Unit four

BUSINESS DATA PROCESSING

 DATA PROCESSING
• Computer data processing is any computing
process that converts data into information or
knowledge.
• The processing is usually assumed to be
automated and running on a computer. Because
data’s are most useful when well-presented and
actually informative,
Data-processing systems are often referred to
as information systems to emphasize their
practicality. Nevertheless, the terms are
roughly synonymous, performing similar
conversions;
Data-processing systems typically manipulate
raw data into information, and likewise
information systems typically take raw data as
input to produce information as output. Data
can be seen as a raw material, which is later
converted to information.
• e.g. For a company that wants to produce
Bornvita, such company will need to make use
of cocoa, which means that cocoa is the raw
material for the production of Bornvita,
likewise data is the raw material for
information. Data has to pass through a
specific process before it could be changed to
information, and it is called a process.
 Data
 Is a collection of facts - unorganized, but able to
be organized into useful information. A collection
of sales orders, employee time sheets, and class
attendance cards are a few examples.
 It can be manipulated to produce output, such as
bills, employee salary slips, and student
attendance reports. This output, called
information, is an organized fact that helps
people to make decisions.
 Processing
 in general terms, is a series of actions or operations that
converts some input into useful output. In data processing,
input is data, and useful output is information. Hence, data
processing is a series of actions or operations that converts
data into information.
 It consists of three sub-activities - capturing input data,
manipulating it, and producing output information. A data
processing system includes resources such as people,
procedures, and devices used to process input data for
producing desirable output
 Information
• Hence, information is data arranged in an
order and form that is useful to people who
receive it.
 Types of Data Processing

Basically there are two types of data processing

1. Batch Processing

2. Online or immediate processing

 1. Batch Processing:

 With batch processing, changes and queries to

file are stored for a period of time, and then a
processing run is made periodically to update the
file and to produce responses to the queries.

 Batch runs can be made on a scheduled basis,

such as daily, weekly, or-monthly, or they can be
made on an as required basis.
Examples of batch processing include
generation of mark-sheets of students. Mark-
sheets and results of school examinations are
given to students only at the end of an
academic year.
So, a programmer can develop a program for
this and the results can he printed at the
required time
2. Online or immediate processing:
 In immediate processing, transactions are processed to update the
file immediately or shortly after a real-world event occurs.
Information processing applications that use immediate processing
are often called real time application.
 A real time application can immediately capture data about ongoing
events or processes and provide the information necessary to
manage them.
 An airline-reservation system is an example of a real time
application.
In banking, where a customer is at the counter
and the time to update his bank account will
naturally take more time if done by human, so
a computer can give full updated details of the
customer's account within seconds.

For this, a customer' is given the wanted

information mostly by interactive processing.
 FILE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

In file-oriented approach of organizing data, a

set of programs is provided to facilitate users
to organize, create, delete, update, and
manipulate their files.
All these programs together form a File
Management System (FMS).
Features found commonly in file management systems
are described below.

File Types

Data files are categorized according to the way an application uses them. A file
management system typically supports following types of files:

1. Transaction File

2. Master File

3. Output File

4. Report File

5. Backup File
 1. Transaction File:
A transaction file stores input data until it can be processed.

For example, in a payroll application for generating

monthly pay slips of employees, current month's transaction
file contains this month's data of each employee, such as
details of hours worked, normal and overtime hours, and if
piecework is involved, quantity of goods made
 2. Master File:
 A master file contains all current data relevant to an
application. For example, in payroll application
mentioned above, master file contains permanent
details of each employee (name, address, employee-
code, pay-rate, income-tax-rate, etc.), and also current
gross-pay-to-date total and tax-paid-to-date total.
 When payroll program is processed, it consolidates
both master and current month's transaction files to
generate this month's pay-slips, and updates master
file to make it ready for following month's
processing.
 3. Output File:
 Some applications use multiple programs for data
processing.
 In such applications, output produced by one
program is fed often as input to another program.
Hence, output produced by former program is
stored in a file known as output file, which is used
later by the latter' program.
 4. Report File:
 A report file holds a copy of a report generated by
a data processing application in computer-
accessible form.
 A report file can be printed to obtain hard copy of
the report whenever desired. It is advantageous to
keep report files instead of paper documents
because files are easier to store and carry.
 5. Backup File:
A backup file is a copy of a file created as a
safety precaution against loss of data due to
corruption or inadvertent deletion of original
file.
Regular creation of backup files is extremely
important.
 File Organizations
 File organization deals with physical organization
of records of a file for convenience of their
storage and retrieval. System designers choose to
organize, access, and process records of various
files in different ways, depending on application
type and users' needs.
 Three file organizations used commonly in
business data processing applications are
sequential, direct/random, and indexed sequential.
File organization requires use of some key
field in every record in a file.

The key field value must be unique for each

record of the file because duplications would
cause serious problems.

In payroll example, employee-code field may

be used as the key field.
 File Utilities
 File utilities are routines to perform generalized
operations on data files. Normally, they are quite
general in nature in the sense that they can deal
with different data formats and different types of
storage medium.
 Operations performed by some commonly used
file utilities are described below.
 Sorting
 A file sorting utility is used to arrange records of a
file in some defined sequence. Values of certain
specified fields (known as keys) in each record
determine this sequence.
 The simplest case of sorting is ordering of records in
a file on a single key.
For example, records of employee file in Figure are
sequenced by ascending order of employee-code.
Searching
 A file searching utility is used to find a particular
record in a file.
 Searching is carried out by matching the values of
certain specified fields (known as keys) in each
record with desired values.
For example, in employee file of Figure 4.2, a user
can specify value 202 for employee-code field to
search corresponding employee's record.
Efficiency of a search algorithm depends on
file organization.

For example, to search a particular records

sequential file, records in the file are scanned
sequentially, beginning with the first record, and
specified key field value is compared one-by-one
with the key field value of each record.
Merging
• A file merging utility is used to combine records of two or
more ordered (sorted) files into a single ordered file.
• Records of each of the input files must be sorted in same
order, although their record layout need not be identical.
• A merging utility places records from each of the input files
in their correct relative order, producing an output fill
having all records in same order as input files. Figure 4.4
illustrates merging of two input files A and B to produce an
output file C.
Copying

A file copying utility is used to produce a copy

of a file either from one unit of a storage
device to another similar unit (such as from
one tape reel or floppy disk to another), or
from one storage medium to another (such as
from tape to hard disk, or from CD-ROM to
hard disk).
 File copying utilities are used often to take back-up
copies of files.
For example, a file may be copied from a hard disk to a
tape or floppy for back-up purpose. File copying utilities
are also known as peripheral interchange programs (PIP)
since they are used often to copy a file from one
peripheral device to another.
Printing
 A file printing utility is used to print a file on a printer to produce hard copy
of its contents.

 Printing utilities often provide facility to print file contents in different

formats.

 They often provide some selection and editing facilities to enable printing
of parts of files (such as specified number of records and only certain fields
of records).

 Special printing facilities are often provided to print files that contain
program instructions rather than data.
Maintenance
• A file maintenance utility is used to copy data from one or
more files to a new file selectively, or to update a file's
contents selectively.
For example, a file maintenance utility may provide features to
combine data from more than one file into a single file, delete
records in a file identified by record key values or record
count, and select specific fields of records to be copied from
an existing file to a new file.
 DATABASE MANAGEMENT
SYSTEM
1 Data Base
A database can be defined in various ways, for example
• A database is a collection of structured data. The structure of the data
is independent of any particular application.
• A database is a file of data; structured in such a way that it may
serve a number of applications without its structure being dictated by
any one of those applications, the concept being that programs are
written round the database rather than files being structured to meet the
needs of a particular programs
• A database can be termed as a repository of data.
A collection of actual data which constitutes the
information regarding an organization is stored in
a database.
• For example, there are 1000 students in a college
& we have to store their personal details, marks
details etc., these details will be recorded in a
database.
There is a saving bank enterprise that keeps information
about all customers & saving accounts.

Following manipulations has to be done with the system

• A program to debit or credit an account
• A program to add a new account.
• A program to find balance of an account.
• A program to generate monthly statements.
 Using file system for storing data has
got following disadvantages:-
1. Data Redundancy & Inconsistency
2. Difficulty in accessing data
3. Data Isolation
4. Integrity Problems
5. Atomicity Problems
6. Security Problems
 Database Management Systems (DBMS)

• This is the interface between the users (application

programmers) and the database (the data).
• A database is a collection of data that represents
important objects in a user's business.
• A database management system (DBMS) is a program
that allows users to define, manipulate, and process the
data in a database in order to produce meaningful
information.
• DBMS is collection of programs that enables
you to store, modify, and extract important
information from a database.
• There are many different types of DBMS,
ranging from small systems that run on
personal computers to huge systems that run
on mainframes.
Following are the examples of DBMS:

• Computerized library systems

• Automated teller machines

• Flight reservation systems

• Computerized parts inventory systems

 A database contains a no. of files & certain programs to access &

modify these files. But the actual data is not shown to the user; the
system hides actual details of how data is stored & maintained.
 Main Components of a DBMS
• A DBMS allows users to organize, process, and retrieve selected data from
a database, without any need to know about underlying database
structure (organization and location of data). Four major components of a
DBMS are:

1. Data Definition Language (DDL)

2. Data Manipulation Language (DML)

3. Query Language

4. Report Generator
 1. Data definition language (DDL)
• is used to define the structure of a database. Database structure
definition (also known as database schema) typically includes the
following:
1. Definition of all data elements to be included in the database.
2. Organization of data elements (fields) into records (or tuples),
tables, etc.
3. Definition of field name, field length, and field type for each
data element.
 Field name is used to refer to a data element while accessing it.
 Field length is used to define maximum size of a data element (such
as employee-name field may have a maximum size of 30
characters).
 Common field types are
• Numeric: Can contain numbers formed with digits 0 to 9, a decimal point, and a + or
– sign

• Alphanumeric: Can contain a combination of alphabetic characters, special symbols,

and digits

• Logical: Can contain one of two possible values - Yes/No or True/False

• Date/time: Can contain a single date, time, or date-time value

• Memo: Can contain any type of data that user might like to type Binary: Can contain
binary data

A data dictionary is developed and used in a database to document and maintain data
definitions. It is created/updated automatically by DDL module of DBMS as database
schema is defined / changed.
2. Data Manipulation Language (DML)

• Once structure of a database (database

schema) has been defined, it is ready for entry
and manipulation of data. Data manipulation
language (DML) includes commands to enable
users to enter and manipulate data
• With these commands, users can add new records to
database, navigate through existing records, view
contents of various fields of a record, modify contents
of one or more fields of a record, delete an existing
record, and sort records in desired sequence.
• In some DBMS, data definition language and data
manipulation language are combined together, while in
others, they are supported as separate DBMS
components.
 3. Query Language
• Although it is possible to navigate through a database one
record at a time to extract desired information from the
database, this approach can be very inefficient and
frustrating when there are thousands of records and
several files in the database. Hence, all database
management systems provide a query language enabling
users to define their requirements as queries for extracting
desired information from a database
 4. Report Generator
 A report is presentation of information extracted from a
database. Report generators enable users of a database to
design the layout of a report in desired format.
 This means that that users can specify proper spacing
between data items to be presented in a report, and can
also include suitable report titles and subtitles, column
heading, page numbers, separation lines, and other
elements making a report more readable and presentable.
 Creating a Database
Creation of a database is a three steps process:
1. Defining its structure (schema)
2. Designing forms (custom screens) for
displaying and entering data
3. Entering data into it These steps are
described below
 Entering Data
• After forms have been designed, the database is ready for
entry of data. Data is entered one record at a time. To enter
data, a user issues a command that calls up and displays
appropriate form with blank fields. The user then keys in
data for each field in appropriate spaces. In this manner,
the user enters data for first record, then for second record,
and so on. In most database systems, records are assigned
a number automatically as they are entered.
 Viewing, Modifying, Deleting and
Adding Records
• All database systems provide commands to
add, delete, view, or modify records of a
database. Command for viewing a record only
enables users to display data in various fields
of a record in same screen format as that used
for data entry.
The End