Databases Illuminated, 4th Edition

1.2 A Sample Database

For the present, we describe a database as a collection of related stored data. It can be large or small, single-user or multiuser. As an example, let us consider a simple database with four tables that record information about university students, the classes they take during one semester, and the professors who teach the classes. The information kept for each student includes the student’s ID, name, major, and total number of credits earned. Using OpenOffice Base for this example, we can easily create a table for this data as shown in Figure 1.1 (A). The Student table has five columns, named stuId, lastName, firstName, major, and credits. Each row of the table shows the student ID, last name, first name, major, and number ...