Should I place EAV values in a datatype table?

Question

I am designing a database for entities like stores, products, customers, suppliers and warehouses. The database will be used as an online transactional system in different physi

Answer 1

Frankly, the best option is "not EAV". Look into using hstore fields, XML, or json.

In PostgreSQL there is no performance advantage to using per-datatype tables. NULL values are stored in a compact NULL bitmap, so it makes very little difference whether you have a tuple like (NULL, NULL, NULL, 42, NULL, NULL) or just (42).

This also allows you to add CHECK constraint enforcing that exactly one field must be non-NULL, so you don't get multiple values of different types.

Demo:

regress=> CREATE TABLE eav_ugh (
    entity_id integer,
    int_value integer,
    numeric_value numeric,
    text_value text,
    timestamp_value timestamp with time zone,
    CONSTRAINT only_one_non_null CHECK (
            (int_value IS NOT NULL AND numeric_value IS NULL AND text_value IS NULL AND timestamp_value IS NULL) OR
            (int_value IS NULL AND numeric_value IS NOT NULL AND text_value IS NULL AND timestamp_value IS NULL) OR
            (int_value IS NULL AND numeric_value IS NULL AND text_value IS NOT NULL AND timestamp_value IS NULL) OR
            (int_value IS NULL AND numeric_value IS NULL AND text_value IS NULL AND timestamp_value IS NOT NULL)
    )
);
CREATE TABLE
regress=> insert into eav_ugh (entity_id, numeric_value) select x, x from generate_series(1,5000) x;
INSERT 0 5000
regress=> select pg_relation_size('eav_ugh');                                           
 pg_relation_size 
------------------
           229376
(1 row)

regress=> CREATE TABLE no_null_cols(entity_id integer, numeric_value numeric);
CREATE TABLE
regress=> insert into no_null_cols (entity_id, numeric_value) select x, x from generate_series(1,5000) x;
INSERT 0 5000
regress=> select pg_relation_size('no_null_cols');
 pg_relation_size 
------------------
           229376
(1 row)

regress=> SELECT sum(pg_column_size(eav_ugh)) FROM eav_ugh;
  sum   
--------
 164997
(1 row)

regress=> SELECT sum(pg_column_size(no_null_cols)) FROM no_null_cols;
  sum   
--------
 164997
(1 row)

In this case the null bitmap isn't adding any space at all, likely due to alignment requirements.