March 2003
Beginner
672 pages
14h
English
book
Database Design for Mere Mortals™: A Hands-On Guide to Relational Database Design, Second Edition
by Michael J. Hernandez
Content preview from Database Design for Mere Mortals™: A Hands-On Guide to Relational Database Design, Second Edition
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Value-Related Terms
Data
The values you store in the database are data. Data is static in the sense that it remains in the same state until you modify it by some manual or automated process. Figure 3.1 shows some sample data.
Example 3.1. An example of basic data.
George Edleman 92883 05/16/96 95.00
On the surface, this data is meaningless. For example, there is no easy way for you to determine what “92883” represents. Is it a zip code? Is it a part number? Even if you know it represents a customer identification number, is it one that is associated with George Edleman? There's just no way of knowing until you process the data.
Information
Information is data that you process in a manner that makes it meaningful and ...