What Is an Assumption in a Database?

All database systems are based on some assumptions. These assumptions are only determined to be correct or faulty once the database is built and tested. Faulty assumptions do not always create a negative impact on the database; they actually assist the database developer in finding ways to improve the project design and functions of the database.

Some developers assume that each table of a database only has one column primary key field that automatically gets incremented as more data is inputted. This is faulty because it is allowable to override this assumption manually. The downside is the developer has to hand code additional parameters to make the database accept multiple columns containing other primary keys.

Some developers assume that a JPanel system is limited to only edit a single table in the database. This is not true because the JPanel code design allows two or more generated panels to merge into one panel, but information must be cut and pasted by the developer. Additional hand coding is also necessary to implement the merging of data.

"Closed world assumptions" or CWAs are a trending class of inherent conclusions for many logic databases. These assumption are introduced to be special case assumptions because they support the basic idea of "database completion" while simultaneously satisfying the instinctive elements of the database process. Studies prove that the syntactic and semantic definitions used for CWAs are equivalent and therefore can be considered as viable assumptions.

Semantic assumptions are temporary data that are saved in an unstable database for the purpose of deriving inherent information from the solidified data in the system. There are two types of semantic assumptions: point-based and interval-based. The point-based assumption relates to the usage of interpolation methodologies, while the interval-based assumption generally deals with various property types, such as time coarseness.