 | Term | Definition |
| |
Attribute |
Characteristic of a property or entity |
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Field |
Another name for an attribute, or column |
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Database |
A structure that can store information about multiple types of entities, the attributes of those entities, and the relationship among the entities |
| |
Database management system (DBMS) |
a program, or collection of programs, through which users interact with a database |
| |
Entity |
A person, place, object, event, or idea for which you want to store and process data |
| |
Integrity |
A database has integrity if it satisfies all established integrity contraints |
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Integrity constraint |
A rule that must be followed by data in the database |
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Redundancy |
Duplication of data or storing of data in more than one place |
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Relational model |
A two dimensional table-style collection of data in which (1) all entries have a single value (2)each column has a dinstinct name (3) all the values of a column are values of the attribute that is identified by the column name (4) the order of the columns is immaterial (5) each row is distinct (6) order of rows is immaterial |
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Relationship |
An association between entities |
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Primary key |
The column or collection of columns that uniquely identifies a given row in that table |
| |
Relational algebra |
A theoretical way of manipulating a relational database |
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Relational database |
A collection of relations |
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Tuple |
A record or row in a table |
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Alternate key |
Keys that weren't chosen as primary keys (but could have been) |
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Candidate key |
Keys that could potentially be primary keys |
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Determinant |
Any column that determines another column |
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Foreign key |
A column or collection of columns in a table whose value is required either to match the value of a primary key in a table or to be null |
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Repeating Group |
Multiple entries for a single record |
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Functional dependence |
When a value for one attribute (column) is associated with exactly one value of another. |
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Partial functional dependency |
dependencies on only a portion of the primary key |
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Update anomaly |
An update problem that can occur in a database as a result of a faulty design |
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Physical-level design |
The step during database design in which a design for a given DBMS is produced from the final information-level design |
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Data independence |
A property that lets you change the database without changing the programs that access the database |
