Re: domain theory and databases

> > > is there any good article/textbook describing the relationship between
> > > (mathematical) domain theory and the domains used in (relational)
> > > databases?
> >
> > What is the difference between a set and a domain?
>
> The elements of a set have no order, with a domain you have the
> concept of an ordering of some kind on the set.
> http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?domain+theory

The definition of a mathematical domain at the above site seems slightly different than the definition of domain in the relational data model(rdm). In rdm, a domain seems to be a set of "scalar" values that are in no particular order. In constrast, the mathematical domain seems to be a set of ordered values. If the values represent pig, banana, book, etc, how could they be logically ordered. It is true they could be ordered by their name, but they would be ordered differently in different languages thus the imposed order seems to be arbitrary. In the general/natural case, aren't the values of a domain unordered? Received on Fri May 16 2003 - 18:38:44 CEST