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Column ○꠹｜Definition｜1st｜20251119205401-00-⌔
Column (database)
In a relational database, a column is a set of data values of a particular type, one value for each row of a table.1 A column may contain text values, numbers, or even pointers to files in the operating system.2 Columns typically contain simple types, though some relational database systems allow columns to contain more complex data types, such as whole documents, images, or even video clips.3 A column can also be called an attribute.
Each row would provide a data value for each column and would then be understood as a single structured data value. For example, a database that represents company contact information might have the following columns: ID, Company Name, Address Line 1, Address Line 2, City, and Postal Code. More formally, a row is a tuple containing a specific value for each column,4 for example: (1234, ‘Big Company Inc.’, ‘123 East Example Street’, ‘456 West Example Drive’, ‘Big City’, 98765).
Printed 2026-06-28.
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Link to original Footnotes
The term “column” also has equivalent applications in other, more generic contexts. See e.g., Flat file database, Table (information). ↩
“Columnar databases in a big data environment”. dummies.com (Big dummies book). Retrieved 2015-11-05. ↩
“What is Database Column? - Definition from Techopedia”. Techopedia.com. Retrieved 2015-11-05. ↩
Rosenberg, Burton. “Relational Databases”. University of Miami. Retrieved 2021-02-26. ↩
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