Databases

Queries

Computer based databases are of very little use to us unless we can actually use them to tell us something about the data that they store. We could use many different ways of storing information, ranging from a simple text document written in notepad, to a complex spreadsheet using powerful formula, but they would not be able to answer questions about the data they store in the same way that Access can.

We ask questions about the data using a Query.

We are going to find out how queries work by actually producing a query first, then examining how we actually made the query work. Before we start designing our query, we need a question!

Lets try and find out which lessons will give us homework. These records in our database will have the "Homework" field set to "yes".

We don't need to display every field in our table, we only need to know the day, lesson and subject.

Just to recap, we are going to query our table and find the day, lesson number and subject of all records that have the homework field set to "yes"

Follow these instructions carefully:-

Once you have seen the whole tutorial, lets go to the next page and investigate what we actually did in a bit more detail. Click here.

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