attribute

data A named value or relationship that exists for some or

all instances of some entity and is directly associated

with that instance.

Examples include the href attribute of an HTML anchor

element, the columns of a database table considered as

attributes of each row, and the members (properties and

methods of an object in OOP. This contrasts with the

contents of some kind of container (e.g. an array), which are

typically not named. The contents of an associative array,

though they might be considered to be named by their key

values, are not normally thought of as attributes.

(2001-02-04)