Differences
| Files | Databases |
|---|---|
| Only one person at a time ca change it | Thousands of users can change at same time |
| Limited Undo | Can Undo to any date and time |
| Must backup entire file | Have option to backup changes only |
| Cannot detected corrupted data | Detects and Fixes corrupted data |
| Has no integrity | Has integrity - checks the relationships between tables |
| Security on the File | Security on Individual Rows and Columns |
Data Types
| Data Types | Maximum Size | Example | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| STANDARD | CHAR | 256 | Name CHAR(30) | Fixed Size |
| VARCHAR | 4096 | Comments VARCHAR(400) | Variable Size | |
| (NCHAR, NVARCHAR) | UNICODE - ASIAN Languages | Takes twice the space | ||
| NUMERIC | 32 | Customer# NUMERIC(6) - int | Amount NUMERIC(8,2) - decimal | |
| DATETIME | Hired On | DateTime | ||
| MICROSOFT | int, long, short, float, double, decimal | |||
| string, text | ||||
| image, binary (up to 4Gb) | ||||
| XML | Don't use microsoft's types |