Section: Creating a database

Creating databases is an art form. People make their living doing it. You have the skills to build a simple database, and you should know enough now that you can start exploring the more advanced topics on your own.

To build your own database, you follow the same general steps regardless of your specific DBMS software.

1. STAIR! (You KNEW you couldn't get through a chapter without seeing that acronym!) State the problem and identify the tools you might use. Specifically, answer these questions for your particular database:
   • Why do I want this database?
   • What kinds of information do I want to keep track of?
   • What are the entities (will become records) I am keeping track of?
   • What are the characteristics (will become fields) of each of these entities?
   • What kind of input features do I want? (forms, a spreadsheet - thing?)
   • What will my index be?
   • What kinds of questions do I want to ask with this data? (queries)
   • Do I need any special reports?
   • What software will I use to develop this database?
   • What tools does it have to solve each of the problems above?

2. Create the table. To do this, you will need to create a template for the records.

   • Create a template for the records

     This means defining all the fields that constitute a record. Think hard about this, because you don't want to change the record definition once you have started adding data to the database.

   • Create the fields For each field, identify the field name and type (and length if necessary)

   • Continue until all the fields of the prototype record are done.

3. Add information to the database. While you are still testing, you shouldn't add too much information, because it may get messed up. You should put in enough so that you can tell it will work. You should also anticipate errors the user might make, like typing in "four" instead of putting a 4 in a numeric field. Try making some of these mistakes on purpose, and see how the database responds.

4. generate any forms to aid user input.

   There will usually be some sort of tools available to help you in this process. If the database is simple, this step may not be necessary.

5. create any reports you need for output

   Again, this may not be necessary, or there may be a number of reports you want to generate from the database. You will probably find some kind of tool to help you with this process as well. This process may require building queries to limit the number of records shown in the report.