Table Definition

Entities are represented as tables on your database. You can have up to 32,000 tables on your database. Each instance of an entity is represented as a record in a table. A record consists of one or more fields that define the type of information that is stored in the table.

Here is an example of a table representing the details of materials in stock:

To define a table, you first need to identify the individual items of information that are to be stored. Each item of information is represented as a field. The field definitions form the columns of the table. In the MATERIAL table above, the column headings are Material Code, Description, Quantity In Stock and Price. The names need to be modified before they can be used as unique field names in a table definition. They are changed to upper-case, and the spaces are removed.

For example, "Material Code" becomes MATERIAL_CODE. The definition of the fields in the MATERIAL table is shown in the example table plan on the right

In the example, the number 1 next to the MATERIAL_CODE field indicates that this field is a key field. The codes to the right of the field names indicate the data type and size of the fields.