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 Entire forum ➜ MUSHclient ➜ Perlscript ➜ Databases

Databases

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Posted by Microphone   (8 posts)  Bio
Date Mon 17 Mar 2003 03:29 AM (UTC)
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What exactly is a database and what does it do? What can I use them for? Personally, I'm an idiot. I know pretty much next to nothing in programming.
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Posted by Nick Gammon   Australia  (23,133 posts)  Bio   Forum Administrator
Date Reply #1 on Mon 17 Mar 2003 04:17 AM (UTC)
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A database is a collection of related data.

A database is a bit like a spreadsheet - it has columns of things (eg. name, phone number, age) and each row is an instance of that data (eg. one person's information).

Databases can have more than one "table" - each table is really like a spreadsheet as I described above, and you can relate tables together. For example, if you buy something from a supplier, they might have your name and address in one table, and your orders in a different table (as you will probably have more than one order).

The useful thing about a database is you can add things to it without having to "save a file" like you might with a word processor. It therefore lends itself to adding a small amount to a large collection, or having multiple people updating it at once.

- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com
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