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by skybrian 2460 days ago
The value in a table at a particular time is a relation, but so is the value of a view, the result of a subquery, the result of a select statement, and the value represented by the contents of a CSV file. In some API's this is called a row set.

It's essentially a table-shaped value. Conceptually it's immutable, and relational algebra is about calculating new values from old ones. A select statement does this too.