Data manipulation involves altering, organizing, or managing data to make it more readable and useful. This process is essential in handling diverse forms of data, crucial for informed decision-making. Effective data analysis often relies heavily on the ability to manipulate data appropriately.
In practical use, data manipulation typically involves operations like inserting, deleting, and modifying data within a database. These processes are facilitated by Data Manipulation Language (DML), a coding language designed specifically for modifying data in its database environment. A common real-world application of data manipulation is in website management, where web server logs are analyzed to identify the most viewed web pages.
In business contexts, data manipulation is critical during data migration, ensuring that data is reorganized, cleaned, and stripped of unwanted elements as it is transferred between databases. This makes the data more accessible and easier to interpret, providing valuable insights to end users.