Tables¶

About¶

A table is where data in a Database is actually stored.

Tables consist of columns and records (rows).

A column describes the data stored, including (but not limited to ) its Data Type.
A record is a single unit of data that can be stored in a table. Each record stores data corresponding to each column defined on the table.

Tables in Mathesar¶

Creating a table is the first step to managing your data within Mathesar.

Example¶

ID	Name	Country	Age	Birth
1	Jayanta Caoimhe	Papua New Guinea	22	March 26, 1999 (8:01 AM)
2	Tatenda Birgitta	Zimbabwe	8	October 31, 2013 (9:11 PM)
3	Barend Reinhild	Belgium	45	October 2, 1976 (9:36 AM)

In this table, we have 5 columns and 3 records (rows).

The columns are: ID, Name, Country, Age, and Birth.
Each record fits the parameters defined by the column. So every record has a number as ID and date & time as Birth.

Usage¶

In order to avoid duplicating data and make data entry easier, we encourage users to set up a single table for each category of data and then create links betweeen them as needed.

In the above example, it would be better to have a separate table for Country as follows.

People¶

ID	Name	Country ID	Age	Birth
1	Jayanta Caoimhe	21	22	March 26, 1999 (8:01 AM)
2	Tatenda Birgitta	23	8	October 31, 2013 (9:11 PM)
3	Barend Reinhild	25	45	October 2, 1976 (9:36 AM)

Countries¶

ID	Country
21	Papua New Guinea
23	Zimbabwe
25	Belgium

Now, if you need to add a new person from Papua New Guinea to the People table, you don’t need to type Papua New Guinea again and risk making a typo. You don’t need to remember that Papua New Guinea’s ID is 21 either - Mathesar offers auto-complete functionality for linked tables and will find the correct record from Countries when you start typing the country name.

Although this is convenient for data entry, while looking at the data or analyzing it, you might want to see the full country name next to each person’s name. For that functionality, you should set up a View.