# Miscellaneous > Database Design >  Properties and data types

## jillian

I am having a difficult time in understanding how I can deal with properties in sub-categories (see image) in my design. Specifically the PropInSubCatValue. The problem is that this field could be a decimal or varchar depending on the property. However when I define the field in Mysql, I am limited to choosing only one data type for this field. Any ideas ?

prodmodel.jpg

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