What is a web database?

These days, it's pretty unusual for us to build a website without some kind of web database connected to it. But for the benefit of the uninitiated, what is a web based database and why are they useful?

The Spreadsheet Analogy

If you've ever used a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel you'll be familiar with the concept of columns and rows of data.

With Excel, you group data into columns, giving a title attribute to each column and your data is then repeated down the screen in rows. For instance, in the simple example above, products are stored in a spreadsheet with a product code, name and price. Each row represents a single record.

A database is very similar to this, in that it groups data into columns and rows. Most databases can be accessed using a graphical front-end application and when you do so, the visual similarities with the Excel spreadsheet are obvious. Here is a screenshot of a "MySQL" database accessed using the application Navicat;

What's the difference?

The difference between a spreadsheet and a database is that a database is far more powerful. This is because;

• a database can have multiple spreadsheets within it like the one above (called Tables)
• a database can be manipulated and managed with a programming language

The second point above is especially advantageous, particularly if you want your database to serve a purpose behind a website or application. Like any other piece of software, a website application is built using a programming language and that means that in order for it to "talk" to a database, it needs to be able to communicate using code.

Give me some examples...

So we've established that a database is a series of spreadsheet-like tables of data which can be manipulated via either computer code or a graphical front-end application. How can this be used in the real world? For example, let's say you're a recruitment company who wants to publish a list of job vacancies on a website. You could just copy the whole list onto a static webpage, but that's not particularly useful, especially if you have hundreds of vacancies. It would be much more user-friendly if a job seeker could search through your listings to drill down to the jobs that they're interested in. In order to do this, the job listings need to be organised into columns and rows of data so that they can be pulled out in certain orders or combinations.

Summary

As mentioned at the beginning of this post, most of the websites that we build use a database for one reason or another, but not all of our clients necessarily know what we're talking about when we start gabbling on about databases. So if you've heard your web developer talking about the use of a database but not fully understood what they're on about, hopefully this will help you build an image of what resides in the darkness behind your website...

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