The earlier definition of relations implies certain characteristic that makes a relation different from a file or a table.Some of these characters are :-
Ordering of Tuples in a Relation: A relation is defined as a set of tuples. Mathematically, elements of a set have no order among them; hence tuples in a relation do not have any particular order. However in a file, records are graphically stored on disk so there always is an order among the records. This ordering indicates first, second, and last records in the file. Similarly, when we display a relation as a table, the rows are displayed in a certain order.Tuple ordering is no part of a relation definition, because a relation attempts to represent facts at a logical or abstract level. Many logical orders can be specified on a relation, for example, tuples in this STUDENT relation in Table 1.0 could be logically ordered by values of Name, SSN, Age, or some other attribute. The definition of a relation does not specify any order, there is no preference for one logical ordering over another.
Ordering of values within a tuple, and an alternative definition of a relation: According to the preceding definition of a relation, an n-tuple is an ordered list of n values, so the ordering of values in a tuple and hence of attributes in a relation schema.
An alternative definition of relation can be given, making the ordering of value in a tuple unnecessary. In this definition, a relation schema is a set of attributes and relation ( ) is a finite set of mappings where each tuple is a mapping from R to D, and D is the union of attribute domains; that is,