compoundstructured

Compoundstructured is a term used to describe a data modeling approach in which complex entities are represented as composites of multiple underlying structures. It emphasizes combining primitive data types, arrays, mappings, and nested structures into a single cohesive representation that can be manipulated as a unit.

The term is not a standard formal concept in major disciplines, but the idea appears under various names, such as composite types, nested documents, or rich data objects. It is used across programming languages and data formats to capture real-world complexity.

Key characteristics include hierarchical organization, heterogeneity, and the ability to express relationships through containment or references. While powerful, compoundstructured models can introduce increased complexity, higher memory usage, and performance considerations for serialization, querying, and validation.

Applications include document databases and JSON-like data models, object-oriented and functional programming with nested types, data integration, and schema design for APIs. An example is a user profile object that contains scalar fields (name, email), a list of addresses, and embedded objects for preferences.

See also composite data type, nested data structure, hierarchical model. Note: do not confuse compoundstructured with chemical compound structure.