Terms and Concepts

Database

Databases are the core data storage structures in XINA. A database essentially defines a MySQL table, with additional features managed by the XINA server system.

Each database is defined by a set of fields, which specify the columns of the table. Fields are primarily defined by:

A single unit of data in a database is a record, corresponding to a row of the table. Each record contains a value for each field of the database.

Structural database changes (adding / changing / removing fields) are very slow (hours to days for very large databases) so initial time investment to optimize database requirements is worthwhile.

Group

Databases in XINA are organized into a heirarchical structure of groups, which can each contain any number of groups and databases. For example:

A dot notation is used to reference groups and databases. For example, moma.data.science refers to the science database in the above configuration.


Revision #3
Created 9 June 2022 17:07:13 by Nick Dobson
Updated 12 July 2023 19:23:12 by Nick Dobson