Alternatives for Viewing Data
A view is an alternative way of looking at the data in one or more tables. Views are sometimes called virtual tables or derived tables, as opposed to base tables.
A view is a frame through which you can see only the particular data that concerns you. You can derive a view from one or more database tables (or, for that matter, from other views), using any desired selection, projection, and join operations. Views allow you to create customized tables tailored to special needs. In effect, you capture a cluster of selection, projection, and join operations to use as the foundation for future queries.
The data you see when you look at a view (or “through” a view, as it's often put) is not actually stored in the database ...
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