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Databases
Now that we have learned how programming languages handle data in different formats...
where do we keep it all? Most newer programming languages use what is called
a Virtual Machine (also known as a Managed Memory Environment) to save their variables and objects. In these
places you can develop many applications without having to worry about where the
data is actually stored. For some applications, this is just not the case.
One way to deal with this problem is a Database.
Establishing a reliable database is sometimes esential in maintaining large amounts
of data over an extended period of time; even if there is no program monitoring
it. Databases are a structured collection of data that can live anywhere from
a file on your computer to a server halfway across the world. For the most
part, they are little more than arrays of objects. The trick is in accessing
and displaying the data inside. We will go into this in more detail in the
Language Selection
section.
Important Notes
Databases store simple or complex data over a long period of time.
Databases can be a local file or requested from a remote server.
Some additional languages may be required to access databases.
At very least, a database requires loading and translation. At most you might have to write code to select portions of the database to retrieve from a remote server.
Local databases are little more than a data file. They are ideal for things like conguration settings that must be persistant but are easily changable.
Remote databases are ideal for sets of data that need to be identical for multiple users (such as a website).
There are many various methods for reading from and writing to databases. I will not be posting an example at this time, because of the vast differences in how this task is accomplished.
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Previous Page:
Objects,
Section Test:
Coming Soon. |
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