CM3035 Topic 02: Database Schemas and ORMs
Main Info
Title: Database Schemas and ORMs
Teachers: Daniel Buchan
Semester Taken: April 2022
Parent Module: cm3035: Advanced Web Development
Description
SQL and ORMs.
Key Reading
Harrington, JL Relational Database Design and Implementation, ch. 5. library link
This chapter gives a summary of the relational data model. There is some light history and definition the main concepts: relation, columns and attributes. There is longer discussion of primary keys for some reason, including design decisions about primary keys (don’t bake semantics into them). There is also a long discussion of foreign keys. Introduces views as outlined in CM3010 Topic 05: Advanced RDBMS Topics, presents them as being for user-friendly querying rather than performance.
Introduces the idea of a catalogue or data dictionary which is the structural definition of the database, including types, constraints, and security information. The dictionary is checked when modifications are attempted. You can have a look in
syscatalog.
Other Reading
More readings are set from Harrington but as they are repetitive of cm3010: Databases and Advanced Data Techniques not noted here.
Django References
Lecture Summaries
Week Three
Week Four