Most asked DBMS interview questions with answers

Posted by Shashank Krishna Tuesday, July 20, 2010


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Question: What are the wildcards used for pattern matching. 

Answer: _ for single character substitution and % for multi-character substitution. 


Question: How can I hide a particular table name of our schema? 

Answer: you can hide the table name by creating synonyms. 


e.g) you can create a synonym y for table x 


create synonym y for x; 


Question: When we give SELECT * FROM EMP; How does oracle respond: 

Answer: When u give SELECT * FROM EMP; 


the server check all the data in the EMP file and it displays the data of the EMP file 


Question: What is the use of CASCADE CONSTRAINTS? 

Answer: When this clause is used with the DROP command, a parent table can be dropped even when a child table exists. 


Question: There are 2 tables, Employee and Department. There are few records in employee table, for which, the department is not assigned. The output of the query should contain all th employees names and their corresponding departments, if the department is assigned otherwise employee names and null value in the place department name. What is the query? 

Answer: What you want to use here is called a left outer join with Employee table on the left side. A left outer join as the name says picks up all the records from the left table and based on the joint column picks the matching records from the right table and in case there are no matching records in the right table, it shows null for the selected columns of the right table. E.g. in this query which uses the key-word LEFT OUTER JOIN. Syntax though varies across databases. In DB2/UDB it uses the key word LEFT OUTER JOIN, in case of Oracle the connector is Employee_table.Dept_id *= Dept_table.Dept_id 


SQL Server/Sybase : 


Employee_table.Dept_id(+) = Dept_table.Dept_id 


Question: on index 

why u need indexing? Where that is stored 

and what u mean by schema object? 

For what purpose we are using view 

Answer: We can?t create an Index on Index. Index is stored in user_index table. Every object that has been created on Schema is Schema Object like Table, View etc. If we want to share the particular data to various users we have to use the virtual table for the Base table...So that is a view. 


Question: How to store directory structure in a database? 

Answer: We can do it by the following command: create or replace directory as 'c: \tmp' 

Question: Why does the following command give a compilation error? 

DROP TABLE &TABLE_NAME; 

Answer: Variable names should start with an alphabet. Here the table name starts with an '&' symbol. 


Question: Difference between VARCHAR and VARCHAR2? 

Answer: Varchar means fixed length character data (size) i.e., min size-1 and max-2000 


Varchar2 means variable length character data i.e., min-1 to max-4000 


Question: Which command displays the SQL command in the SQL buffer, and then executes it 

Answer: You set the LIST or L command to get the recent one from SQL Buffer 


Question: Which system table contains information on constraints on all the tables created? 

Answer: USER_CONSTRAINTS. 


Question: How do I write a program which will run a SQL query and mail the results to a group? 

Answer: Use DBMS_JOB for scheduling a program job and DBMS_MAIL to send the results through email. 


Question: There is an Eno. & gender in a table. Eno. has primary key and gender has a check constraints for the values 'M' and 'F'. 

While inserting the data into the table M was misspelled as F and F as M. 

What is the update? 

Answer: update set gender= 


case where gender='F' Then 'M' 


where gender='M' Then 'F' 


Question: What the difference between UNION and UNIONALL? 

Answer: union will return the distinct rows in two select s, while union all return all rows. 


Question: How can we backup the sql files & what is SAP? 

Answer: You can backup the sql files through backup utilities or some backup command in sql. SAP is ERP software for the organization to integrate the software. 


Question: What is the difference between TRUNCATE and DELETE commands? 

Answer: TRUNCATE is a DDL command whereas DELETE is a DML command. Hence DELETE operation can be rolled back, but TRUNCATE operation cannot be rolled back. 

WHERE clause can be used with DELETE and not with TRUNCATE. 


Question: State true or false. !=, <>, ^= all denote the same operation. 

Answer: True. 


Question: State true or false. EXISTS, SOME, ANY are operators in SQL. 

Answer: True. 


Question: What will be the output of the following query? 

SELECT REPLACE (TRANSLATE (LTRIM (RTRIM ('!! ATHEN!!','!'), '!'), 'AN', '**'),'*','TROUBLE') FROM DUAL; 

Answer: TROUBLETHETROUBLE. 


Question: What is the advantage to use trigger in your PL? 

Answer: Triggers are fired implicitly on the tables/views on which they are created. There are various advantages of using a trigger. Some of them are: 


- Suppose we need to validate a DML statement (insert/Update/Delete) that modifies a table then we can write a trigger on the table that gets fired implicitly whenever DML statement is executed on that table. 


- Another reason of using triggers can be for automatic updation of one or more tables whenever a DML/DDL statement is executed for the table on which the trigger is created. 


- Triggers can be used to enforce constraints. For eg: Any insert/update/ Delete statements should not be allowed on a particular table after office hours. For enforcing this constraint Triggers should be used. 


- Triggers can be used to publish information about database events to subscribers. Database event can be a system event like Database startup or shutdown or it can be a user even like User login in or user logoff. 


Question: How write a SQL statement to query the result set and display row as columns and columns as row? 

Answer: TRANSFORM Count (Roll_no) AS Count of Roll_no 

SELECT Academic_Status 

FROM tbl_enr_status 

GROUP BY Academic_Status 

PIVOT Curnt_status; 


Question: Cursor Syntax brief history 

Answer: To retrieve data with SQL one row at a time you need to use cursor processing. Not all relational databases support this, but many do. Here I show this in Oracle with PL/SQL, which is Procedural Language SQL .Cursor processing is done in several steps:1. Define the rows you want to retrieve. This is called declaring the cursor.2. Open the cursor. This activates the cursor and loads the data. Note that declaring the cursor doesn't load data, opening the cursor does.3. Fetch the data into variables.4. Close the cursor. 


Question: What is the data type of the surrogate key? 

Answer: Data type of the surrogate key is either integer or numeric or number 




Question: How to write a sql statement to find the first occurrence of a non zero value? 

Answer: There is a slight chance the column "a" has a value of 0 which is not null. In that case, you?ll loose the information. There is another way of searching the first not null value of a column: 

select column_name from table_name where column_name is not null and rownum<2; 


Question: What is normalazation, types with e.g.\'s. _ with queries of all types 

Answer: There are 5 normal forms. It is necessary for any database to be in the third normal form to maintain referential integrity and non-redundancy. 


First Normal Form: Every field of a table (row, col) must contain an atomic value 

Second Normal Form: All columns of a table must depend entirely on the primary key column. 

Third Normal Form: All columns of a table must depend on all columns of a composite primary key. 

Fourth Normal Form: A table must not contain two or more independent multi-valued facts. This normal form is often avoided for maintenance reasons. 

Fifth Normal Form: is about symmetric dependencies. 

Each normal form assumes that the table is already in the earlier normal form. 


Question: Given an unnormalized table with columns: 

Answer: The query will be: delete from tabname where rowid not in (select max (rowid) from tabname group by name) Here tabname is the table name. 


Question: How to find second maximum value from a table? 

Answer: select max (field1) from tname1 where field1= (select max (field1) from tname1 where field1<(select max(field1) from tname1); 


Field1- Salary field 


Tname= Table name. 


Question: What is the advantage of specifying WITH GRANT OPTION in the GRANT command? 

Answer: The privilege receiver can further grant the privileges he/she has obtained from the owner to any other user. 


Question: What is the main difference between the IN and EXISTS clause in sub queries?? 

Answer: The main difference between the IN and EXISTS predicate in sub query is the way in which the query gets executed. 


IN -- The inner query is executed first and the list of values obtained as its result is used by the outer query. The inner query is executed for only once. 


EXISTS -- The first row from the outer query is selected, then the inner query is executed and, the outer query output uses this result for checking. This process of inner query execution repeats as many no .of times as there are outer query rows. That is, if there are ten rows that can result from outer query, the inner query is executed that many no. of times. 



Question: TRUNCATE TABLE EMP; 

DELETE FROM EMP; 

Will the outputs of the above two commands differ 

Answer: The difference is that the TRUNCATE call cannot be rolled back and all memory space for that table is released back to the server. TRUNCATE is much faster than DELETE and in both cases only the table data is removed, not the table structure. 


Question: What is table space? 

Answer: Table-space is a physical concept. It has pages where the records of the database are stored with a logical perception of tables. So table space contains tables. 


Question: How to find out the 10th highest salary in SQL query? 

Answer: Table - Tbl_Test_Salary 

Column - int_salary 

select max (int_salary) 

from Tbl_Test_Salary 

where int_salary in 

(select top 10 int_Salary from Tbl_Test_Salary order by int_salary) 


Question: Which command executes the contents of a specified file? 

Answer: START or @


Question: What is the difference between SQL and SQL SERVER? 

Answer: SQL Server is an RDBMS just like oracle, DB2 from Microsoft 

whereas 

Structured Query Language (SQL), pronounced "sequel", is a language that provides an interface to relational database systems. It was developed by IBM in the 1970s for use in System R. SQL is a de facto standard, as well as an ISO and ANSI standard. SQL is used to perform various operations on RDBMS. 


Question: What is the difference between Single row sub-Query and Scalar Sub-Query? 

Answer: SINGLE ROW SUBQUERY RETURNS A VALUE WHICH IS USED BY WHERE CLAUSE, WHEREAS SCALAR SUBQUERY IS A SELECT STATEMENT USED IN COLUMN LIST CAN BE THOUGHT OF AS AN INLINE FUNCTION IN SELECT COLUMN LIST. 


Question: What does the following query do? 

Answer: SELECT SAL + NVL (COMM, 0) FROM EMP; 


It gives the added value of sal and comm for each employee in the emp table. 


NVL (null value) replaces null with 0. 


Question: How to find second maximum value from a table? 

Answer: select max (field1) from tname1 where field1= (select max (field1) from tname1 where field1< (select max (field1) from tname1);

Field1- Salary field 

Tname= Table name. 


Question: I have a table with duplicate names in it. Write me a query which returns only duplicate rows with number of times they are repeated. 

Answer: SELECT COL1 FROM TAB1 

WHERE COL1 IN 

(SELECT MAX (COL1) FROM TAB1 

GROUP BY COL1 

HAVING COUNT (COL1) > 1) 


Question: How to find out the database name from SQL*PLUS command prompt? 

Answer: Select * from global_name; 

This will give the data base name which u r currently connected to..... 


Question: How to display duplicate rows in a table? 

Answer: select * from emp 


group by (empid) 


having count (empid)>1 


Question: What is the value of comm and sal after executing the following query if the initial value of ?sal? is 10000 

UPDATE EMP SET SAL = SAL + 1000, COMM = SAL*0.1; 

Answer: sal = 11000, comm = 1000. 


Question: 1) What is difference between Oracle and MS Access? 

2) What are disadvantages in Oracle and MS Access? 

2) What are features & advantages in Oracle and MS Access? 

Answer: Oracle's features for distributed transactions, materialized views and replication are not available with MS Access. These features enable Oracle to efficiently store data for multinational companies across the globe. Also these features increase scalability of applications based on Oracle. 

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13 comments

  1. Adele Says,

    Hi

    I read this post two times.

    I like it so much, please try to keep posting.

    Let me introduce other material that may be good for our community.

    Source: Interview questions answers

    Best regards
    Henry

     
  2. Anonymous Says,

    how can find first five top salary employee among all employeee from give table

     
  3. Anonymous Says,

    sir how many types of joints are there in dbms????

     
  4. Anonymous Says,

    In Interviews, most of the time they see how can we apply our database knowledge. So we are asked to design a database for a Scenario like a Cricket Match , or say for a Social Website, Library management, Store Inventory or any such. So can you please put such few scenarios.. ? Please....

    KartiK

     
  5. Anonymous Says,

    thanks. very nice collection
    regrds shraddha

     
  6. M_EMP_MAST is table name SALARY is Colum name.Finding 5'th highest Salary of Employee as below:

    SELECT min(SALARY)
    FROM M_EMP_MAST whereSALARYin(select distinct top(5)SALARY from M_EMP_MAST)

     
  7. manish Says,

    thanx for the knowledge you gave ..it was really helpful..this is very good for software developers..more info and query you can also visit www.studentluv.com

     
  8. Anonymous Says,

    Hi

    I like this post:

    You create good material for community.

    Please keep posting.

    Let me introduce other material that may be good for net community.

    Source: Library manager interview questions

    Best rgs
    Peter

     
  9. Unknown Says,

    Thx for the material u posted.

     
  10. aparna Says,

    Very Informative and Thank you

     
  11. Anonymous Says,

    table name is emp and find the minimum 5th salary of employee

     
  12. “DBMS/RDBMS” Interview Questions With Answers".


    Here, are some sample questions based on “RDBMS”. Read it carefully as these questions will improve your basic concept on RDBMS, and will help you in cracking any interview.

    Click on any question to find out it's answers:




    1) What Is A Database?

    2) What Is DBMS & Database?

    3) What Are The Advantages Of DBMS?

    4) What Are The Disadvantages In File Processing System?

    5) Discuss How To Know When There Is A Need Of DBMS & When There Is Not?



    6) What Is Parallel & Distributed Database? Differentiate Them.

    7) Differentiate Between File-Oriented System & Database System?

    8) What Are The Applications Of Databases?

    9) What Is The Importance Of Databases?

    10) What Is DBMS & RDBMS?

     
  13. Jijo Says,

    check out more about database(ibm db2)
    http://mframes.blogspot.in/search/label/DB2

     

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Shashank Krishna
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nothin much to say.........doin B.tech in IIIT allahabad loves bloggingn hacking.... :) and loooves blogging
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