When we talk about a database, we must differentiate between the database ( ),which is the logical design of the database, and the database ( ), which is a snapshot of the data in the database at a given instant in time. The concept of a relation corresponds to the programming-language notion of a variable, while the concept of a relation schema corresponds to the programming-language notion of type definition. In general, a relation schema consists of a list of( )and their corresponding domains. The concept of a relation instance corresponds to the programming-language notion of a value of a ( ) . The value of a given variable may change with time; similarly the contents of a relation instance may change with time as the relation is updated. In contrast, the ( ) оf a relation does not generally change.