Question

Discuss in detail on various types of attributes in DBMS.

Answer 1

Types of attributes:

1. Key Attribute:
   

   Generally, a key attribute describes a unique characteristic of an entity.

2. Simple Attribute:
   The simple attributes cannot be separated it will be having a single value for their entity. For Example: Let us consider the name as the attribute for the entity employee and here the value for that attribute is a single value.
   
3. Composite Attributes:
   

   The composite attributes can be sub-divided into simple attributes without a change in the meaning of that attribute. For Example: In the above diagram the employee is the entity with the composite attribute Name which is sub-divided into two simple attributes first and last name.

4. Single Valued Attributes:
   A single-valued attribute contains only one value for the attribute and they don’t have multiple numbers of values. For Example Age- It is a single value for a person as we cannot give a number of ages for a single version, therefore it is a single-valued attribute.
   
5. Multi-Valued Attributes:
   A multi-valued attribute has more than one value for that particular attribute.
   For example:
   Degree – A person can hold n number of degrees so it is a multi-valued attribute.
   

   In the below table are some examples for multi-valued attributes.

   Attribute	Values
   Degree	B.Tech, MBA
   Bank_Account	SBI, HDFC