Cardinallevel
Cardinallevel is a term used in data modeling and database design to describe the level of cardinality of an attribute or column. It provides an ordinal, qualitative assessment of how many distinct values exist in relation to the size of the dataset, helping practitioners select storage layouts, indexing strategies, and query plans.
Definition and scale: Cardinallevel is typically expressed on a small ordinal scale such as 0 to 4
Calculation and estimation: In practice, cardinallevel is estimated using statistics collected by the database or profiling
Applications: Cardinallevel informs indexing decisions, storage planning, and query optimization. Low-cardinality columns often benefit from bitmap
Limitations: The cardinallevel scale is heuristic and can change with data updates or varying workloads. It
See also: Cardinality, Distinct values, Bitmap index, B-tree index, Data profiling, Histogram.