SummaryTheory and practice of sampling by attributes.This paper brings a survey of present day theory and practice of sampling by attributes. In section 2 the main points in the theory of OC‐curves are recapitulated. Section 3 lists the various features which people have attempted to incorporate in sampling tables, and the various factors which influence our choice of a sampling plan. Subsequent sections discuss economic theories, the importance of the distribution of the precentage of defective items over the inspection lots, the relation between sample size and lot size, and some of the existing sampling tables. In a final section the possibilities for further improvements in existing sampling practices is considered. One conclusion is that in many situations a constant sample size regardless of lot size would have very definite advantage