The New Relational Database Dictionary

Explanation: Given the sample value for relvar P shown in Fig. 1, the RANK invocation returns a relation looking like this—

┌─────┬───────┬───────┬────────┬────────┬────┐│ PNO │ PNAME │ COLOR │ WEIGHT │ CITY   │ N2 │├═════┼───────┼───────┼────────┼────────┼────┤│ P6  │ Cog   │ Red   │  19.0  │ London │  1 ││ P2  │ Bolt  │ Green │  17.0  │ Paris  │  2 ││ P3  │ Screw │ Blue  │  17.0  │ Oslo   │  2 ││ P4  │ Screw │ Red   │  14.0  │ London │  4 ││ P1  │ Nut   │ Red   │  12.0  │ London │  6 ││ P5  │ Cam   │ Blue  │  12.0  │ Paris  │  6 │└─────┴───────┴───────┴────────┴────────┴────┘

—and the overall result thus looks like this:

┌─────┬───────┬───────┬────────┬────────┐│ PNO │ PNAME │ COLOR │ WEIGHT │ CITY   │├═════┼───────┼───────┼────────┼────────┤│ P6  │ Cog   │ Red   │  19.0  │ London ││ P2  │ Bolt  │ Green │  17.0  │ Paris  ││ P3  │ Screw │ Blue  │  17.0  │ Oslo   │└─────┴───────┴───────┴────────┴────────┘

Note that the cardinality of the result of a given quota query might not be exactly equal to the specified quota; in fact, it might be either less than or greater than that specified quota, depending on the query itself, and depending also on the current values of whatever relvars are involved in that query.

R-table Term used in Codd’s later writings to mean either a relation or a relvar or both, as the context demanded. The “R-” prefix was intended to stress the point that certain ...