The Nameserver is used on the UIUC campus to forward electronic
mail.  The program that accomplishes this is called "phquery".
Phquery uses (more or less) the following algorithm to route mail:

if the address ends in "@uiuc.edu" then
   remove the "@uiuc.edu"
   convert any punctuation to hyphens (-)
   if the address is someone's Nameserver "alias" then
       if that someone has an "email" field then
           send the mail to the first e-mail address in the "email" field
       else
           bounce the mail, "Email field not present in Nameserver entry"
       endif
   else if the address is someone's Nameserver "callsign" then
       if that someone has an "email" field then
           send the mail to the first e-mail address in the "email" field
       else
           bounce the mail, "Email field not present in Nameserver entry"
       endif
   else
       convert hyphens (-) to spaces ( )*
       count the Nameserver entries whose "name" or "nickname" is the address
       if the count is 0 then
           bounce the mail, "No matches to Nameserver query"
       else if the count is more than 1 but less than 21 then
           bounce the mail, giving a list of names and address matched
       else if the count is 21 or more then
           bounce the mail, "Too many matches found to Nameserver query"
       else if the count is 1 then
           if that someone has an "email" field then
               send the mail to the first e-mail address in the "email" field
           else
               bounce the mail, "Email field not present in Nameserver entry"
          endif
      endif
   endif
else
   deliver mail as originally addressed
endif

*all combinations of spaces and hyphens are tried, to support hyphenated names.

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