# Glossary

accessor

  Refers to an `Accessor` object

column name

  The name given to a column. In the follow example, the column name is `age`.

      class SimpleTable(tables.Table):
          age = tables.Column()

empty value

  An empty value is synonymous with “no value”. Columns have an `empty_values` attribute that contains values that are considered empty. It’s a way to declare which values from the database correspond to null/blank/missing etc.

order by alias

  A prefixed column name that describes how a column should impact the order of data within the table. This allows the implementation of how a column affects ordering to be abstracted, which is useful (e.g. in query strings).

      class ExampleTable(tables.Table):
          name = tables.Column(order_by=("first_name", "last_name"))

  In this example `-name` and `name` are valid order by aliases. In a query string you might then have `?order=-name`.

table

  The traditional concept of a table. i.e. a grid of rows and columns containing data.

view

  A Django view.

record

  A single Python object used as the data for a single row.

render

  The act of serializing a `Table` into HTML.

template

  A Django template.

table data

  An iterable of records that `Table` uses to populate its rows.