1.3 Why DBMS?/2

Published

February 10, 2026

Module Objectives

  • Comparison of File Based Systems and DBMS

Module Outline

  • File handling by Python with a DBMS Bank Transaction example.
  • Comparative solutions using Python using .csv file and the other is a database system using SQL. We will compare with all the parameters mentioned previously like durability, scalability, etc.

Case study : A bank transaction

Let’s take the example of a bank transaction system where he can open a new account , transfer money from the account and check history of all the transactions.
The application is defined with three basic conditions :

  • If the account balance is not enough, the transfer will not happen.
  • If the account numbers are not same, it will terminate the transaction and show an error message.
  • If the transaction is successful, it will print a confirmation message.

Now, we will compare File-based system using Python programming language with DBMS.

  • For File-based system there are two different files :
    • Accounts.csv for storing information about accounts.
    • Ledger.csv are used for storing info related to transactions.
  • For a Database application we use :
    • Accounts table
    • Ledgers table
  • In Python , for every transaction we need to open both the csv files.
  • In DBMS, after initialzing the tables with data, it is very easy to work with data.