Attribute equality during AttributeQuery

[Peter Major <peter.major@forgerock.com>]

Hi,

SAML core spec (errata version) 3.3.2.3 says:
A single query MUST NOT contain two <saml:Attribute> elements with the 
same Name and
NameFormat values (that is, a given attribute MUST be named only once in 
a query)

SAML profile spec (errata version) 8.1.2.1, 8.2.2.1, 8.3.3.1, 8.4.3.1, 
8.5.2.1 are all saying:
Two <Attribute> elements refer to the same SAML attribute if and only if 
the values of their Name XML
attributes are equal in the sense of Section 3.3.6 of [Schema2].

I feel that the NameFormat equality here is implicit as I assume you can 
only use the comparison rules once it is established that these 
attributes are using the same attribute NameFormat. Is that correct?

The question is really:
if I have locally my Attribute Authority configured to deal with 
Attribute queries against given NameFormat and Attribute name, then what 
should happen if I receive an AttributeQuery requesting the correct 
name, but without the NameFormat defined?

As far as I can look at SAML core 2.7.3.1:
If no NameFormat value is provided,
the identifier urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:attrname-format:unspecified 
(see Section
8.2.1) is in effect.

So I suppose if the configuration explicitly referred to the unspecified 
attrname-format then the two attributes should be considered equal, 
otherwise it should be handled as an "unrecognized" attribute, right?

Thanks for your help,
Peter