# AUTN_IDENTIFIER

An Identifier is a base-64 encoded string that identifies the source of a document in IDOL Server. When you use a connector to index documents into IDOL Server, an identifier is added to every document, in the `AUTN_IDENTIFIER` document field.

A connector can use the identifier to extract the original file from the repository. An application might need to extract the original file when presenting the results of a query. The application can request the file by sending a `collect` or `view` action to the connector.

The exact content of the `AUTN_IDENTIFIER` field depends on the connector that retrieved the document, but contains information such as:

- The document reference. The document reference identifies an item in a repository. For the files retrieved from the same repository, a reference is unique. For files retrieved by a File System Connector, the document reference is the path to the file. For e-mail messages retrieved by an Exchange Connector, the document reference includes the name of the message store and folder that contains the message.
- Additional information used to find the document in the repository. Though the document reference identifies a file in the repository, it might not provide sufficient information to retrieve it efficiently. The identifier can include additional information to assist the connector locate the document.
- The name of the fetch task that was used to retrieve the document. When a connector needs to retrieve a file, it can use the same settings by finding the fetch task in its configuration file.

An example identifier appears below:

    <id section="MyTask1" reference="http://myserver:4567/doc/_vxswdfguhjknbio_earycqzt_">
      <param name="SERVICEURL" value="http://myserver:4567/service"/>
      <param name="DOCID">_vxswdfguhjknbio_earycqzt_</param>
    </id>

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