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Databases & SQL vocabulary · Database Basics

Database

Meaning in databases & SQL, with examples

/ˈdeɪtəbeɪs/nounCore term

In databases & SQL, database means: An organized collection of data stored on a computer so that programs and people can quickly find, add, change and remove information.

In Turkish: veritabanı, veri tabanı

How it is used

The most basic word of the field. In daily talk people often say 'the DB' or 'the database' for both the data and the software that manages it. A single server can host many databases, and developers create, connect to, query, back up and migrate a database.

Example sentences

  1. The app is slow because every page load sends twenty queries to the database.

  2. Please don't run that script against the production database without a backup.

Common collocations

  • connect to the database
  • query the database
  • database server
  • production database
  • create a database
  • DBMSDatabase management system: the software that stores the data, runs queries, controls access and keeps data safe, such as PostgreSQL or Oracle.
  • relational databaseA type of database that stores data in tables made of rows and columns and links tables to each other through keys. Data is usually managed with SQL.
  • tableA structure in a relational database that stores data about one kind of thing in rows and columns, for example all customers or all orders.
  • queryA request sent to a database to read or change data, usually written in SQL. As a verb, to query means to ask a database for data.
  • NoSQLA broad group of databases that do not use the classic table-and-SQL model, storing data as documents, key-value pairs, wide columns or graphs instead.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Database Basics

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