Attribute–value system

An attribute-value system is a way to organize data by listing facts or characteristics about something in categories. It's kind of like putting things in their own special boxes. For example, if you wanted to keep track of the animals you saw while on vacation, you could create an attribute-value system with attributes (categories) like bird, mammal, amphibian, etc. and then you could fill in the values for each animal in those categories (birds might be seagull, robin, etc). That way, you can quickly look over the list and find out which animals you saw.