Re: What is a "database"?

As I understand it, some data mining programs will take
all the physical files and, after being described, create one
logical file as you describe, that is, non normalized data.

That way you can look at the data as one huge file.  From
what I understand these programs will actually take all the
data and write them to a physical file for speed.  And when
need data gets updated to the original files it will re-write the
non-normalized data file periodically.

Data mining is something that intrigues me, but not something
I have had the opportunity to get into, yet.  I guess that's one
of the problems with being in the transportation industry.  Not
much changes.

Regards,

Jim Langston

Joe Teff wrote:

> <SNIP>
> In a data warehouse, you may just have one file with all of the information
> in each record. Data warehouses are typically designed for ease of reporting
> over any other consideration. You may even keep multiple copies like both
> a detail file and several summarized files sorted and summarized differently.
> You may even create a database from the info on a report. This allows the
> users to go in and analyze the report as needed or even play "what if" games.

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