What is this model technique called

From: Jarson <jarson_at_nospam.com>
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2003 22:12:52 -0400
Message-ID: <zAcDa.4514$VS5.417839@news20.bellglobal.com>

What do you call the data modeling technique where you store attribute NAME & VALUE pairs, instead of just typical descriptive column names.

An example of where I am using this is to capture contract terms within a database, knowing that terms are very dynamic will vary from contract to contract.

ATTRIBUTE_TYPES

• ATTRIBUTE_NAME (PK)
• DATA_TYPE
• ENTITY_TYPE
• UNIT_OF_MEASURE
• DESCRIPTION

CONTRACT_TERMS

• CONTRACT_ID (PK) (FK to another Contract table)
• ATTRIBUTE_NAME (PK) (FK to ATTRIBUTE_TYPES)
• VALUE

The first table is a configuration table and would list all possible contract terms that are available, possibly feeding a list-box in a GUI. The second table is the actual table showing those terms, and their values, associated with each specific contract.

I also added ENTITY_TYPE to the first table, indicating that this table could be used as a source for several other tables such as CONTACTS or SPECIFICATIONS tables. Examples may be 'CONTRACT_ID', or 'CONTACT_ID', or 'SPEC_ID'. The advantage is that any GUI front-end for administrative maintenance only has to deal with one table.

What is this technique called?

 Jarson Received on Tue Jun 03 2003 - 21:12:52 CDT