Abstract: Methods for determining the representation of time-dependent attributes stored in a database and extracting data according to the representation of the time-dependent attributes are described. In some cases, a time-dependent attribute may comprise a time scale varying attribute (TSV) in which a sum may be computed for any date range. In some embodiments, a time-dependent attribute may be represented as a Character Large Object (CLOB) that encodes information about the time-dependent attribute in a text string and may be accessed by table functions. Alternatively, some time-dependent attributes may also be represented as Binary Large Objects (BLOBs) that are used to populate timeslicing tables. Upon receiving a query for data pertaining to a stored time-dependent attribute, a system identifies whether the stored time-dependent attribute is represented as a CLOB or a BLOB, and generates the queried data in a manner dependent on the representation of the time-dependent attribute.