Database definitons

Question 1

Primary Key

Answer 1

An attribute or set of attributes that uniquely identifies each record in a table

Question 2

Foreign Key

Answer 2

An attribute or set of attributes that is used to establish and enforce a link between two tables

Question 3

Relationship

Answer 3

Associations between one or more entities

Question 4

Cardinality

Answer 4

Maximum number of instances of one entity that can (or must) be associated with each instance of
another entity

Question 5

Optionality

Answer 5

Minimum (0 or 1) number of associated instances

Question 6

Business Rules

Answer 6

Constraints intended to control or influence behaviour of the business

Question 7

Data Types

Answer 7

The type of each attribute

Question 8

Advantages of Views

Answer 8

Provides a mechanism to hide certain data from the view of certain users
Break down a large query

Question 9

Functional Dependency

Answer 9

Situation where the value of one attribute determines the value of another attribute

Question 10

Normalisation/Normalization

Answer 10

Process of converting a database design into a normal form

Question 11

Multi-valued Attributes

Answer 11

An attribute or a set of attributes that create repeating groups of data in a database table

Question 12

Partial Dependency

Answer 12

Situation where a non-key attribute can be defined only by part of the primary key

Question 13

Transitive Dependency

Answer 13

Situation where one non-key attributes determines a second non-key attribute

Question 14

Key (Unique Identifier)

Answer 14

An attribute or set of attributes used to uniquely identify or locate records in a table

Question 15

Attributes (Fields/Items/Domains)

Answer 15

Properties/Characteristic of an entity

Question 16

Records (Tuples/Rows)

Answer 16

The set of values for all attributes of a particular entity