Path: newssvr20.news.prodigy.com!newsmst01a.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.com!in.100proofnews.com!in.100proofnews.com!cycny01.gnilink.net!cyclone1.gnilink.net!gnilink.net!wn14feed!worldnet.att.net!216.196.106.140!border1.nntp.sjc.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.sjc.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 07:45:09 -0500 Reply-To: "Laconic2" From: "Laconic2" Newsgroups: comp.databases.theory References: Subject: Re: Teach SELECT DISTINCT first! Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 08:46:05 -0400 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1409 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1409 Message-ID: Lines: 16 NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.60.68.134 X-Trace: sv3-MDM9pZtRg173E8psPTFtmLRJllWcTTdd0R2h1/y9c19rPFyX481gELckZdQMN3SDDXsIvVGRSIGEDLs!pWXirLdhPX2Qs+1XImE2pGn3Em76n58Ogj/Zf9i8IreUy3en49TYKOS7uOkN X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.1 Xref: newssvr20.news.prodigy.com comp.databases.theory:25990 > ah, but it only LOOKs like a relation. that's the gotcha. All tables only LOOK like relations. But some look more like relations than others. In particular, eliminating duplicate rows is a big step towards making the result table LOOK like a relation. Everything inside a computer only looks like what it represents. There aren't really any numbers inside a computer. Only signals and states that represent digits. There aren't really any characters inside a computer. Only codes that represent characters. How much of cyberspace is about representation? All of it.