SIMPOL Documentation

A good place to start in this chapter is a discussion of terminology. In traditional desktop databases like Superbase, dBase, FoxPro, and Paradox, it is common to refer to database files, fields, indexes, and records. In SQL databases it is more common to use the terms tables, columns, and rows. Loosely it would be accurate to say that database files equate to tables, fields equate to columns, and rows equate to records. In SIMPOL we tend to stick with the desktop database terminology when refering to non-SQL data sources, although we are attempting to standardize on the terms: tables, fields, and records. The reason for selecting tables rather than files is that in some databases more than one table can be stored in the same physical file, as is the case with Microsoft Access and with the new Superbase Micro Engine. That would result in overuse of the word file and as such the decision was made to use table instead.