Creating a database with DatAdmin

DatAdmin database tool is suitable for creating small databases, eg. if you want to manage books of your library or make list of your music compact disks. I will show, how to easily create a database representing your library.

Create empty database

I suppose you have installed DatAdmin (free Personal edition will be enough for this purposes). Select File/New, choose "SQLite" as database engine (small database stored on your computer). In a field "Name in connection tree" fill name of your database, which will appear in connection tree.

Confirm "Create New" SQLite database and new empty database will appear in connection tree. Double-clicking on database will create database connection to newly created database.

Create table books

The next step is defining structure of a table, which will hold information about books. At first, choose "New table" command in "Tables" context menu.

The window with table structure will appear. You can fill columns, which will be stored for each book.

There are several properties of column:

• Name - name of column
• Type - type of stored data
• Nullable - if checked, column could contain empty (NULL) value
• Primary key - each table should have primary key. Primary key is combination of columns, which must be for each row of table unique. I have chosen combination of Author and Name - I suppose, that one author has books with different names.
• Length - maximal length of text column
• Auto increment, References - for advanced purposes

Click on "Save" button to save table structure to database. You will be asked to table name - you can choose eg. "Books".

Fill table data

You should see new table in connection tree. In table context menu, choose "Open Data" command. The you can edit table data in data editor.

What I can do with this?

Thats reasonable question. You have created simple database, consisting of exactly one table. This is much better solutiion than using a spreadsheet like MS Excel. You can do all task as in spreadsheet - sorting, exporting into various formats, importing, you can use filters and export filtered data. But the full power of databases will appear, if you add more tables and you will create a real relational database. If this tutorial will continue, I will show, how to extend this sample with more tables and create effective and well-designed relational database.