1) Decide on the database
fields needed to store the information. Example - if the
database is going to be used by an estate agent the fields
would include type of house, price of house, No. of
bedrooms and address of house. See below.
|
House type
|
Price
|
Bedrooms
|
Address
|
|
T
|
£49,000
|
3
|
43, Any Street, Anytown Z77 4AZ |
|
S
|
£70,000
|
4
|
64, Any Street, Anytown Z77 4BB |
|
T
|
£55,000
|
3
|
45, Any Street, Anytown Z77 4AZ |
2) When you type in the
field names, format them to accept data. In the database
above the house type field is formatted to accept text, the
price field and bedrooms fields are formatted to accept
numbers, and the address field has been formatted to accept
numbers or text.
In the example above the price field has
been additionally formatted to currency
format.
3) Decide on the coding to be used in the database. In the database above, the house type field has been coded i.e. T = terraced and S = semi detached.
4) Enter the information into the database fields.
5) Check if the database entries are valid. A validation check checks that the information in the database is valid.
Examples of validation checks on the above data.
If we decide that the coding in the house type field should be as follows:
T = terraced
D = detached
S = semi detached
B = bungalow
F = flat
M = maisonette
then any entry other than T, D, S, B, F or M is not a valid entry.
If we decide that the bedrooms field should have a range of entries from 1 to 6 then any entry over 6 or less than 1 is not a valid entry.
6) Collecting the information for the database will involve use of a data capture form.