Is Excel a database?

What are examples of databases in everyday life?

You might have heard about relational databases (RDBMS). You can think of them as organized lists of data. In an RDBMS, you have a table for each type of data. A table is a collection of rows and columns. Rows are the records of the data, and columns are the attributes of the data. In a relational database, each table is called a schema.

As some have mentioned already, databases are a collection of data that is stored and accessed in a particular way. But what kind of data are they? There are many kinds of data in a database. Here's a basic summary: Data - the information that will be manipulated by the users. Metadata - information about the data, such as who owns it, when it was last modified, etc. Rules - how the data is stored and accessed. Structure - how the data is stored and organized. Constraints - limits on the data. There are other ways to categorize the types of data, but this is a general introduction. You can read more about them in many places, for example in the Wikipedia article about database systems.

A database is just a collection of objects, where each object has a name, a type (which defines its behavior), and some attributes. The collection of objects is typically maintained as a collection of tables.

There are two primary types of database: a Relational Database, which maintains the objects in a set of tables. An Object-Oriented Database, which has objects that map to tables. In either case, the "database" is a collection of objects.

Is Excel a database?

I recently asked this question on Server Fault and received a great answer.

But it seems like many people are missing the point that it was a simple question.

Excel is a spreadsheet program. I use it to enter data and create reports. Excel can be used to create relational database structures but that is not what it was designed for.

If you use Excel to create a relational database structure then you have done something very wrong and should be ashamed. It is a terrible thing to do, not to mention a dangerous thing to do. For example, when I make a mistake with my spreadsheet I end up with a table with duplicate entries. When I start to query it I end up with a query that is horribly inefficient.

I am in the business of selling software products. If my software sells because it is better than a competitor's product I would be a fool to tell my customer that I could have sold him a better product for less money if he had only used Excel. It would be like selling you a better car because you wanted to save money on gas or buy a cheaper car if you wanted to save money on gas.

So, should I be ashamed of Excel? No. I should be ashamed if I created a database in Excel.

Comments. Why is it a terrible thing to do to use Excel to create a database? You're not building a relational database, you're creating a spreadsheet to track your own business' finances. That's what it's for. I'm sure the OP is using it as intended and has no plans to sell it, but your answer seems a little biased to me.

This is a good question, and it will be interesting to see how Microsoft answers it. I've been a user of both DBMS and spreadsheets since the mid-80s, and I'm a big fan of spreadsheets. I've never been very good at programming, and I like to just fill out a spreadsheet and then see what the results are. The spreadsheet is powerful enough that it's not a stretch for me to write something which does useful things.

The problems come when I try to integrate the data back into the database, and even more so when I try to automate it. Then it becomes a big mess.