In the context of a
relational database, a row—also called a
tuple
In mathematics, a tuple is a finite ordered list (sequence) of elements. An -tuple is a sequence (or ordered list) of elements, where is a non-negative integer. There is only one 0-tuple, referred to as ''the empty tuple''. An -tuple is defi ...
—represents a single, implicitly structured
data
In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete Value_(semiotics), values that convey information, describing quantity, qualitative property, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of sy ...
item in a
table
Table may refer to:
* Table (furniture), a piece of furniture with a flat surface and one or more legs
* Table (landform), a flat area of land
* Table (information), a data arrangement with rows and columns
* Table (database), how the table data ...
. In simple terms, a database table can be thought of as consisting of ''rows'' and
columns
A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression membe ...
.
"What is a database row?"
Cory Janssen, Techopedia, retrieved 27 June 2014 Each row in a table represents a set of related data, and every row in the table has the same structure.
For example, in a table that represents companies, each row would represent a single company. Columns might represent things like company name, company street address, whether the company is publicly held, its VAT number, etc. In a table that represents ''the association'' of employees with departments, each row would associate one employee with one department.
The implicit structure of a row, and the meaning of the data values in a row, requires that the row be understood as providing a succession of data values, one in each column of the table. The row is then interpreted as a relvar
In relational databases, relvar is a term introduced by C. J. Date and Hugh Darwen as an abbreviation for relation variable in their 1995 paper ''The Third Manifesto'', to avoid the confusion sometimes arising from the use of the term relation, b ...
composed of a set of tuple
In mathematics, a tuple is a finite ordered list (sequence) of elements. An -tuple is a sequence (or ordered list) of elements, where is a non-negative integer. There is only one 0-tuple, referred to as ''the empty tuple''. An -tuple is defi ...
s, with each tuple consisting of the two items: the name of the relevant column and the value this row provides for that column.
Each column expects a data value of a particular type. For example, one column might require a unique identifier, another might require text representing a person's name, another might require an integer representing hourly pay in dollar
Dollar is the name of more than 20 currencies. They include the Australian dollar, Brunei dollar, Canadian dollar, Hong Kong dollar, Jamaican dollar, Liberian dollar, Namibian dollar, New Taiwan dollar, New Zealand dollar, Singapore dollar, ...
s.
See also
* Column (database)
References
zh-yue:列 (數據庫)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Row (Database)
Data modeling
Relational model