What's the difference between a tuple and a row in Postgres?

postgresql heroku row tuples
Bailey Smith picture Bailey Smith · Nov 5, 2013 · Viewed 18.3k times · Source

My general understanding is that a tuple is a row. However, I'm using the Postgres dev plan in Heroku. It has a limit of 10,000 rows. I have over 100,000 entries for n_live_tup. How can this be?

Answer

Erwin Brandstetter picture Erwin Brandstetter · Nov 5, 2013

Tuple is the abstract term, row is for the concrete implementation.
Just like relation versus table.

Otherwise the terms are often used meaning the same. You can find more in Wikipedia for each of them.

No idea what's behind the Heroku policies. But the numbers for n_live_tup in pg_stat_user_tables or pgstattuple mean you have that many live rows in your table.
More about n_live_tup under this related question on dba.SE.

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