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A database is a program specially designed for storing and recalling data effectively. Databases are often a major component of a larger application as most programs store and interpret information of some type. Because of this, major databases provides easier programming language integration, such as for example MySQL integrating to C, C++, Java, Ocaml and Ruby, PostgreSQL to C, C++, Python etc.
Types[]
Flat file[]
The flat file database is the most simple method of storing data, but is inefficient if data needs to be changed. It is a text file, where one row represents one unit of data, and where entries within each row are delimited either by spacing or by a character. It is not normally indexed.
One of the most effective usages of flat-files is for a write-only log. In all other cases, you should consider using any other database system.
Relational databases[]
Relational databases are the predominate type of database that is in use today. It stores all its information in tables, where a table is a set of rows and each row contains data of specific types determined by the columns of the table. For example a table named beer is defined to store
- the name of the beer, stored as 32 unicode chars,
- the land of origin, stored as 16 unicode chars,
- the alcohol percentage, stored as float
- the brewery, stored as 48 unicode chars
so that a few table rows might look like:
name | land | percent | brewery --------------------+----------+---------+----------------------- Boddington Pub Ale | UK | 4.7 | Inbev UK Lim. Sarek 5.2 | Sweden | 5.2 | Carlsberg Falcon Export 5.2 | Sweden | 5.2 | Carlsberg
Relational databases use to provide an interface with the SQL data retrieval language.
Important examples of relational databases are MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQLite
Object-oriented databases[]
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Schema-less databases[]
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See Also[]
External Links[]
- Database on Wikipedia