record

data, database, programming An ordered set of fields,

usually stored contiguously. The term is used with similar

meaning in several different contexts. In a file, a "record"

probably has some fixed length, in contrast to a "line" which

may have any length and is terminated by some End Of Line

sequence). A database record is also called a "row". In a

spreadsheet it is always called a "row". Some programming

languages use the term to mean a type composed of fields of

several other types (C calls this a "struct").

In all these cases, a record represents an entity with certain

field values.

Fields may be of a fixed width (bits or characters) or

they may be separated by a delimiter character, often

comma (CSV) or HT (TSV).

In a database the list of values of a given field from all

records is called a column.

(2002-03-22)