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Attribute-value system

Knowledge representation framework

Wikipedia contributorsAdapted for Fathomly · View authors
1 min read
Source updated October 12, 2025

An attribute-value system is a basic knowledge representation framework comprising a table with columns designating "attributes" (also known as "properties", "predicates", "features", "dimensions", "characteristics", "fields", "headers" or "independent variables" depending on the context) and "rows" designating "objects" (also known as "entities", "instances", "exemplars", "elements", "records" or "dependent variables"). Each table cell therefore designates the value (also known as "state") of a particular attribute of a particular object.

01Example of attribute-value system

Below is a sample attribute-value system. It represents 10 objects (rows) and five features (columns). In this example, the table contains only integer values. In general, an attribute-value system may contain any kind of data, numeric or otherwise. An attribute-value system is distinguished from a simple "feature list" representation in that each feature in an attribute-value system may possess a range of values (e.g., feature P1 below, which has domain of {0,1,2}), rather than simply being present or absent (Barsalou & Hale 1993).

Sample attribute-value system
ObjectP1P2P3P4P5
O1 12011
O2 12011
O3 20010
O4 00121
O5 21021
O6 00122
O7 20010
O8 01221
O9 21022
O10 20010

02Other terms used for "attribute-value system"

Attribute-value systems are pervasive throughout many different literatures, and have been discussed under many different names:

  • Flat data
  • Spreadsheet
  • Attribute-value system (Ziarko & Shan 1996)
  • Information system (Pawlak 1981)
  • Classification system (Ziarko 1998)
  • Knowledge representation system (Wong & Ziarko 1986)
  • Information table (Yao & Yao 2002)
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Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Attribute-value system”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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