A file is an organised collection of related records.

A record is a collection of related fields.

A field is a single data item.

A master file is the main file for an application - a large file of semi-permanent data.

A transaction file is a temporary file used to store data which will be used to update the master file.

Example. The diagram shows a small part of a school database which stores information about its pupils.

There are 4 records displayed.

Each record has 6  fields.

The key field is the field which uniquely identifies each record.

The key field in the example is NUMBER