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Asked: 2026-05-11T11:32:57+00:00

I’m having a slight terminology meltdown as I design some classes. In Sql Server

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I’m having a slight terminology meltdown as I design some classes. In Sql Server 2005, ‘schema’ refers to a namespace, and an organizational system for database objects. But for relational databases in general, ‘schema’ means the DDL design of tables, fields, etc. If I’m right about this, it explains a lot of the dissonance when I am trying to read microsoft documentation, and understand the various data access APIs. Can you explain what’s going on here, is there really that much difference in the definition of ‘schema’?

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  1. Yes, the word ‘schema’ unfortunately has become overloaded among database vendors.

    ‘SQL-99 Complete, Really‘ says:

    An SQL Catalog is a named group of Schemas. …

    An SQL Schema is a named group of SQL-data that is owned by a particular . … Every Schema Object has a name that must be unique (among Objects of its name class) within the Schema it belongs to. The Schema Object name classes are:

    • Base tables and Views
    • Domains and UDTs
    • Constraints and Assertions
    • Character sets
    • Collations
    • Translations
    • Triggers
    • SQL-server Modules
    • SQL-invoked routines

    Oracle uses ‘schema’ and ‘user’ interchangeably, which always makes my eyebrows raise.

    MySQL uses SCHEMA as a synonym for DATABASE.

    PostgreSQL uses ‘schema’ but uses ‘database’ to refer to what standard SQL calls a ‘catalog.’

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