Patent 7167918 was granted and assigned to Sun Microsystems on January, 2007 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Various embodiments of systems and methods for using condition defining data (e.g., access control instructions) attached to nodes in a tree to implement node-related conditions in a directory server having a tree structure are disclosed. In one embodiment, a method includes attaching condition defining data that includes a variable portion and a reference portion to a given node in the tree structure, and upon access to a subnode of said given node in the tree, using the reference portion and a property of the subnode to tentatively derive a value for the variable portion, changing the variable portion into the value, and evaluating the condition in said condition defining data.