Relational Databases

Relational database

data stored in tables

must put data into the correct tables
define relationship between tables
primary key
Standard Database Notation
EMPLOYEES(EmployeeID, Surname, Forename)

Creating a database file

Design the record format for a table, considering:
the order of the fields;
the name of each field;
the data type for each field.
Text (also referred to as Character or Alphanumeric);
Number (integer, or real with a specified number of decimal
points);
Date (in a number of different formats);
Yes/No (or True/False);
Memo (for writing notes about a client, for example);

For some types of field, such as a text field, the field length is
important.

Importance of Data types

Certain field types are automatically validated when the user
enters data.

If you have specified the field as a text field, no automatic validation

is possible.

If a field is defined as currency or numeric, no non-numeric

characters allowed
A telephone number should not be numeric because it may
require a space or hyphen
Number fields are held differently inside the computer from
text fields, and if the field will be involved in any type of
calculation, it MUST be defined as numeric (or date, or
currency)
The length specified for a text field should also be chosen
carefully and documented for future reference

Primary key
Each record in a database file needs to be given a
unique identifier - the primary key.
It needs to be carefully chosen;

Surname, for example, is no use as an identifier.

MS Access has an Autonumber data type which generates
unique identifiers automatically

The primary key sometimes consists of more than one

field: for example several stores in a national chain may

each have a store number, and each store may have
Departments 1,2,3 etc.
To identify a particular department in a particular store, the
primary key would be composed of both Store number and
Department number. Solving the flat file problems

Hierarchy of data
BIT
All data is stored in a computers memory or storage devices in the form of
binary digits or bits. A bit can be either ON of OFF representing 1 or 0.

BYTE
is a group of 8 bits. One byte can represent one character or, in different
contexts, other data such as a sound, part of a picture etc.

FIELD
is a group of characters. e.g. data held about a person may be split into many
fields including ID Number, Surname, Initials, Title, Street, Town, etc

RECORD
is a group of fields holding all the information about one person or item

FILE
a collection of records. A stock file will contain a record for each item of
stock, and so on.

DATABASE
may consist of many different files, linked in such a way that information can
be retrieved from several files at once.