Tuple - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 00:30

Tuple
In mathematics, a tuple is a finite sequence or ordered list of numbers or, more generally,
mathematical objects, which are called the elements of the tuple. An n-tuple is a tuple of n
elements, where n is a non-negative integer. There is only one 0-tuple, called the empty tuple. A
1-tuple and a 2-tuple are commonly called a singleton and an ordered pair, respectively. The
term "infinite tuple" is occasionally used for "infinite sequences".

Tuples are usually written by listing the elements within parentheses "( )" and separated by
commas; for example, (2, 7, 4, 1, 7) denotes a 5-tuple. Other types of brackets are sometimes
used, although they may have a different meaning.[a]

An n-tuple can be formally defined as the image of a function that has the set of the n first
natural numbers as its domain. Tuples may be also defined from ordered pairs by a recurrence
starting from ordered pairs; indeed, an n-tuple can be identified with the ordered pair of its
(n − 1) first elements and its nth element.
In computer science, tuples come in many forms. Most typed functional programming
languages implement tuples directly as product types,[1] tightly associated with algebraic data
types, pattern matching, and destructuring assignment.[2] Many programming languages offer
an alternative to tuples, known as record types, featuring unordered elements accessed by
label.[3] A few programming languages combine ordered tuple product types and unordered
record types into a single construct, as in C structs and Haskell records. Relational databases
may formally identify their rows (records) as tuples.

Tuples also occur in relational algebra; when programming the semantic web with the Resource
Description Framework (RDF); in linguistics;[4] and in philosophy.[5]

Etymology
The term originated as an abstraction of the sequence: single, couple/double, triple, quadruple,
quintuple, sextuple, septuple, octuple, ..., n-tuple, ..., where the prefixes are taken from the
Latin names of the numerals. The unique 0-tuple is called the null tuple or empty tuple. A
1-tuple is called a single (or singleton), a 2-tuple is called an ordered pair or couple, and a
3-tuple is called a triple (or triplet). The number n can be any nonnegative integer. For example,
a complex number can be represented as a 2-tuple of reals, a quaternion can be represented as a
4-tuple, an octonion can be represented as an 8-tuple, and a sedenion can be represented as a
16-tuple.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuple Page 1 of 7
Tuple - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 00:30

Although these uses treat -uple as the suffix, the original suffix was -ple as in "triple" (three-
fold) or "decuple" (ten-fold). This originates from medieval Latin plus (meaning "more") related
to Greek -πλοῦς, which replaced the classical and late antique -plex (meaning "folded"), as in
"duplex".[6][b]

Properties
The general rule for the identity of two n-tuples is

if and only if .

Thus a tuple has properties that distinguish it from a set:

1. A tuple may contain multiple instances of the same element, so

tuple ; but set .
2. Tuple elements are ordered: tuple , but set .
3. A tuple has a finite number of elements, while a set or a multiset may have an infinite
number of elements.

Definitions
There are several definitions of tuples that give them the properties described in the previous
section.

Tuples as functions
The -tuple may be identified as the empty function. For the -tuple may
be identified with the (surjective) function

with domain

and with codomain

that is defined at by

That is, is the function defined by

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuple Page 2 of 7
Tuple - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 00:30

in which case the equality

necessarily holds.

Tuples as sets of ordered pairs

Functions are commonly identified with their graphs, which is a certain set of ordered pairs.
Indeed, many authors use graphs as the definition of a function. Using this definition of
"function", the above function can be defined as:

Tuples as nested ordered pairs

Another way of modeling tuples in Set Theory is as nested ordered pairs. This approach
assumes that the notion of ordered pair has already been defined.

1. The 0-tuple (i.e. the empty tuple) is represented by the empty set .
2. An n-tuple, with n > 0, can be defined as an ordered pair of its first entry and an (n − 1)-
tuple (which contains the remaining entries when n > 1):

This definition can be applied recursively to the (n − 1)-tuple:

Thus, for example:

A variant of this definition starts "peeling off" elements from the other end:

1. The 0-tuple is the empty set .

2. For n > 0:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuple Page 3 of 7
Tuple - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 00:30

This definition can be applied recursively:

Thus, for example:

Tuples as nested sets

Using Kuratowski's representation for an ordered pair, the second definition above can be
reformulated in terms of pure set theory:

1. The 0-tuple (i.e. the empty tuple) is represented by the empty set ;
2. Let be an n-tuple , and let . Then,
. (The right arrow, , could be read as "adjoined with".)
In this formulation:

n-tuples of m-sets
In discrete mathematics, especially combinatorics and finite probability theory, n-tuples arise in
the context of various counting problems and are treated more informally as ordered lists of
length n.[7] n-tuples whose entries come from a set of m elements are also called arrangements

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuple Page 4 of 7
Tuple - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 00:30

with repetition, permutations of a multiset and, in some non-English literature, variations

n
with repetition. The number of n-tuples of an m-set is m . This follows from the combinatorial
rule of product.[8] If S is a finite set of cardinality m, this number is the cardinality of the n-fold
Cartesian power S × S × … × S. Tuples are elements of this product set.

Type theory
In type theory, commonly used in programming languages, a tuple has a product type; this fixes
not only the length, but also the underlying types of each component. Formally:

and the projections are term constructors:

The tuple with labeled elements used in the relational model has a record type. Both of these
types can be defined as simple extensions of the simply typed lambda calculus.[9]

The notion of a tuple in type theory and that in set theory are related in the following way: If we
consider the natural model of a type theory, and use the Scott brackets to indicate the semantic
interpretation, then the model consists of some sets (note: the use of italics here
that distinguishes sets from types) such that:

and the interpretation of the basic terms is:

The n-tuple of type theory has the natural interpretation as an n-tuple of set theory:[10]

The unit type has as semantic interpretation the 0-tuple.

See also
Arity
Coordinate vector
Exponential object
Formal language
Multidimensional Expressions (OLAP)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuple Page 5 of 7
Tuple - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 00:30

Prime k-tuple
Relation (mathematics)
Sequence
Tuplespace
Tuple Names

Notes
a. Square brackets are used for matrices, including row vectors. Braces are used for sets.
Each programming language has its own convention for the different brackets.
b. Compare the etymology of ploidy, from the Greek for -fold.

References
1. "Algebraic data type - HaskellWiki" (https://wiki.haskell.org/Algebraic_data_type).
wiki.haskell.org.
2. "Destructuring assignment" (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refer
ence/Operators/Destructuring_assignment). MDN Web Docs. 18 April 2023.
3. "Does JavaScript Guarantee Object Property Order?" (https://stackoverflow.com/q/5525795
). Stack Overflow.
4. Matthews, P. H., ed. (January 2007). "N-tuple" (http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.109
3/acref/9780199202720.001.0001/acref-9780199202720-e-2276). The Concise Oxford
Dictionary of Linguistics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199202720. Retrieved 1 May
2015.
5. Blackburn, Simon (1994). "ordered n-tuple". The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (https://bo
oks.google.com/books?id=Mno8CwAAQBAJ). Oxford guidelines quick reference (3 ed.).
Oxford: Oxford University Press (published 2016). p. 342. ISBN 9780198735304. Retrieved
2017-06-30. "ordered n-tuple[:] A generalization of the notion of an [...] ordered pair to
sequences of n objects."
6. OED, s.v. "triple", "quadruple", "quintuple", "decuple"
7. D'Angelo & West 2000, p. 9
8. D'Angelo & West 2000, p. 101
9. Pierce, Benjamin (2002). Types and Programming Languages (https://archive.org/details/typ
esprogramming00pier_207). MIT Press. pp. 126 (https://archive.org/details/typesprogrammi
ng00pier_207/page/n149)–132. ISBN 0-262-16209-1.
10. Steve Awodey, From sets, to types, to categories, to sets (http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/
awodey/preprints/stcsFinal.pdf), 2009, preprint

Sources
D'Angelo, John P.; West, Douglas B. (2000), Mathematical Thinking/Problem-Solving and
Proofs (2nd ed.), Prentice-Hall, ISBN 978-0-13-014412-6

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuple Page 6 of 7
Tuple - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 00:30

Keith Devlin, The Joy of Sets. Springer Verlag, 2nd ed., 1993, ISBN 0-387-94094-4, pp. 7–8
Abraham Adolf Fraenkel, Yehoshua Bar-Hillel, Azriel Lévy, Foundations of school Set
Theory (https://books.google.com/books?id=ah2bwOwc06MC), Elsevier Studies in Logic
Vol. 67, 2nd Edition, revised, 1973, ISBN 0-7204-2270-1, p. 33
Gaisi Takeuti, W. M. Zaring, Introduction to Axiomatic Set Theory, Springer GTM 1, 1971,
ISBN 978-0-387-90024-7, p. 14
George J. Tourlakis, Lecture Notes in Logic and Set Theory. Volume 2: Set Theory (https://b
ooks.google.com/books?as_isbn=9780521753746), Cambridge University Press, 2003,
ISBN 978-0-521-75374-6, pp. 182–193

External links
The dictionary definition of tuple at Wiktionary

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tuple&oldid=1262807542"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuple Page 7 of 7