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.