Comment by kelnos
2 months ago
Schema is an abstraction over the file structure. Different RDBMSes will use different file layouts for a given schema. The same RDBMS may even have different engines that use different file layouts, or may change file layout between major versions.
"Determines" is too weak: it must be "is". If "schema is file layout" is true, then sure, a schema is a file layout. But if it is merely "schema determines file layout", then no, a schema is not a file layout.
Abstractions are notoriously leaky in DBMSes. First off, they don't even use the same SQL spec. Give me a schema that uses anything Postgres-specific, and I can tell you what the bytes on disk look like for a given row or index.
I think it's a moot point anyway because the language is broader than just files in the filesystem sense, which is basically what the court said too.