Database Tables

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A table is a place to store data about persons, places, things or ideas.

To do this, the object must be described in way that a computer program can manipulate.

Once it has been decided what attributes of the object are useful,
a table can be designed that will store each attribute that describes a similar object

A table keeps all of the attributes describing a single object together in a record.

This record describes the address for one person, Fred Flintstone :

Flintstone

Fred

123 Granite Way

Bedrock

CA

Each record is stored in a row on the table.

Each row therefore contains a record that describes one object,
and each column describes one attribute about that object.

In the table below, there are two rows, or records,
one for each of two people :

Flintstone	Fred	123 Granite Way	Bedrock	CA
Rubble	Barney	122 Granite Way	Bedrock	CA

Note that the same data is stored for each person in the table.

In other words, if we wanted to store a telephone number for Barney,
we would have to modify the table’s design to include a telephone number for everyone.

Here is the same table, described for you :

	Field Names
	LastName	FirstName	Address	City	State
Record à	Flintstone	Fred	123 Granite Way	Bedrock	CA
Record à	Rubble	Barney	122 Granite Way	Bedrock	CA

Note that each row of data describes a single person :
the first row describes our friend, Fred, and the second describes Barney.

More rows can be added to the table to store data to describe other people,
and each row would store the same data for each person in the table.

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