Representing Sparse Data in PostgreSQL

Posted by Chris S on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Chris S
Published on 2010-04-07T14:27:08Z Indexed on 2010/04/08 11:03 UTC
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postgresql

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sparse-matrix

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relational-database

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sql

What's the best way to represent a sparse data matrix in PostgreSQL? The two obvious methods I see are:

Store data in a single a table with a separate column for every conceivable feature (potentially millions), but with a default value of NULL for unused features. This is conceptually very simple, but I know that with most RDMS implementations, that this is typically very inefficient, since the NULL values ususually takes up some space. However, I read an article (can't find its link unfortunately) that claimed PG doesn't take up data for NULL values, making it better suited for storing sparse data.
Create separate "row" and "column" tables, as well as an intermediate table to link them and store the value for the column at that row. I believe this is the more traditional RDMS solution, but there's more complexity and overhead associated with it.

I also found PostgreDynamic, which claims to better support sparse data, but I don't want to switch my entire database server to a PG fork just for this feature.

Are there any other solutions? Which one should I use?

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