What is the primary purpose of a database?

The primary purpose of a database is to store and organize data. Databases are designed to efficiently capture, manage, and retrieve data, allowing users to work with large amounts of information in a structured way. This organization enables data integrity, reduces redundancy, and helps maintain consistency across data entries.

Databases provide a systematic approach to storing information, often allowing for complex queries and data relationships to be established, thereby facilitating data retrieval and manipulation. In contrast, the other choices focus on tasks that might use data but do not address the core function of a database itself. For example, performing calculations and writing software applications are actions that may involve using data from a database but are not the primary role of a database. Similarly, displaying images pertains to content presentation rather than the core storage and organizational capabilities that databases provide.