An ORdered set of fields, usually stORed contiguously. The term is used with similar meaning in several different contexts. In a file, a "recORd" probably has some fixed length, in contrast to a "line" which may have any length and is terminated by some End Of Line sequence). A database recORd is also called a "row". In a spreadsheet it is always called a "row". Some programming languages use the term to mean a type composed of fields of several other types (C calls this a "struct"). In all these cases, a recORd represents an entity with certain field values. Fields may be of a fixed width (bits ORcharacters) OR they may be separated by a delimiter character, often comma (CSV) ORHT (TSV). In a database the list of values of a given field from all recORds is called a column. (2002-03-22)