywhere In Record is intended to match every record in the database.
   13. Server Choice
       When the origin uses 'Server-choice' it is asking the server to select an access point (which may be defined in any attribute set, not necessarily the Utility set), and to use its best judgment in making that selection.
   14. Wildcard
       May be used for a single wild card (within a field path specified by nested access points). Thus:
       "field-1 within wildcard within field-3" would match "field-1 within field-2 within field-3" and it would match "field-1 within field-4 within field-3" but would not match "field-1 within field-2 within field-4 within field-3".
   15. Wildpath
       May be used for an unanchored search. Thus:
       "field-1 within wildpath" would match "field-1", or "field-1 within field-2", or "field-1 within field-2 within field-3", etc.; "field-1 within wildpath within field-2" would match "field-1 within field-3 within field-4 within field-2".

2. Semantic Qualifier
   1. Null
      The Null value of the Semantic Qualifier attribute may be supplied within a query operand, when that operand also includes one or more additional Semantic Qualifier attribute values (defined in this or another attribute set).

      The server pairs each supplied value of the Semantic Qualifier attribute with the Access Point attribute to try to find a best match. (The server determines what match is best.)

      By including the value Null, the client indicates that the server may, if it chooses, ignore the other semantic qualifiers.

      Whenever one or more Semantic Qualifiers are included in an operand, the server must either select one or fail the search. Thus the Null value is defined in order to allow the server to choose not to select any of the real Semantic Qualifiers (i.e. those other than Null). The value Null should not be supplied unless one or more other Semantic Qualifier values are also supplied.

   2. Person
      Restricts the meaning of the access point to people.
   3. Institution
      Restricts meaning of the access point to institutions, for example, corporations, government bodies, or conferences.
   4. Process
      Restricts the meaning of the access point to a process, for example, a computer program.
      An example of the use of this qualifier is:
      

      Find records that had been created by the program called "Xmaker":
      Access point: Record Agent
      Semantic Qualifier: Process
      Functional Qualifier: Creation
      Term: Xmaker

3. Language
   The Language attribute indicates the language of the supplied term. It is a character string whose value should be taken from "ISO 639-2:1998. Codes for the Representation of Names of Languages -- Part 2: Alpha-3 Code." See Language Codes for Use in Z39.50.

4. Content Authority
   
   1. Null
      The Null value of the Content Authority attribute is used in a manner analogous to the Null value of the Semantic Qualifier attribute. It may be supplied within a query operand, when that operand also includes one or more other Content Authority attribute values.

      The server pairs each supplied value of the Content Authority attribute with the Access Point attribute to try to find a best match. (The server determines what match is best.)

      By including the value Null, the client indicates that the server may, if it chooses, ignore the other Content Authority values.

      Whenever one or more Content Authority values are included in an operand, the server must either select one or fail the search. Thus the Null value is defined in order to allow the server to choose not to select any of the real Content Authority values (i.e. those other than Null).

      The Utility set defines only the value Null. Real Content Authority values are to be defined in other attribute sets. The value Null should not be supplied unless one or more other Content Authority values are also supplied.

5. Expansion/Interpretation
   All of the Expansion/Interpretation values defined apply to character strings.
   • Truncation and Masking Values
     For truncation values, either of the two left-truncation value (word or character boundary) may be combined with either right-truncation value; the two left-truncation values may not be combined, nor may the two right truncation values. Truncation values should not be combined with masking values (Regular Expression or Masking).
     • Left Truncation on Word boundary (Value =1)
       Matching is considered successful when the value of the term matches any substring of the value of the access point where that substring is obtained by removing zero or more words at the beginning of the string (and possibly removing words or characters from the end of the string depending on the presence of a right truncation attribute).
     • Right Truncation on Word boundary (Value =2)
       Matching is considered successful when the value of the term matches any substring of the value of the access point where that substring is obtained by removing zero or more words at the end of the string (and possibly removing words or characters from the beginning of the string depending on the presence of a left truncation attribute).
     • Left Truncation on Character boundary (Value =3)
       Matching is considered successful when the value of the term matches any substring of the value of the access point where that substring is obtained by removing zero or more characters at the beginning of the string (and possibly removing words or characters from the end of the string depending on the presence of a right truncation attribute).
     • Right Truncation on Character boundary (Value =4)
       Matching is considered successful when the value of the term matches any substring of the value of the access point where that substring is obtained by removing zero or more characters at the end of the string (and possibly removing words or characters from the beginning of the string depending on the presence of a left truncation attribute).
     • Regular Expression (Value =5)
       As prescribed by IEEE 1003.2 Volume 1, Section 2.8 "Regular Expression Notation". Similar to the regular expression syntax implemented by the "egrep" command.
     • Masking (Value =6)
       The rules governing the usage of this attribute are as follows:

       The character '?' (question mark) is used to mask a variable number of characters. It may be followed by a positive integer, i.e. one or more consecutive decimal digits (where the first is non-zero) in which the positive integer represented by the string of digits (beginning with the digit immediately following the '?', up to and not including the first non-digit character), indicates a range of characters to mask, from zero up to and including the specified integer.

       When '?' is not immediately followed by a positive decimal digit, it indicates an arbitrary number of characters to mask (from zero to a system defined limit).

       The character '#' (pound or number sign) is used to mask a single character. Multiple consecutive occurrences of '#' may be used to indicate a precise number of characters to mask.

   • Normalization Values
     • Case Insensitive (Value =7)
       Matching is performed as though the server has normalized all characters in the term and access point value to the same case. (Note: this applies only to characters for which case is meaningful. There are complex normalization issues raised by various languages and character sets that are beyond the scope of this attribute value.)
     • Punctuation Insensitive (Value =8)
       The client indicates that the server may (at its discretion) normalize the term for punctuation (for example, it may remove what it considers to be extraneous punctuation).
     • Whitespace Insensitive (Value =9)
       Matching is performed as though the server has normalized all instances of whitespace (strings of consecutive non-print characters), both in the term and value of the access point, to a common value (e.g. a single space). For example:
       "a b" would match "a     b", "a<TAB>b", and "a<TAB><TAB>b";
       "a     b" would match "a b".
       The set of "whitespace" characters is determined by the server.
   • Similarity-based Matching
     • Phonetic (Value =10)
       Matching is based on aural similarity such as Soundex. The match algorithm is defined by the target. For example, "night" and "knight" might be considered to be a phonetic match.
     • Stem (Value =11)
       Matching is based on lexical or linguistic similarity; matching is successful when the term and the access point have the same stem. The match algorithm is defined by the target. For example, "forget", "forgetful", and "forgetfulness" might be considered to have the same stem.
     • Plural Matching (Value =12)
       Match all number variations - "number" used in the sense of the singularity or plurality of a linguistic form. Thus "cat" would match "cats" (and "cats" would match "cat"); "woman" would match "women".
   • Stopwords
     • No Stopwords (Value =13)
       Client requests the server not to treat any word in the term as a stopword.
     • Search Words Stopped (Value =14)
       Meaningful only in a response query. Used by the server to indicate that it treated one or more words in the term as stopwords. (May be supplied in a submitted query but should be ignored by the server. The server should not infer any semantics based on the occurrence of this attribute in a submitted query, however, nor should the server treat its occurrence as an error, because the client may have simply resubmitted a reformulated query or query otherwise previously returned by the server, where the server included this attribute.)
   • No Other Expansion (Value =15)
     The server may expand the term only according to any expansion/interpretation values supplied. For example, if this value is supplied, and if 'case insensitive' is not supplied, then the server should not assume case-insensitivity. If this value is not supplied, the server may, at its discretion, apply expansion/interpretation values not explicitly supplied.
   • RightTruncateEachWord (Value =16)
   • LeftTruncateEachWord (Value =17)
   • LeftAnchored (Value =18)

6. Normalized Weight
   The weight assigned to the term, for purposes of ranking or assigning scores to records. An integer from 0 to 1000. May be attached to a term in a request query (submitted by the client in a search request) in which case the supplied value indicates the weight that the client requests be attached to the term. May be attached to a term in a response query (returned by the server in a search response) in which case the supplied value indicates the weight that the server attached to the term, or the weight that the server recommends for use in a re-submitted query. When supplied by the server the value may be the same as, or different from, the value in the submitted query. May be supplied by the server even if it was not supplied in the request query.

7. Hit Count
   May be attached to a term in a returned query in the Search response, and its value is the number of records in which the term occurs. Meaningful only in a returned query, although it may occur in a submitted query but should be ignored by the server. (The server should not infer any semantics based on the occurrence of this attribute, however, nor should the server treat its occurrence as an error, because the client may have simply resubmitted a reformulated query or query otherwise previously returned by the server, where the server included a Hit Count attribute.)

8. Comparison
   • The following two values are used to test for the existence of an access point, not its value. When the comparison is Always Matches, it succeeds if and only if the access point exists (regardless of whether there is a value for the access point). When the comparison is Never Matches, it succeeds if and only if the access point does not exist. These two values are used with null term:
     • Always Matches (Value =1)
     • Never Matches (Value =2)
     (The following sentence was added March 2003.)A search with a single operand where the Comparison attribute is Always Matches and the Access Point attribute isAnywhere In Record (value 12) is intended to match every record in the database.
   • Following are used for numerical comparisons, order comparisons where there is a an implied order common to the domains of the access point and term values, or equivalence comparison ('equal') when the access point and term values may be meaningfully compared for equivalence. May be used for example to compare date/times and character strings (for lexical comparisons). These should not be used with expansion/interpretation attributes, except for those that pertain to normalization; these would include (from the Utility set) Case Insensitive and Punctuation Insensitive.
     • Equal (Value =3)
       
     • Less Than (Value =4)
     • Less Than Or Equal (Value =5)
     • Greater Than (Value =6)
     • Greater Than Or Equal (Value =7)
     • Not Equal (Value =8)
   • Contained Within (Value =9)
     Used to test whether the value of the access point is contained within the domain specified by the term. May be used in particular (but not limited to these two cases) to test:
     • whether the value of the access point is between the two values specified by the term. "Between" means (1) greater than (or "greater than or equal to") the first value, and (2) less than (or "less than or equal to") the second value. The term may be specified by an external such as MultipleSearchTerms-2 , in which both endpoints as well as boundary conditions are specified.
     • for containment within a polygon, where the term supplies the vertices of the polygon, and similarly, may be specified by an external such as MultipleSearchTerms-2 .
   • Relevance Feedback (Value =10)
     The client asks the server to find documents relevant to the term, where the supplied term is (or refers to) part or all of a document. The Access Point attribute may be 'Anywhere in Record'. The term is either a URI (e.g. a URL), in which case the Indirection attribute 'URI' is included, or it is actual text from the document.

9. Format/structure
   1. AdjacentWords
   2. AllTheseWords
   3. AnyOfTheseWords
10. Occurrence
    Indicates the desired occurrence of the specified access point. Integer. For example, to indicate second author, the value of the Access Point attribute is 'author', and the value of the Occurrence attribute is 2.
11. Indirection
    1. URI
       The term supplied is a pointer (a URI) to the actual term. For example, the supplied term might be a URL, in which case the server should follow the link to the resource, and substitute it as the term. This would be used, for example, for relevance feedback when a document is intended as the term, and a URL to the document is supplied.
    2. Scan Display Term
       The term was previously provided by the server in a Scan Response, not as an actual term in the term list, but rather as a 'displayTerm' associated with an actual term. See 'term' and 'displayTerm' within TermInfo in the Scan ASN.1 definition. (This applies when the actual term in the term list is not suitable for display although it is the term that should be used in a query rather than the display term.) The server should substitute the actual term for the display term.
       

12. Functional Qualifier
    1. Null
       The Null value of the Functional Qualifier attribute is used in a manner analogous to the Null value of the Semantic Qualifier attribute. It may be supplied within a query operand, when that operand also includes one or more additional Functional Qualifier attribute values.

       The server pairs each supplied value of the Functional Qualifier attribute with the Access Point attribute to try to find a best match. (The server determines what match is best.)

       By including the value Null, the client indicates that the server may, if it chooses, ignore the other Functional Qualifier values (thus allowing the server to match the Access Point attribute value with Null, in effect rendering the Access Point unqualified).

       Whenever one or more Functional Qualifier values are included in an operand, the server must either select one or fail the search. Thus the Null value is defined in order to allow the server to choose not to select any of the real Functional Qualifier values (i.e. those other than Null).

       Following may be used to qualify the functional scope of the access point to pertain to creation, modification, review or deletion. For example they may be used to qualify Utility set Access Point value Record Date/Time or Record Agent, to mean "Date/time record was created (modified/reviewed/deleted)" or "agent who created (modified/reviewed/deleted) record". See the example supplied in the definition above of Semantic Qualifier 'process'.

    2. Creation
    3. Modification
    4. Review
    5. Deletion

Summary of Enumerated Values Assigned to Utility Attributes

1. Access Point
   1. Record Date/time
   2. Record Agent
   3. Language of Record
   4. Local Control Number of Record
   5. Cost to Retrieve Record
   6. Record Syntax
   7. Database Schema
   8. Score
   9. Rank
   10. Result Set Position
   11. All Access Points
   12. Anywhere in Record
   13. Server Choice
   14. Wildcard
   15. Wildpath

2. Semantic Qualifier
   1. Null
   2. Person
   3. Institution
   4. Process

3. Language
   No enumerated values assigned.

4. Content Authority
   1. Null

5. Expansion/Interpretation
   1. Left Truncation on Word boundary
   2. Right Truncation on Word boundary
   3. Left Truncation on Character boundary
   4. Right Truncation on Character boundary
   5. Regular Expression
   6. Masking
   7. Case Insensitive
   8. Punctuation Insensitive
   9. Whitespace Insensitive
   10. Phonetic
   11. Stem
   12. Plural Matching
   13. No Stopwords
   14. Search Words Stopped
   15. No Other Expansion
   16. RightTruncateEachWord
   17. LeftTruncateEachWord
   18. LeftAnchored

6. Normalized Weight
   No enumerated values assigned for this attribute type.
7. Hit Count
   No enumerated values assigned for this attribute type.
8. Comparison
   1. Always Matches
   2. Never Matches
   3. Equal
   4. Less Than
   5. Less Than Or Equal
   6. Greater Than
   7. Greater Than Or Equal
   8. Not Equal
   9. Contained Within
   10. Relevance Feedback

9. Format/structure
   1. AdjacentWords
   2. AllTheseWords
   3. AnyOfTheseWords
10. Occurrence
    No enumerated values assigned for this attribute type.
11. Indirection
    1. URI
    2. Scan Display Term

12. Functional Qualifier
    1. Null
    2. Creation
    3. Modification
    4. Review
    5. Deletion