The Relational Model: Structure

• The "relation" in relational comes from mathematics
• Not "relationship"
• A relation is basically an ordered set with N elements
• disclaimer: I was a music major
• A relation consists of a heading and body
• The heading defines the relation's attributes
• Attributes have a name and a data type
• The body contains 0 or more tuples
• Each tuple has the set of attributes defined by the heading