[MS-ASCMD]: ActiveSync Command Reference Protocol Specification

Element Scope Reference
gal:Picture Response section 2.2.3.115.2
gal:Data Response section 2.2.3.37.3
Total Response section 2.2.3.158.2
The Accept-Language header in a Search command request is used to define the locale of the
client so that the search is relevant. If the accept language is not specified, the search is conducted
by using the server language.
Searching the Global Address List (GAL)
The Search command is used to find contacts and recipients in the GAL, and to retrieve information
about them. When a search query matches more than one GAL entry, the Search command MUST
return as many entries as requested, up to a total of 100 entries by default.
For each GAL entry that is found, the Search command returns all the non-empty properties that
are indexed by the online ambiguous name resolution (ANR) in the global catalog server—for
example, e-mail alias, display name, first and last names, company name, and so on.
The client can optionally specify the maximum number of entries to retrieve in the Search
command request by specifying the range. The server MUST return entries up to the number that is
requested, and MUST also indicate the total number of entries that are found.
The text query string that is provided to the Search command is used in a prefix-string match. For
example, if the client performs a Search with a Query element value of "Michael A.", the command
returns the entries that contain the search string in any text field, such as "Michael Alexander",
"Michael Allen". Because the Search command matches the Query element value against all GAL
text properties that are indexed by using ANR, the client can also search by e-mail address,
company name, and so on.
The ANR system indexes the following properties:
•Display name
•Alias
•FirstName
•LastName
•EmailAddress
The Search command results are sorted by the server according to their ordering in the GAL (that
is, by the display name property). Because of how the search results are sorted, the client could
have to sort the results to display results in a relevant manner to users. For example, a search for
"123" might return all GAL entries that have mailing addresses or e-mail addresses that begin with
123. The client can choose to display matching e-mail addresses before mailing addresses, if they
know their users use e-mail addresses more frequently than mailing addresses, or mailing addresses
before e-mail addresses if mailing addresses are used more frequently.
The Range option is a zero-based index specifier in the form of "m-n". For more details about the
meaning of the Range values, see section section 2.2.3.120.2.
Searching Outside the GAL
[MS-ASCMD] — v20110315
ActiveSync Command Reference Protocol Specification
Copyright © 2011 Microsoft Corporation.
Release: Tuesday, March 15, 2011
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