UNIVERSITY OF LA SALETTE,INC

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE

SANTIAGO CITY, PHILIPPINES

LEARNING MODULE
PBSGE 005 LAB – COMPUTER
FUNDAMENTALS AND PROGRAMMING

Module 4: Database Management System

ENGR. ERIKA G. LLABRES

THIS MODULE IS FOR THE EXCLUSIVE USE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LA SALETTE, INC. ANY FORM OF REPRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION,
UPLOADING, OR POSTING ONLINE IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS WITHOUT THE WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE UNIVERSITY IS
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
1
 UNIVERSITY OF LA SALETTE,INC
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE
SANTIAGO CITY, PHILIPPINES

Module 4: Database Management System

Introduction
To make large collections of data useful, people and organizations use computers and an
efficient data management system. Like a warehouse, a database is a collection of related data or facts.
A Database Management System (DBMS) is a software tool that allows people to store, access, and
process data or facts into useful information.
Many large companies and organizations rely heavily on a commercial or custom DBMS to
handle immense data resources. Often, a DMS is a custom-programmed to fit the exact needs of a
company, it may be designed to run on a large mainframe computer system or large client server
network.
Personal computers have brought database management to the desktop of individuals in
businesses and homes. Although the casual computer user may not need an inventory tracking system,
home users utilize commercial DBMS products to maintain address lists of friends and business
contacts, manage household purchases and budgets, organize music CD and video libraries, and store
data for home businesses.

Learning Outcomes
At the end of this module, you are expected to:
a. define the terms database and database management system;
b. differentiate the difference between flat-file database and relational database;
c. identify the steps needed to create a database;
d. explain the purpose of filter and forms.
Activity:
Instruction: Answer the following questions based on your personal and honest views as there are no
wrong answers.
1. What is a Database Management System?

2. Give examples of query language.

THIS MODULE IS FOR THE EXCLUSIVE USE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LA SALETTE, INC. ANY FORM OF REPRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION,
UPLOADING, OR POSTING ONLINE IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS WITHOUT THE WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE UNIVERSITY IS
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
2
 UNIVERSITY OF LA SALETTE,INC
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE
SANTIAGO CITY, PHILIPPINES

Lecture
Topic 1: The Database
The database contains a collection of related items or facts arranged in a specific structure. The
most obvious example of a non-computerized database is a telephone directory. Telephone companies
use electronic database program to produce their printed phone books. Sometimes you will see a
specialized phone book that is sorted not only by last name, but by other items, such as phone number
or street address. These books are easy to produce, because the telephone company's electronic
database can sort and organize the data in many different ways.
Before, learning more about the powers of electronics databases, you need to learn how data is
organized within a database and some of the more common DBMS terms. You also need to know that,
while there are some standard and accepted database terms, the terms are not always used or used
correctly.
Three of the most common terms to know about database are:

• Fields. Each piece of information.

• Records. One full set of fields, that is, all the related information about one person or object-is
called a record.
• Tables. A complete collection of records makes a table.

Once you have a structure for sorting data, you can enter and view data, create reports, and perform
other task with the data. For example, you might create a customer report the list the customer ZIP
code. These extra tools, along with the tables, combine to form a database.
Now that you have a better understanding of database terms, you can begin exploring an electronic
database.

Flat File ad Relational Database Structure

Many early database applications and some current low-end applications access and manipulate
only one table at a time. These applications store each table in its own file, when dealing with such
databases there is no reason to use the term table, because the table and the database are one and the
same. Very often, a table, is simply called a file or just " the database."
To be more precise, however, a database file that consist of a single data table is called a flat file
(or sequential file) database. Flat file databases are useful for single- use or small group situations,
especially for maintaining lists such as an address lists or inventories. Data is stored, managed, and
manipulated in a spreadsheet. If these tables were stored by itself, it would be a flat file database.
Although they are easy to learn and use, flat file database system can be difficult to maintain, and
they are limited in power. When numerous files exist (one for each table and related document), there is
often a lot of data redundancy, which increases the chance of errors, waste time, and uses excess
storage space. Adding, deleting, or editing any field requires that you make the same changes in every
file that contains the sane field.
In a relational database - a database made up of set of tables-a common field existing in any two
tables creates a relationship between the tables. The relational database structure is easily the most
prevalent in today's business organizations. In business, a typical relational database likely would
contain data, tables, such as the following:

THIS MODULE IS FOR THE EXCLUSIVE USE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LA SALETTE, INC. ANY FORM OF REPRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION,
UPLOADING, OR POSTING ONLINE IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS WITHOUT THE WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE UNIVERSITY IS
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
3
 UNIVERSITY OF LA SALETTE,INC
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE
SANTIAGO CITY, PHILIPPINES

• Customer information
• Other information
• Employee information
• Inventory information
• Vendor information

Multiple tables in this kind of database make it possible to handle many data management task,
for example:

• The customer order, and inventory tables can be linked to process order billing.
• The vendor and inventory tables can be linked to maintain and track inventory
levels.
• The order and employee tables can be linked to control scheduling.

Topic 2: The DBMS

As you have seen, a database is basically a collection of data. A database management system,
is a program, or collections of programs, that allows any number of users to access and modify the data
in database. A DBMS also provides tools that enable users to construct special requests (called queries)
to find a specific record in the database.

Data management task falls into one of the three general categories:

• Entering data into the database.

• Sorting the data-that is, arranging or reordering the databases records.
• Obtaining subsets of the data.

The last type of data-management task-finding records-is extremely important. Because

database files can grow very large (many gigabytes-millions of records-on large systems), finding data
quickly is not a trivial matter. A DBMS, especially when it is running on powerful hardware, can find
any speck of data in an enormous database in minutes, sometimes even seconds or fraction of second.

Equally important, a DBMS provides the means for multiple users to access and share data in
the same database by way of networked computer systems.
.
Working with a Database

The DBMS interface presents the user with data and the tools required to work with the data. You
work with the interfaces tools to perform data management functions:

• Creating table
• Viewing records
• Sorting records
• Creating queries
• Generating reports

THIS MODULE IS FOR THE EXCLUSIVE USE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LA SALETTE, INC. ANY FORM OF REPRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION,
UPLOADING, OR POSTING ONLINE IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS WITHOUT THE WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE UNIVERSITY IS
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
4
 UNIVERSITY OF LA SALETTE,INC
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE
SANTIAGO CITY, PHILIPPINES

Creating Database Tables

The first step in building a database is to create one or more tables. As you know tables hold the raw data
that the DBMS will work with. To create a new database, you first must determine what kind of data will
be sorted in each table. In other words, you must define the table fields with a three steps process.

1. Name the field

2. Specify the field type
3. Specify the field size

Topic 3: Understanding Field Types

When naming the field, indicate briefly as possible what the field contains. Specifying the field
types requires knowledge of what of data the DBMS can understand. Most modern databases can work
with seven predefined field types.

Text fields (also called character fields or alphanumeric fields), accepts any. String of
alphanumeric characters that are not used in calculations. Such an entry might be a person's name,
company's name, address, phone number, or any other textual data.

Numeric fields store purely numeric data. The numbers in a numeric field might represent
currency, percentages, statistics, quantities or any other values that can be used in calculations. The
data itself is stored in the table strictly as a numeric value, even though the DBMS can display the
number with formatting characters such as dollar or percent signs, decimal points or commas.

A data field or time field stores dates or time entries. This field type converts a date or time
into a numeric value, just as dates and time as stored internally as serial number in spreadsheet cells. In
most database system, a date value represents the number of days that have elapsed since a specific
start date. When you enter a date in a date field, the DBMS accepts your input, displays it in the format
of date (such as 9/ 9/2009), and convert it into a number (such as 37799) that it stores in the database.
Date and time fields typically include automatic error-checking features. For instance, date fields can
you find dates accuracy and account for the extra day in a leap year. Date and time field are handy for
calculating elapsed time period, such as finding records for invoices 31 days overdue.

Logical fields (also called Boolean fields) stores one of only two possible values. You can
apply almost any description for the data (yes or no, true or false, and so Forth). For example, a catalog
field in a Customers table can tell a customer whether a customer has ordered a new catalog which is
answerable by yes or no.

Entering Data in a Table

After the table has been set up data can be entered in most cases, entering data is a matter of
typing characters at the keyboard Entering data in a database table is much like entering data in a
spreadsheet program. The process can have more pitfalls than you might expect, however, especially if
it is being carried out by someone other than the user who set up the table. For example, the DBMS
might not handle a number correctly if the user enters it with a dollar sign-even though the numbers
will be displayed as a dollar amount. If the data is entered with an inconsistent mix of upper- and

THIS MODULE IS FOR THE EXCLUSIVE USE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LA SALETTE, INC. ANY FORM OF REPRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION,
UPLOADING, OR POSTING ONLINE IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS WITHOUT THE WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE UNIVERSITY IS
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
5
 UNIVERSITY OF LA SALETTE,INC
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE
SANTIAGO CITY, PHILIPPINES

lower-case letter, the DBMS may not be able to sort the data or locate specific records.

Viewing Records

The way data appears on screen contributes to how well users can work with it. With many
DBMS products, the table view (sometimes called the database view) is what you use to create a
database table and to modify field specifications. This view is also suitable for viewing lists of records
that you group together in some meaningful way, such as all customers who live in the same city.
Sometimes viewing the entire table is unwieldy because there are too many entries. Filters are
DBMS feature for displaying all selected list of subsets of records from a table. The visible records
satisfy the condition that the user sets. It is called a filter, because it tells the DBMS to display those
records that satisfy the condition while hiding-or filtering out those that do not. For example, you create
a filter that has the "Gold" in the status field.

Sorting Records

One of the most powerful features of a DBMS is its ability to sort a table of data, either for a printed
report or for display on the screen. Sorting arranges records according to the contents of one or more
fields. For example, in a table of products, you can sort records into a numerical order by product ID or
into an alphabetical order by product name. to obtain the list sorted by product name. You define the
condition for the product name field that tells the DBMS to rearrange the records in alphabetical order
for this data.

Querying a Database

In a manner similar to entering sort conditions, you can enter expressions or criteria that:

Allow the DBMS to locate records.

Establish the relationship or links between tables to update records.
Lists subset of records.
Perform calculations.
Database obsolete records.
Perform other data management.

Any of these types of requests is called query, a user constructed statement that describe the
data and sets of criteria so that the DBMS can gather the desired data and construct specific
information. In other words, a query is a more powerful type of filter that can gather information from
multiple tables in a relational database.

Generating Reports

A report is printed information that, like a query result, is assembled by gathering data based on
user-supplied criteria. In fact, report generators in most DBMS's create reports from queries.

Reports can range from simple lists of records to customized formats for specific purposes,
such as invoices. Report’s generators can use selected data and criteria to carry out automated
mathematical calculations as the reports are printed.

THIS MODULE IS FOR THE EXCLUSIVE USE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LA SALETTE, INC. ANY FORM OF REPRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION,
UPLOADING, OR POSTING ONLINE IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS WITHOUT THE WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE UNIVERSITY IS
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
6
 UNIVERSITY OF LA SALETTE,INC
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE
SANTIAGO CITY, PHILIPPINES

Summary:

• A database is repository for collections of related data or facts

A database management system (DBMS) is a software tool that enables many users to add,
view, and work with the data in the database
• Flat-file databases are two-dimensional tables of fields and records. They cannot form
relationship with other tables.
• To create a database, you first must set up its tables and define the type of fields each table will
contain
• A DBMS provides tool that can validate data as it is entered, thus ensuring that the data is in
the correct format.
• Forms are custom screens for displaying and entering data that can be associated with database
tables and queries.
• Filters let you browse through selected records that meet a set of criteria.
• Sorting arranges records in table according to specific criteria.
• Queries are user-constructed statements that set conditions for selecting and manipulating data.
• Reports are user-generated sets of data usually printed as document.

INSTRUCTION: Answer the following questions, write your answer in a short bond paper.

1. What is the difference between a database and a database management system?

2. In a database table, what does each column represent?
3. What is a filter?
4. What is a query?
5. Differentiate the difference between flat-file database and relational database.

THIS MODULE IS FOR THE EXCLUSIVE USE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LA SALETTE, INC. ANY FORM OF REPRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION,
UPLOADING, OR POSTING ONLINE IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS WITHOUT THE WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE UNIVERSITY IS
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
7