DATABASE TERMS

Database Management System (DBMS) - A collection of programs that allow you

to store, modify and extract information from a database.

Database - A set of linked tables

Entity - Any thing or person that has characteristics.

Attribute - A Characteristic of an entity.

Field - Part of a record. It contains a single piece of information.

Column - A set of data values of the same data type. Also known as a field or an
attribute.

Record - Contains information about a particular individual item or entity

Row - A data record.

Tuple - Another name for a row or record

Table – A collection of records that belong together.

Relation - Another name for a table.

Relationship - A link between two tables that allows records in one table to be
joined with records from another.

Query - A question that can be answered by using the data stored in the database.

Report - An easy and elegant way to present the contents of a table or query as a
document.

Candidate Key - A field that is considered a possibility for becoming the Primary
Key.

Primary Key - A field whose values are unique so can be used to access each
record individually.

Alternate Key – Any Candidate field that was not used as a primary key

Secondary Key - Another name for an Alternate Key

Foreign Key - A field that appears in a table where it doesn’t really belong, but it
enables two tables to be linked.

Composite Key – A combination of keys used to create a unique primary key