An attribute–value system is a basic knowledge representation framework comprising a table with columns designating "attributes" (also known as "properties", "predicates", "features", "dimensions", "characteristics", "fields", "headers" or "independent variables" depending on the context) and "rows" designating "objects" (also known as "entities", "instances", "exemplars", "elements", "records" or "dependent variables").
Each table cell therefore designates the value (also known as "state") of a particular attribute of a particular object.
It represents 10 objects (rows) and five features (columns).
In general, an attribute–value system may contain any kind of data, numeric or otherwise.
Attribute–value systems are pervasive throughout many different literatures, and have been discussed under many different names: