Database

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Draft

This article or section is currently under construction

In principle, someone is working on it and there should be a better version in a not so distant future.
If you want to modify this page, please discuss it with the person working on it (see the "history")

Definition

“In computer science, a database is a structured collection of records or data that is stored in a computer system so that a computer program or person using a query language can consult it to answer queries. The records retrieved in answer to queries are information that can be used to make decisions. The computer program used to manage and query a database is known as a database management system (DBMS).” (Wikipedia, retrieved 21:13, 12 September 2007 (MEST)).

The goal of this (future) article is threefold (for now):

  • List some useful Wikipedia resources on general database issues
  • Point to other articles in this Wiki
  • Show where in educational technology various kinds of databases are being used

A guide to Wikipedia's database articles

(by no means complete, these are just some important entry points)

General

Database: History, Overview of Database models, Technical internals, Overview of Database applications

Models and query languages

Database models: Overview of flat, hierarchical, network, relational and object models
Data model (short overview)
List of database models
Query language (short table)
Relational model (the model)
Relational database (the model again)
SQL
XML databases and files
XQuery (to query XML data and XML databases)
XQuery Update Facility (Stub)
XML data and files
XSLT
XPath
XPointer
E4X (a ECMAScript/ActionScript extension)
Document Object Model), SAX, etc.
SPARQL (to query RDF)
Hierarchical model
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
Object-relational model
Object model
Flat file
Regular expression

Technology

Database management system
Relational database management system (RDBMS)
Comparison of relational database management systems
MySQL
Microsoft SQL Server
Object-relational database (ORDBMS)
Comparison of object-relational database management systems
Object database OODBMS]
List of object-oriented database management systems
XML database
eXist
LDAP
List of LDAP software
Directory Service
Simple
FileMaker
Special purpose applications such as reference managers with their own storage engine
Flat file database (can implement various models)
Single file
SQLLite
SQL Server Compact (Microsoft)
Serialization to files in some programming languages
Database engines (Low level, i.e. DBMS are built on top)
MyISAM (used by MySQL)
InnoDB (used by MySQL)
BerkeleyDB
dbm


In education