TUPLE

Etymology

Noun

tuple (plural tuples)

(set theory) A finite sequence of terms.

A tuple is not merely a totally-ordered set because the same element can appear more than once in a tuple: for example, $$(a, b, a)$$ qualifies as a 3-tuple whereas it would not qualify as a totally-ordered set (of cardinality 3), because the set would be $$\{a, b\}$$ where $$a \le b $$ and $$b \le a$$ so that $$a = b$$ ; i.e, it would actually be a one-element set, $$\{a\}$$ , not even just two-element.

(computing) A single row in a relational database.

(computing) A set of comma-separated values passed to a program or operating system as a parameter to a function call.

(computing) In some programming languages, a data type that is similar but distinct from the list data type, whose instances are characterized by having a rather fixed arity, and the elements of which instances can differ from each other by data type. (Note: this definition may overlap with the previous one.)

Synonyms

• (finite sequence of terms): n-tuple (when the sequence contains n terms), ordered pair (when the sequence contains exactly two terms), triple or triplet (when the sequence contains exactly three terms)