Re: Terminology for composite attributes

Jan Hidders wrote:
> dawn wrote:
> >
> > Question 1: Is "composite attribute" a good, understandable, phrase
for
> > this in a similar way that "multivalued attribute" is for the
previous
> > scenario?
>
> Yes. The terms "simple properties / attributes" and "composite
> properties / attributes" are widely understood in ER modelling. In
> database theory you can write papers using terms like "composite
values"
> and most people will know what you mean. No points for guessing why I
am
> certain of this. :-)

I better go read more of what you have written, eh? I'm not writing papers within the academy, but I'm pretty sure that the average practitioner over the age of 40 is good with "composite" too -- it's the younger ones who have learned only relational theory that I wasn't sure about. Within relational circles (of practitioners) I can only recall the term "composite" associated with key values, but that should be enough to give clues as to the meaning.

> > Phone is still an attribute with multiplicity of one, even if the
> > __________ is now greater than one. I would fill in that blank
with
> > "degree" but that is likely to be misunderstood.
> >
> > Question 2: Is there a better word to use to fill in that blank?
>
> I would take "arity". As in the arity of a tuple.

OK, that works. I like that this term is used with functions and graphs too, but I don't like that "arity" sounds a bit pretentious or academic. I've never heard a software developer use the term arity, even when talking about number of parameters.

> PS. To quote the article you reply to in Google groups click on "show

> options" next to the top of the article, and then select "reply".

Thanks! I also couldn't figure out how to have a real e-mail address not show when using google groups and was hoping to avoid that, but it appears I'll just keep that spam a-comin'.

Cheers! --dawn  

> -- Jan Hidders
Received on Mon Mar 21 2005 - 20:21:59 CET