Tuple (Database)

In a relational database, a tuple contains all the data for an individual record. For example, in a database containing client contact information, the fields may be categories such as name, phone number, email address and mailing address, while a tuple for that database could be:

In mathematics, a tuple is an ordered list of elements. Related to this is an n-tuple, which in set theory is a collection (sequence) of "n" elements. Given this, it might be more properly said that tuples are implemented as records even though the terms are commonly used interchangeably.