Now that you know what a database is, you might be wondering how exactly these things work. Databases are divided into three main parts:

1. Data:

Of course, as databases are specially designed to organize data, data is one of the key parts of a database! As you probably already know, data is a small bit of information. It could be in the form of pictures, text, numeric values, media, or audio samples. Any information that you gather can be considered data. For example, pretend that you are growing sunflowers in science class. Your teacher has told you to measure the plant to see how much it has grown. Your measurements are a type of data!

The data is the information that is placed in a database. Here is a database that we are all familiar with- an address book. Pretend that you have an address book that is set up to resemble a table:

Name	Address	Phone Number	E-mail
John Cook	255 Main St.	543-7885	jcook@aol.com
Matthew Smith	43 First Ave.	423-4567	matt@yahoo.com
Emily Coffey	2 Meadow Ln.	978-2346	emilyc@hotmail.com
Mary France	43 Strawberry Rd.	231-5926	mfrance@aol.com

 

All of the names, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses are called data.

2. Field:

Fields are where the data goes when it is entered into a database. Recall the address book that we mentioned above. Each of the columns would be called a field. The words in bold are called Field Names, because they describe the information that is to be contained in the field. All fields can contain different types of information. For example, the "Name" field above contains the names of the people, while the "Address" field contains the people's addresses. Some fields can contain text, some numeric values, some images, some a short movie clip, some an audio file- the list goes on and on.

Sometimes, you can control the type of data that can be placed in a certain field. For example, say you want to limit the "Name" field in the above address book to only letters. There are "attribute" tags you can add to each field that restrict the kind of data that is to be placed in the field. For example, there are "attribute" tags that might say that you can only place letters in a field and other "attribute" tags that might say you can only place numbers in the field.

There is also another type of attribute tag that can limit the number of characters that you can place in a field. For example, a certain attribute tag might say that you can only type in a maximum of 10 letters in a certain field.

Finally, there is a type of attribute tag that is called "required, optional, or calculated." These attribute tags control the amount of data to be placed in a certain field. If a field is given the "required" attribute tag, that means that the field is mandatory- meaning that you must put data in the field. You cannot leave it empty. On the other hand, a field with an "optional" attribute tag does not have to be filled in. Finally, the "calculated" attribute tag means that the user is not supposed to fill it in. The computer will later fill in this field after it has performed the necessary calculations.

3. Records

Just as fields would be the columns in the address book above, the records would be the rows. If you take a look at the address book that we mentioned above, a record would be a row of data.

However, keep in mind that the first row is NOT called a record because it contains the field names. Thus, records begin with the second row.

Database Files:

As you might know, computer files are collections of data. For example, the word document I typed this article on would be a text file. The picture of my cat that I scanned onto my computer would be saved as a graphic file, while the MP3 that I downloaded off the Internet would be stored in an MP3 file. There are also special types of files that are used to store the data in databases. These are called database files.

Database files are composed of all of the fields, records, and data that are found in a typical database. The more files that are found in a single database, the larger the database will be!

Now that you know what the parts of a database are, head over to the next section: Types of Databases

What is a Database|Parts of a Database|Types of Databases|How Databases Work

Cyber-Club sections:Site map|History|computer Parts|Networks|Databases|How it works|Biographies|The Game|interactive|Citations|Terminology Dictionary