propertyrecord

A propertyrecord is a data construct used in software and data management to store a single property of an object or entity. It typically pairs a property identifier with a value and may include metadata such as the value type, timestamp, or source. Property records are common in systems that use dynamic attributes, metadata tagging, or flexible schemas.

Structure and variations: The simplest form is a key-value pair. More elaborate designs carry explicit type information and optional attributes. In some contexts a property record is part of a collection—a property bag or attribute set—that describes all properties for a given object.

Common uses: Property records enable flexible description of objects for search and filtering, serialization for network transfer, auditing of changes, and metadata tagging in content management and data catalogs. They support systems where not every object has a fixed schema.

Relation to similar concepts: Property records are closely related to key-value stores, attribute maps, and the entity-attribute-value (EAV) model, as well as to generic records in relational databases when representing optional columns.

Implementation notes: When implementing property records, it is important to handle type safety, null values, and encoding consistently. Performance considerations include indexing by property key and balancing the granularity of records against storage overhead. Access control may be necessary to protect sensitive property values.

See also: key-value store, metadata, property bag, entity-attribute-value model, record.