Understanding the Terminology › Column and Row

Column and Row

To access the tables in your database with queries, you need to know their table names. To get to the values in each row, you need to know the column names. A column name is a label for a specific type of information, for instance, NAME or ADDRESS.

The horizontal components of a table are called rows (sometimes called records). Since the columns of a table are defined with a specific sequence, data type, and number of positions, each row of a table has identical column definitions. Rows within a specific table are differentiated from each other by their sequence in the table and by the values assigned to each column.

Column and Row

    ┌──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬─────────────┐
    │   LAST   │   FIRST  │  CITY    │   STATE     │
    ├──────────│──────────│──────────│─────────────┤
    │  SMITH   │  MARY    │ ATLANTA  │  GEORGIA    │
    ├──────────│──────────│──────────│─────────────┤
    │  ALLEN   │  JOE     │ PARIS    │  TEXAS      │  ◄── Row
    ├──────────│──────────│──────────│─────────────┤
    │  WILSON  │  ALICE   │ BAILY    │   TEXAS     │
    └──────────┴──────────┴──────────┴─────────────┘
                       ▲
                       │
                       │
                     Column