Example:Drawing a relation

Although it is hard to draw diagrams of general relations, we can draw a binary relation the same way we draw functions:

However, because binary relations only relate one set [math]A [/math] to itself, we can draw them more compactly by only including one copy of [math]A [/math].

Here, an arrow from [math]x [/math] to [math]y [/math] indicates [math]x R y [/math]. This diagram represents the relation [math]R := \{(a,b), (b,c), (c,c), (d,e), (e,e), (e,d)\} [/math] on the set [math]A := \{a,b,c,d,e,f\} [/math].