Data Dictionary¶
Data Dictionary is documentation of the associated metadata for a data source. The data in a data dictionary is the metadata about the data source. Attributes such as data type, size, allowed values, default values, entity-relationship, reference data, schema, constraints, etc. are examples of metadata documented in the data dictionary. The metadata communicates the structure of the data, establishes standards for handling the data source, communicates data source relationships, provides origin information about how the data is compiled, etc. The data dictionary is a building block of the data catalog. While the data dictionary captures metadata on a data source, the data catalog captures all the data sources.