Database Fundamentals, Design, and Programming Flashcards

A complete set of vocabulary flashcards covering database fundamentals, normalization, schema models, SQL sublanguages, and key operations.

Entity

A table within a database.

Anomaly

An issue that can occur because of incorrect handling of data in a database.

Insert Anomaly

A database issue where new data cannot be added without also adding other dependent or unrelated information first.

Deletion Anomaly

A database issue where deleting a specific record causes unintended loss of all other data stored within that record.

Update Anomaly

A database issue where modifying data in one record without updating all matching instances leads to inconsistent data.

Normalization

A process to organize data in a database to minimize the risk of anomalies.

Primary Key

A unique value for each row in a database table.

Foreign Key

A primary key value that has been placed in another entity to create a relationship.

Composite Key

A combination of multiple attributes linked together to uniquely identify a record when no single attribute is unique.

Concatenated Key

A unique key created by combining data or substrings from multiple attributes together.

Attribute

A characteristic or field representing data stored within an entity.

Relationship

The link or connection between two entities in a database.

Cardinality

The type of relationship between two entities, such as one-to-one, one-to-many, or many-to-many.

Modality

The necessity of a relationship between entities, defining whether the link is optional or mandatory.

Schema

A plan or blueprint showing the overall design and architecture of a database.

Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD)

A universally understood diagram showing the database schema and entity connections.

Conceptual Schema

A high-level database schema model identifying entities and relationships without attribute details or data types.

Logical Schema

A database schema model identifying entities, attributes, primary keys, and foreign keys.

Physical Schema

A detailed database schema model specifying attributes, data types, storage structures, files, and indexes.

Delete Cascade

A feature where deleting a row containing a primary key automatically deletes all referenced rows in related tables.

Update Cascade

A feature where updating a primary key value automatically updates all corresponding foreign key values in related tables.

Data Definition Language (DDL)

A category of SQL commands used to create and modify database structures such as schemas, tables, and constraints.

Data Manipulation Language (DML)

A category of SQL commands used to access, query, insert, update, and delete data within database entities.

Data Control Language (DCL)

A category of SQL commands used to manage user access privileges and database security.

Transaction Control Language (TCL)

A category of SQL commands used to manage and execute database transaction operations.

Query

An instruction developed in SQL to extract or filter specific information from a database.

View

A virtual table constructed from an SQL query to display organized database information to non-expert users.