user configurable columns

In a previous thread...

Daniel Morgan <damorgan_at_x.washington.edu> wrote in news:1063841151.77203 @yasure:

> You are correct. If the point is to provide user configurable columns
> ... this is still a poor implementation. It can easily be done with
> three or so static columns and an additional VARCHAR-type column
> holding a pseudo column_name.

I need to do a pretty similar kind of thing to that - to allow the "user" be able to dynamically define their own set of configurable attributes that are stored along with the standard attributes (columns) for various objects (rows in a table) that are part of an application schema.

The wrinkle being that these configurable attributes need, in some cases (as defined by the user), to be used as lookup keys for the object they are attached to.  

Off hand, I'm at a bit of a loss as to how I'm going to index such dynamically defined columns.

I was wondering if there are any standard design patterns for that sort of thing, in terms of the RDBMS schema. Any good technical articles, white papers, or other references or examples etc...

Thanks loads.

roger Received on Wed Sep 17 2003 - 22:56:09 CDT