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Go to Topic 3 * Access Database Skills Table of Contents * Technology Skills
A database is based on information stored in Tables. Each table consists of a many different fields and records. For example, in the sample database the STUDENTS table has the fields StudentID, Firstname, Lastname, Address, etc. Each student is one RECORD in the table.
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Exercise 1: Look at your copy of the Students table:
- Open the table in "Design View"and notice the fields that are included and notice the type of field (text, number, date/time, etc.)
- Open the table in "Datasheet View" to see how many records are included and to look over the data.
Exercise 2 (for later): Create a table using one of the following ideas:
- A "things to do this week" list.
- A book list
- A list of people - friends, students, coworkers or others
- Or some other list....
Include at least one of the following fields:
- Text
- Date/Time
- Number (includes currency)
- A memo field (allows more than 255 characters)
- A number that is formated as a text field (such as a zipcode, studentid or other 'nominal' number)
- A primary key, which is a unique code that identifies each record. This can be an autonumber that the database generates automatically or a number or text field that you enter.
Field names:
Ideally, field names should not contain punctuation marks (except an underscore) and should not begin with a number. Do not use mathematical expressions as field names (such as First, Last, Avg, Min, Max, Sum, Total). I prefer to make my field names one word without spaces ... such as EmployeeName rather than Employee Name. These suggestions help to avoid confusion when writing queries, calculations and Visual Basic routines. |