They had no good word for a collection of data files. Visual FoxPro refers to files that contain data as tables , and the collection of files as a project . Unlike some other systems, Microsoft Access stores everything in one big file called a database. On the disk is one file with an .mdb extension. Tables hold the data around which you build the system.
Tables are essential groupings of data.
We group things to help us come to grips with the complexities of life. Our ideas about tables, fields, and records are human ideas, not computer ones. They help us see the relatedness of things that might get away if isolated. A table is a named collection of related records. Data in tables use columns to represent fields and rows to represent records.