On Thu, 2011-08-04 at 14:20 -0500, Kevin Grittner wrote:
> Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> wrote:
>
> > According to scientific-ish database literature, a table is a
> > relation and vice versa.
>
> I've generally understood the terms more like what is described near
> the top of this page:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relation_%28database%29
>
> "In SQL, [...] a relation variable is called a table."
The SQL spec also uses "table" to refer to a *value*. So we certainly
can't turn that around and say "a table in SQL is a relation variable".
It's all a bit loose anyway, because SQL tables aren't really relations
or relation variables (for instance, they can contain duplicates).
Regards,Jeff Davis