What Is Another Term For Data Dictionary?

A Data Dictionary, also called a Information Definition Matrix, provides detailed information about the business data, such as standard definitions of data elements, their meanings, and allowable values. While a conceptual or logical Entity Relationship Diagram will focus on the high-level business concepts, a Data Lexicon will provide more detail most each attribute of a business concept.

Essentially, a data dictionary provides a tool that enables you to communicate business organisation stakeholder requirements in such a way that your technical team can more than hands design a relational database or data structure to run across those requirements. It helps avoid project mishaps such as requiring information in a field that a business stakeholder can't reasonably be expected to provide, or expecting the wrong type of information in a field.

What'south more than, if you've been wondering what to do with long lists of fields within use cases or other requirements documents, you lot'll exist happy to learn that they have an ideal dwelling house in a data dictionary.

Alternatively, if you lot've been creating spreadsheets to organize data-related information, you might be surprised to learn that you've been creating a form of a Data Dictionary. For a long time, I simply referred to these types of specifications as "content specs" or a "information matrix," only to find I'd been creating Data Dictionaries for over x years of project piece of work.

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The Cardinal Elements of a Information Lexicon

A Information Dictionary provides information about each aspect, also referred to equally fields, of a data model. An attribute is a place in the database that holds data. For case, if we were to create a Data Dictionary representing the manufactures hither on Bridging the Gap, we'd potentially accept attributes for article championship, commodity author, article category, and the article content itself.

A Information Dictionary is typically organized in a spreadsheet format. Each attribute is listed every bit a row in the spreadsheet and each cavalcade labels an chemical element of data that is useful to know almost the attribute.

Let's look at the most common elements included in a information dictionary.

Attribute Proper noun – A unique identifier, typically expressed in business linguistic communication, that labels each attribute.
Optional/Required – Indicates whether information is required in an attribute earlier a record can exist saved.
Attribute Type – Defines what type of information is commanded in a field. Mutual types include text, numeric, date/time, enumerated list, wait-ups, booleans, and unique identifiers.

While these are the core elements of a information dictionary, it'southward non uncommon to document additional information about each chemical element, which may include the source of the information, the tabular array or concept in which the attribute is contained, the physical database field proper name, the field length, and whatsoever default values.

Instance of a Information Dictionary

You lot are probably wondering how all of this comes together.

Here'south a look at a simplified example data dictionary that contains the aspect from our Bridging the Gap article example, along with disquisitional information about each aspect.

Every bit you tin can see, a data dictionary defines critical information about each attribute in a business-focused way. It besides organizes information that might otherwise be scattered across multiple different documents and specs, making it easier for your database developer to design or update a database that meets business requirements.