Re: Academic name for associative array when used to pair column names with data

On Tuesday, March 18, 2014 7:47:26 PM UTC-7, william.d..._at_gmail.com wrote:

> Is there a formal name for an associative array when it specifically contains a pairing of column names with data?

> { { a, 2x1 }, { b, 2x2 }, { c, 2x3 }, { d, 2x4 }, { e, 2x5 } }

It's just "tuple". Since neither relations (tables) nor tuples (rows) are ordered in their attributes (columns), it is convenient and typical to characterize relations as sets of tuples and tuples as sets of name-value pairs. This also has the benefit that a tuple contains its name-value pairings after having been extracted from a relation.

(It's also a "function" from attribute (column) name to data value.)

philip Received on Wed Mar 19 2014 - 07:23:02 CET