Questions tagged [terminology]
Clarification and disambiguation of terminology in order to focus on clear, consistent, distinct, and easily recognized usages for databases and database technology.
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Why is COALESCE not a function?
The docs insist that ISNULL is a function, but COALESCE is not. Specifically, they say
The ISNULL function and the COALESCE expression
If I put on my Lisp hat, I can think of COALESCE as a macro and ...
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1
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What is a "statement batch"?
I know what a statement is and I know what a batch is, but what is a "statement batch"? T-SQL's documentation uses the term in two places that I've found.
If a TRY...CATCH construct is not ...
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What does "edge" mean when talking about Azure SQL?
In this Azure SQL intro page, they state:
A consistent SQL experience from edge to cloud
Get a unified experience across your entire SQL portfolio and a full range of deployment options from edge to ...
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Is there a difference between a "join table" and a "bridge table"?
I usually describe intermediate tables as "join tables", but I recently heard them referred to as "bridge tables".
Is there a difference between the two terms? I've researched the ...
- 437
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1
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A way to refer to a set as a whole
I am not a specialist in databases, and I only need to clarify a terminological question that I have.
Assume we have a table containing the field F. F gets its values from the set S, a collection of ...
- 131
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1
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What does the term "server" mean in this context?
I am currently familiarizing myself with SQL Server security. During the process, I came across the following text passage.
Windows-level principals are generally domain and local server user ...
- 11
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2
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301
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Why are scalar functions special? A case study of trying to understand database terminology as a beginner
I am trying to learn the basics of databases, but I am finding the terminology especially impenetrable compared to other things I have learned. Most of the database tutorials and documentation I have ...
- 125
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How to automaticaly create entries in a parent table before filling child table? What is that called in db terminology?
What I want is for inserting the string name of a publication in a child table to associate with the PK of the publication in the publications table. For example, let's say I have a table of counties ...
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Terminology for Specific Kind of One-to-Many Relationship
This question regards how a one-to-many row might "belong" to a different row and what exactly to call it. I might be asking for a term that does not exist.
Please see the below two tables. ...
- 121
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6
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Is there a generic term for tables and views?
I am looking for a generic term, e.g. for a database abstraction, that includes all tabular data structures like database tables, views, tabular query results aso.
As far as I understand, 'entity' is ...
- 341
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Trigger uses a procedure or a function?
PostgreSQL version 10 and before use the term "Trigger Procedure" (https://www.postgresql.org/docs/10/plpgsql-trigger.html). But later versions use the term "Trigger Function".
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359
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Why is SQL not considered a programming language?
If a database is just a computer system that implements a database management system, and we use SQL to tell it what to do, why don't we consider SQL to be a programming langauge?
From Wikipedia:
A ...
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2
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635
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Zero/NULL Case Trick
In the book Getting Started with SQL, Thomas Nield talks about a technique he calls the zero/null case trick:
There is a simple but powerful tool that can apply different filtering
conditions to ...
- 1,477
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What's the difference between Conditionals and Predicates
I am having difficulties finding what the actual difference between "conditionals" and "predicates" are in the context of SQL and Relational Database Management Systems. Do they ...
- 523
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Has the definition of vertical scaling changed - and if so what do we call it
15 years ago when we were figuring out how to scale SQL databases to huge systems, we used the term Horizontal scaling to mean split up your tables so that the same schema existed on multiple machines ...
