Table vs. View – Any difference?

Many of us might struggle to give a precise answer to this question. This article might just help ..

The difference between a view and a table is that views are definitions built on top of other tables (or views), and do not hold data themselves. To put it in simple words, a view is a virtual table which also consists of rows and columns just like a table. Views have no direct or physical relation with the database.

If data is changing in the underlying table, the same change is reflected in the view. In general, views cannot be updated, deleted and modified but we could select data from views easily.

Just to reiterate, a view can be built on top of a single table or multiple tables. It can also be built on top of another view.

Advantages of View over Table

Ease of use: 

    A view hides the complexity of the database tables from end users. Essentially we can think of views as a layer of abstraction on top of the database tables.

Space savings: 

     Views takes very little space to store, since they do not store actual data.

Additional data security: 

      Views can include only certain columns in the table so that only the non-sensitive columns are included and exposed to the end user. In addition, some databases allow views to have different security settings, thus hiding sensitive data from prying eyes.

Here are some examples of HRMS views over base tables - 

Base Table	Views
HR_ALL_ORGANIZATION_UNITS	·        HR_ORGANIZATION_UNITS ·        PER_ALL_ORGANIZATION_UNITS ·        PER_ORGANIZATION_UNITS
PER_ALL_PEOPLE_F	·        PER_PEOPLE ·        PER_PEOPLE_F ·        PER_PEOPLE_X ·        PER_ALL_PEOPLE
PER_ALL_ASSIGNMENTS_F	·        PER_ASSIGNMENTS ·        PER_ASSIGNMENTS_F ·        PER_ASSIGNMENTS_X ·        PER_ALL_ASSIGNMENTS
PER_ALL_POSITIONS	·        HR_POSITIONS ·        HR_POSITIONS_F ·        HR_POSITIONS_X ·        PER_POSITIONS ·        HR_ALL_POSITIONS
PER_ALL_VACANCIES	·        PER_VACANCIES

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