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What is right way to write or speak?

I am a developer and want to add message to my application once the record has been added to the database.

So I am confused about the right way to write/speak the message.

The record is added

or

The record has been added

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1
  • “[I] want to add message to my application once the record has been added to the database.” It sounds to me like you already answered your question. – svick Jul 17 '14 at 17:53
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Another possibility is to simply say it like this:

Record added.

That's short for "[The] record [has been / was] added."

You will see that sort of thing all the time in software.

Message sent.

File deleted.

Users don't like to read a lot of text. It's good to get straight to the point with them.

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  • I agree with your feedback about user don't like to read many stuffs :) so this can be more simpler as well. Since I am not native English speaker and have lot of knowledge in grammar, I am still trying to understand the differences between all. – pixelngrain Jul 18 '14 at 4:12
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"The record is added" is incorrect--it should be "the record was added." Both sentences would then be correct. But, for a software application, "the record has been added" sounds better to me.

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  • Thanks for the answer. I also eager to know why has been added? I mean want to understand what is the grammatically reason behind it. Sorry! about my english :) – pixelngrain Jul 17 '14 at 12:38
  • I don't have a strong reason for preferring "has been" over "was"--it's just a personal preference. As a software engineer myself, "has been" just feels better this in context. Perhaps, the software status messages I'm typically exposed to in my work exhibit a higher incidence of "has been" than "was." – Obfuskater Jul 17 '14 at 13:29
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    @pixelngrain, "has been added" means that it was added, and it's still added. The present perfect tells us about something that happened and that continues into the present. If however you say "it was added", then that doesn't necessarily say anything about its state now. It was added, but it could have been removed since then. It think "has been added" is better in this case because it more precisely describes the situation. – Dangph Jul 17 '14 at 13:35
  • @Dangph Does it? In a multi-user application, somebody else might have removed the record after it was added but before the message was shown. – svick Jul 17 '14 at 17:51
  • @Dangph thanks for such detail explanation. It helped me to understand little better. – pixelngrain Jul 18 '14 at 4:17
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I usually prefer "Record added successfully", especially with databases. The reason for this is because there might be access restrictions causing the record to be revoked ("no permission").

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