Re: What does 'schema' mean ?

Neil Saunders <n(dot)j(dot)saunders(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
>> here's another one: what do database people mean by 'schema' ?

> So basically, the design of your database.

Just to confuse matters, the SQL language also uses SCHEMA to mean
a specific kind of database entity, which probably would have been
better called NAMESPACE.

Q: What does your database schema look like?
A: There are forty-two tables in four schemas, containing ...

People also speak of the schema of an individual table, for example,
meaning the set of columns it has, what indexes it has, and so on
(more or less the info that psql's "\d table" command shows).

The word's a tad overloaded, but all of these usages seem to be
pretty firmly established.

regards, tom lane