Databases

A Little Design

We are going to produce a database that stores our timetable, we already know from the previous page that the fields that we need to store are:-

Name of Field	Data Type
Day
Lesson number
Subject
Group
Teacher
Room number
Homework

You now have to decide which data type each field is. This decision list might help you:-

Does the data store a date?	Yes	Use a Date/Time data type
No
Does the data store a time?	Yes	Use a Date/Time data type
No
Can the data be stored as one of two choices?	Yes	Use a Yes/No data type
No
Does the data contain punctuation or a combination or text and numbers?	Yes	Use a Text data type
No
The data must be a number
Does the data have a decimal part?	Yes	Use a Number data type, formatted as a single or double precision decimal
No
Use a Number data type, formatted as an Integer

Work through the list above and decide which data type each field should have.Once you have chosen a data type for every field in the list, your answers should match the table below. You will need to jot this information down before you load Access.

Access is capable of storing a huge amount of information, which can be many times larger than your computer is capable of storing in its RAM. Access uses a system whereby all the data is actually stored on the hard drive of your computer. When you first load Access it will ask you for a filename and allow you to browse to the location that you want to store the database in.

As always, remember to call your database by a sensible name, and store it in a sensible place, possibly inside a new folder.

A good name for your database would be "My timetable"

Here is the completed list of fields for your timetable database. Check you have the correct answers, but no cheating!

Name of Field	Data Type
Day	Number, formatted as Integer
Lesson number	Number, formatted as Integer
Subject	Text
Group	Text
Teacher	Text
Room number	Text (it might be "Rural Studies", or "The Gym")
Homework	Yes/No

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Click here to find out how to make a new table in Access.

Page last updated on October 25, 2002

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