Every DECdns entity has attributes, which are pieces or sets of data associated with that entity. Characteristics are attributes that reflect or affect the operational behavior of an entity. The following are descriptions of valid characteristics: You can use any combination of attribute specifiers in a single command. Use a comma to separate the specifiers. If you do not supply any attribute specifier, the command displays all identifiers and their values. The following are descriptions of valid counters, identifiers, and status attributes: COUNTER Creation Time Specifies the time at which the clerk added this known namespace to its cache. IDENTIFIERS Name Specifies an external, human-readable name by which the namespace can be identified. If the namespace nickname is unique, the Name is the same as the Nickname. Otherwise, the Name is generated by appending _n to the nickname for some value of n that makes it unique. The Ambiguous attribute is then set true for the known namespace. NSCTS Specifies the creation timestamp of the namespace. STATUS ATTRIBUTES Ambiguous Indicates whether the nickname for this namespace is ambiguous; that is, more than one namespace known to this clerk has the same nickname. If true, the namespace nickname is ambiguous. If false, the namespace nickname is unique. Explicit Creation Specifies whether the namespace was created by a create command. If false, the namespace was created by the clerk itself. Nickname The name given to the namespace when it was created.