EAV

EAV stands for Entity-Attribute-Value, a data modeling approach used to store information when different records may have very different sets of attributes.

Instead of creating a separate database column for every possible property, the EAV model stores each property as a separate row.

This makes the structure highly flexible, especially for sparse or rapidly changing datasets.

Also known as: Entity-Attribute-Value model, EAV data model, sparse attribute model.

How Does the EAV Model Work?

An EAV structure usually represents data using three main components:

• Entity: The object being described.
• Attribute: A property of that object.
• Value: The value assigned to the property.

For example, instead of storing a product in a traditional table with many columns, an EAV system may represent it like this:

Entity: Product 1001
Attribute: Color
Value: Black

and:

Entity: Product 1001
Attribute: Weight
Value: 1.2 kg

Each attribute is stored independently, allowing different entities to have different properties.