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Unit 1: Dinesh Kumar Bhawnani, BIT DURG

This document discusses data abstraction in databases. It explains that data abstraction hides details of how data is stored and maintained from users, providing an abstract view. This simplifies user interaction with the system. Data abstraction is used to provide an abstract view, hide complexity, and simplify interaction. It also describes three levels of abstraction: physical, logical, and view levels. The physical level describes how data is stored while the view level hides all complexity. It further explains schemas, instances, and the ANSI/SPARC 3-level architecture for databases. Finally, it defines physical and logical data independence.

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Dinesh Bhawnani
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136 views

Unit 1: Dinesh Kumar Bhawnani, BIT DURG

This document discusses data abstraction in databases. It explains that data abstraction hides details of how data is stored and maintained from users, providing an abstract view. This simplifies user interaction with the system. Data abstraction is used to provide an abstract view, hide complexity, and simplify interaction. It also describes three levels of abstraction: physical, logical, and view levels. The physical level describes how data is stored while the view level hides all complexity. It further explains schemas, instances, and the ANSI/SPARC 3-level architecture for databases. Finally, it defines physical and logical data independence.

Uploaded by

Dinesh Bhawnani
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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UNIT 1

Lecture 2

Dinesh Kumar Bhawnani, BIT DURG


Data Abstraction
• It can be summed up as follows.
• When the DBMS hides certain details of how data is
stored and maintained, it provides what is called as
the abstract view of data.
• This is to simplify user-interaction with the system.
• Complexity (of data and data structure) is hidden
from users through several levels of abstraction.

Dinesh Kumar Bhawnani, BIT DURG 2


Data Abstraction
• Data abstraction is used for following purposes:
• To provide abstract view of data.
• To hide complexity from user.
• To simplify user interaction with DBMS.

Dinesh Kumar Bhawnani, BIT DURG 3


Levels of Data Abstraction

Dinesh Kumar Bhawnani, BIT DURG 4


Levels of Data Abstraction
• Physical level: It describes how a record (e.g., customer) is stored.
• Features:
a) Lowest level of abstraction.
b) It describes how data are actually stored.
c) It describes low-level complex data structures in detail.
d) At this level, efficient algorithms to access data are defined.

Dinesh Kumar Bhawnani, BIT DURG 5


Levels of Data Abstraction
• Logical level: It describes what data stored in database, and the
relationships among the data.
• Features:
a) It is next-higher level of abstraction. Here whole Database is divided
into small simple structures.
b) Users at this level need not be aware of the physical-level
complexity used to implement the simple structures.
c) Here the aim is ease of use.
d) Generally, database administrators (DBAs) work at logical level of
abstraction..

Dinesh Kumar Bhawnani, BIT DURG 6


Levels of Data Abstraction
• View level: Application programs hide details of data types. Views
can also hide information (e.g., salary) for security purposes.
• Features:
a) It is the highest level of abstraction.
b) It describes only a part of the whole Database for particular group
of users.
c) This view hides all complexity.
d) It exists only to simplify user interaction with system.
e) The system may provide many views for the whole system.
Dinesh Kumar Bhawnani, BIT DURG 7
Instances and Schemas
• Instances and Schemas are similar to types and variables in
programming languages.
• Schema:
• The overall design of a database is called database schema.
• E.g., the database consists of information about a set of customers
and accounts and the relationship between them.
• It is analogous to variable along with its type information in a
program.

Dinesh Kumar Bhawnani, BIT DURG 8


Instances and Schemas
• Types of Schemas (partitioned according to levels of
abstraction):
• Physical schema: It is database design at the physical level. It is
hidden below logical schema, and can be changed easily without
affecting application programs.
• Logical schema: It is database design at the logical level.
Programmers construct applications using logical schema. It is by
far the most important schema, in terms of its effect on
application programs.
• Subschema: It is schema at view level.
Dinesh Kumar Bhawnani, BIT DURG 9
Instances and Schemas
• Instance:
• It is the actual content of the database at a particular point in time. It
is analogous to the value of a variable.

Dinesh Kumar Bhawnani, BIT DURG 10


ANSI / SPARC 3 level Architecture

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ANSI / SPARC 3 level Architecture

Dinesh Kumar Bhawnani, BIT DURG 12


Data Independence
• Data independence is the ability to modify a schema
definition in one level without affecting a schema
definition in a higher level is called data
independence.

Dinesh Kumar Bhawnani, BIT DURG 13


Data Independence
• There are two types of ‘data independence’:
• Physical data independence
• It is the ability to modify the physical scheme without causing application programs
to be rewritten.
• Modifications at this level are usually to improve performance.
• Logical data independence
• It is the ability to modify the conceptual scheme without causing application
programs to be rewritten
• It is usually done when logical structure of database is altered.
• Logical data independence is harder to achieve as the application programs
are usually heavily dependent on the logical structure of the data. An
analogy is made to abstract data types in programming languages.
Dinesh Kumar Bhawnani, BIT DURG 14
University Questions based on lecture
1. Explain ANSI/ SPARC 3 level architecture of
DBMS. Why the mapping between different
levels are done?
2. Explain the level of data abstraction.
3. Write short notes on schema and instance.
4. What is data independence?

Dinesh Kumar Bhawnani, BIT DURG 15


For Video lecture on this topic please subscribe to my youtube channel.

The link for my youtube channel is

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRWGtE76JlTp1iim6aOTRuw?sub
_confirmation=1

Dinesh Kumar Bhawnani, BIT DURG 16

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