Appendix A: Beginner's Guide To Databases; About Databases - MACROMEDIA DREAMWEAVER MX 2004-USING DREAMWEAVER Use Manual

This appendix is intended for Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 users who have little or no
experience working with databases or database connections. It explains general concepts, not
specific procedures. To see how these concepts apply in practice, see the rest of this guide.
The appendix describes how to design a database but not how to create one in an application such
as Microsoft Access or SQL Server. That process is described in the printed or online
documentation that came with your database system.

About databases

The building block of a database is the record. A record is a collection of related data treated as a
single entity. For example, a hockey trading card could be called a record: it brings together the
name, photograph, team, and statistics of one player. Using database terms, each of these related
pieces of information is called a field: each hockey card record has a name field, a photograph field,
a team field, and various player statistics fields.
A collection of records that share the same fields is called a table because this kind of information
can easily be presented in table format: each column represents a field and each row represents a
record. In fact, the word column is synonymous with the word field, and the word row is
synonymous with the word record.
Number LastName FirstName
A database can contain more than one table, each with a unique name. These tables can be related
or independent from one another.
Beginner's Guide to Databases
Fields (columns)
Position Goal
Records
(rows)
APPENDIX A
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