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Reports and Databases
Report - The term "Report" describes a printout of data records from a database. The report defines the look of the printout (layout, fonts, arrangement of data fields, etc.). For example, if you want to print a list of addresses, you use a report to tell the computer which fields of your address database to print and in which order. A report can print data as a list, page by page or any other way you want your data to be printed.
Table - A grouping of data records of the same type is called table, e.g. a patient table will contain information related to the patient, an invoice table will contain information related to invoices. A table is part of a database (see below).
Query - A query consists of SQL statements, which are used to access a table or database and to retrieve a group of data records. SQL means "Structured Query Language" and is a kind of programming language for databases. A complete description of SQL is beyond the scope of this manual, but there are many books available on this topic.
Dataset - A dataset is used as a collective name for tables and queries.
Database - Queries and tables can be grouped together in a database, which can be a local file on your hard disk or a database server in a network. To access a table you the database name.
Alias - Aliases are descriptive names available as placeholder for fields, pathnames or databases.
