detail file

[′dē‚tāl ‚fīl]

(computer science)

A file containing current or transient data used to update a master file or processed with the master file to obtain a specific result. Also known as transaction file.

transaction file

A collection of transaction records. The data in transaction files is used to update the master files, which contain the data about the subjects of the organization (customers, employees, vendors, etc.). Transaction files also serve as audit trails and history for the organization. Where before they were transferred to offline storage after some period of time, they are increasingly being kept online for routine analyses. See data warehouse, transaction processing and information system.

Following are the kinds of fields that make up a typical transaction record in a business information system. There can be many more fields depending on the organization. The "key" fields below are the ones that are generally indexed for fast matching against the master record. The account number is usually the primary key, but name may also be used as a primary key. See master file for examples of typical master records.

EMPLOYEE PAYROLL RECORD
  key  Employee account number
       Today's date
       Hours worked

       ORDER RECORD
  key  Customer account number
       Today's date
       Quantity
       Product number

       PAYMENT RECORD
  key  Customer number
       Today's date
       Invoice number
       Amount paid
       Check number

       PURCHASE ORDER
  key  Purchase order number
       Today's date
       Department
       Authorizing agent
       Vendor account number
       Quantity
       Product number
       Due date
       Total cost

       WAREHOUSE RECEIPT
  key  Purchase order number
  key  Invoice number
       Today's date
       Quantity
       Product number

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Mentioned in

transaction file

References in periodicals archive

(2) Detail file during the traveling phase exists and was used for analyses in Table 2.

Migration patterns of young Pacific bluefin tuna (Thunnus orientalis) determined with archival tags

Sample records of swimming depth, water temperature, and temperature of fish viscera as recorded in the detail file are shown in Figure 1 for three days in winter and three days in summer.

Differences between daytime and nighttime swimming depth, water temperature, visceral temperature, and the temperature difference between water and fish viscera (thermal excess) were examined by using the Mann-Whitney U test (P=0.05) with data in the detail file. Data taken during the hour before and the hour after both dawn and dusk (four hours in all) were excluded from the test in order to distinguish clearly between daytime and nighttime.

Some combination of these vertical swimming behaviors was observed in 1081 of 1452 days (74%) during which the detail file data were available for both dawn and dusk.

The tag temperature used in our comparison was the temperature at 0 m depth recorded in the summary file because that file contained a much larger number of days than that of the detail file. In support of this, we confirmed that the average water temperature over all depths for a day in the detail file had only slight differences of-0.1 [+ or -] 0.7[degrees]C in average (range: -4.0-+4.3[degrees]C) from the temperature at 0 m recorded for the day in the summary file.

Swimming depth, ambient water temperature preference, and feeding frequency of young Pacific bluefin tuna (Thunnus orientalis) determined with archival tags

The microdata contained in the annual Natality Detail files provides information on the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics and health risk factors of mothers giving birth, as well as the health outcomes of the infant.

Program on Children. (Bureau News)