Why do you create a View in a database?

Solution 1:

A view provides several benefits.

1. Views can hide complexity

If you have a query that requires joining several tables, or has complex logic or calculations, you can code all that logic into a view, then select from the view just like you would a table.

2. Views can be used as a security mechanism

A view can select certain columns and/or rows from a table (or tables), and permissions set on the view instead of the underlying tables. This allows surfacing only the data that a user needs to see.

3. Views can simplify supporting legacy code

If you need to refactor a table that would break a lot of code, you can replace the table with a view of the same name. The view provides the exact same schema as the original table, while the actual schema has changed. This keeps the legacy code that references the table from breaking, allowing you to change the legacy code at your leisure.

These are just some of the many examples of how views can be useful.

Solution 2:

Among other things, it can be used for security. If you have a "customer" table, you might want to give all of your sales people access to the name, address, zipcode, etc. fields, but not credit_card_number. You can create a view that only includes the columns they need access to and then grant them access on the view.

Solution 3:

A view is an encapsulation of a query. Queries that are turned into views tend to be complicated and as such saving them as a view for reuse can be advantageous.