Table Rows versus Records
Is it rows or records?
Is it a row or is it a record?
Row is a more accurate term. Some databases use the term record to describe a row, but they do have slightly different meanings. However, the terms are often used interchangeably.
To alter data in a table, you use UPDATE table_name. Specify which values you want to change with SET field_name = value, and add a WHERE condition to limit the table rows updated.
Comparing Database Terms
SQL Server developers generally refer to database elements as tables, rows, and columns when discussing the SQL Data Defi nition Language (DDL) layer or physical schema and sometimes use the terms entity, tuple, and attribute when discussing the logical design. The rest of this book uses the SQL terms (table, row, and column),
but this chapter is devoted to the theory behind the design, so the relational algebra terms (entity, tuple, and attribute) are also used.
A table row is a collection of columns that comprise an information unit. A record is a representation of an object. The specifics of the distinction between rows and records are best left to the theorists. It can be confusing though. For example, query results are stored in a
recordset object, implying it is storing a set of records. However, it's really storing a result set, which by its definition, represents all the rows and columns resulting from a query. The following is right out of Microsoft documentation on the recordset object: "As its name
implies, the Recordset object has features that you can use, depending on your query constraints, for retrieving and displaying a set of database rows, or records." For practical purposes, they're the same thing.
