CS 280 - Intro to CS for Non-majors - 09/29/05

Finish HTML and Begin Database

Objectives

• Practice with FTP again to reload a web page
• Take just a few minutes to review lossy vs lossless conversion
• Learn some terminology related to databases

Database

An organized collection of data used for storage, retrieval, and update.

DBMS

Database Management System

Table

All the data related to a database entity type

Entity

A person, place, or thing about which we are collecting and storing data.

Record/row/tuple

All of the information related to a single individual of an entity.

Field/column/attribute

A single piece of data in a database.

Primary key

The handle that we use to directly access a single row in a table.

Index

An alternate key to access rows in a table.

Property

In defining objects in a database, a property describes one aspect of the object.

Data type

The domain of values associated with a column.

Name

A unique identifier associated with a table and field.

Physical database

The actual tables in which data is stored.

Logical database

Views provided to simplify working with the data.

Database schema

The declaration of the entities and relationships in a database.

Creating and Filling a Database

1. Create a new database called, Whales
NOTE:
• The file in which the db is stored is Whales.mdb.
• When you are using the db, there is a lockfile created, whales.ldb
• The ldb file is NOT the database.
2. Save your file onto the C:/temp directory or on your memory stick.
3. Create a new table, Whales, in Design view.
4. Enter each of the fields in the Design view. Use these datatypes:



Name	Data type	Length or property
commonName	text	50 characters
scientificName	text	50 characters
food	text	50 characters
weight	number	long integer
lengthRange	text	50 characters
dateAdded	date	short date
picture	OLE Object



5. Make the key the common name of the whale.
6. Now go into Grid view and add data for the five whales in your book.
Try:
• Putting text into a number field.
• Putting a date into a text field.
• Putting a number into a date field.
• A duplicate whale name into the table.
7. IF TIME: Try adding some pictures. The site below has free whale pictures personal use. Free Whale Pictures
8. Save your database, close it, then upload it to the Blackboard assignment.

Updated 09/26/05