How to Develop a Database Application
- 1). Create the necessary files for the database. This can be a simple statement depending on the database being used , a file loading utility or a method where you can manually enter the data yourself. As an example, in MySQL you can issue the command "mysql> CREATE DATABASE sampledb."
- 2). Determine the key structure of your records. Many databases have records that are keyed on unique values like social security number and Account ID Number. If this has already been done for you in the design phase, then you should just enter the data accordingly.
- 3). Create a backup of your database. The backup is critical and should be done on a periodic basis without fail. Many businesses perform their backup task nightly so as to not impede production-time scheduled runs during peak hours. There are system backup commands and database utility functions readily available for backing up your files and tables.
- 4). Run reports on your database, normally after critical updates have been performed to determine the validity of each file update.
- 5). Enforce integrity rules. If there will be multiple users performing tasks simultaneously, then as a Database Administrator, it will be incumbent upon you to ensure that users do not indiscriminately overwrite key components of related tables. This is part of what is termed "Referential Integrity," and it simply means you cannot delete or update a record that has links to other records without updating or deleting those records accordingly.
- 6). Run your reports and updates after you have sufficiently backed up the database. More than likely you will be working with a relational database and using SQL. There are free software applications like MYSQL to use for table-driven and key-structured databases. You need only to become familiar with the SQL language to ease any task.
- 7). Restore your database with a current backup when required. There are restore commands available in most SQL-based languages to expedite this and provide status reporting as well.
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