In computer science, a record (also called a structure, struct, or compound data) is a basic data structure. Records in a database or spreadsheet are usually called "rows". A record is a collection of fields, possibly of different data types, typically in fixed number and sequence. The fields of a record may also be called members, particularly in object-oriented programming; fields may also be called elements, though these risk confusion with the elements of a collection. For example, a date could be stored as a record containing a numeric year field, a month field represented as a string, and a numeric day-of-month field. A personnel record might contain a name, a salary, and a rank. A Circle record might contain a center and a radius—in this instance, the center itself might be represented as a point record containing x and y coordinates.

Learn about how to use record types, build hierarchies of records, and when to choose records over classes.