How to store data with dynamic number of attributes in a database

Question

I have a number of different objects with a varying number of attributes. Until now I have saved the data in XML files which easily allow for an ever changing number of attr

Answer 1

Let me give some concreteness to what DVK was saying.

Assuming values are of same type the table would look like (good luck, I feel you're going to need it):

dynamic_attribute_table
------------------------
id         NUMBER
key        VARCHAR
value      SOMETYPE?

example (cars):

|id|    key   |   value   |
---------------------------
| 1|'Make'    |'Ford'     |
| 1|'Model'   |'Edge'     |
| 1|'Color'   |'Blue'     |
| 2|'Make'    |'Chevrolet'|
| 2|'Model'   |'Malibu'   |
| 2|'MaxSpeed'|'110mph'   |

Thus,
entity 1 = { ('Make', 'Ford'), ('Model', 'Edge'), ('Color', 'Blue') }
and,
entity 2 = { ('Make', 'Chevrolet'), ('Model', 'Malibu'), ('MaxSpeed', '110mph') }.