Database Definition

A database is a set of data that has a regular structure and that is organized in such a way that a computer can easily find the desired information.  Data is a collection of distinct pieces of information, particularly information that has been formatted (i.e., organized) in some specific way for use in analysis or making decisions.  A database can generally be looked at as being a collection of records, each of which contains one or more fields (i.e., pieces of data) about some entity (i.e., object), such as a person, organization, city, product, work of art, recipe, chemical, or sequence of DNA. For example, the fields for a database that is about people who work for a specific company might include the name, employee identification number, address, telephone number, date employment started, position and salary for each worker.