Interview Questions in SQL/PLSQL

SET-1
1. What Is SQL?
2. Which command displays the SQL command in the SQL buffer, and then executes it?
3. What is the difference between Truncate & Drop?
4. Explain SQL Having?
5. Difference between SQL Having & Where?
6. Difference between SQL IN/SQL Exists?
7. Difference between SQL NOT IN/SQL NOT Exists?
8. Difference between SQL UNION/SQL UNION ALL?
9. Explain SQL TOP.
10. How to delete duplicate records in a table?
11. How to find duplicate records with the number they are duplicated?
SELECT Id, count (*) as num_records
from table
group by id
having count (*) > 1
12. What is a PRIMARY KEY?
13. What is a FOREIGN KEY?
14. What is a UNIQUE KEY?
15. What is the difference between UNIQUE and PRIMARY KEY?
16. Difference between Unique Key and Primary Key.
17. Difference between Cast & Convert.
18. Explain SQL Group by and give examples.
19. How can you call a PL/SQL procedure from SQL?
20. Which is the subset of SQL commands used to manipulate Oracle Database structures?
21. Write a query to select the Nth highest salary from a table.
22. Write a query to select the 2nd highest salary from a table.

Interview Questions in SQL/PLSQL

23. Write a query to select the second highest salary from a table.
SELECT max(salary) AS salary_2
FROM emp
WHERE salary < (SELECT max(salary) AS salary_1
FROM emp)
24. Write a query to select the 5th highest salary from a table.
SELECT min(salary) AS high5
FROM employee
WHERE salary IN(SELECT salary
FROM employee WHERE ROWNUM <=5
ORDER BY salary DESC)
25. What command is used to get back the privileges offered by the GRANT command?
Revoke
26. How do you execute a host operating system command from within SQL?
27. What command is used to create a table by copying the structure of another table?
28. Give examples of Create Table?
29. What is the difference between Delete and Truncate command in SQL?
30. What is the difference between Delete and Truncate command in SQL?
Delete command and truncate command both will delete the data, however the truncate command
can not be rolled back as delete can be. TRUNCATE is a DDL command whereas DELETE is a DML
command. The delete command can be used for selected records using the where clause but with
the truncate command we have to loose data. DELETE statement is a logged operation and hence
takes more time then truncate.
31. How can variables be passed to a SQL routine?
By use of the & symbol. For passing in variables the numbers 1-8 can be used (&1, &2,...,&8) to pass
the values after the command into the SQLPLUS session. To be prompted for a specific variable,
place the ampersanded variable in the code itself: select * from dba_tables where
owner=&owner_name; . Use of double ampersands tells SQLPLUS to resubstitute the value for each
subsequent use of the variable, a single ampersand will cause a reprompt for the value unless an
ACCEPT statement is used to get the value from the user.
32. What SQLPlus command is used to format output from a select?
33. Can Primary key is a Foreign Key on the same table?
34. You want to determine the location of identical rows in a table before attempting to place a
unique index on the table, how can this be done?

Interview Questions in SQL/PLSQL

Oracle tables always have one guaranteed unique column, the rowid column. If you use a min/max
function against your rowid and then select against the proposed primary key you can squeeze out
the rowids of the duplicate rows pretty quick. For example:
select rowid from emp e
where e.rowid > (select min(x.rowid)
from emp x
where x.emp_no = e.emp_no);
35. What is the use of the DROP option in the ALTER TABLE command?
36. What is a Cartesian product?
A Cartesian product is the result of an unrestricted join of two or more tables. The result set of a
three table Cartesian product will have x * y * z number of rows where x, y, z correspond to the
number of rows in each table involved in the join.
37. How do you prevent output from coming to the screen?
The SET option TERMOUT controls output to the screen. Setting TERMOUT OFF turns off screen
output. This option can be shortened to TERM.
38. What is the use of CASCADE CONSTRAINTS?
When this clause is used with the DROP command, a parent table can be dropped even when a child
table exists.
39. Which function is used to find the largest integer less than or equal to a specific value?
40. Consider the below DEPT and EMPLOYEE table and the below queries.
DEPT
DEPTNO (NOT NULL , NUMBER(2)),
DNAME (VARCHAR2(14)),
LOC (VARCHAR2(13)
EMPLOYEE
EMPNO (NOT NULL , NUMBER(4)),
ENAME (VARCHAR2(10)),
JOB (VARCHAR2(9)),
MGR (NUMBER(4)),
HIREDATE (DATE),
SAL (NUMBER(7,2)),
COMM (NUMBER(7,2)),
DEPTNO (NUMBER(2))
MGR is the EMPno of the Employee whom the Employee reports to.
DEPTNO is a foreign key.
1. List all the Employees who have at least one person reporting to them.

Interview Questions in SQL/PLSQL

SELECT ENAME FROM EMPLOYEE WHERE EMPNO IN (SELECT MGR FROM EMPLOYEE);
2. List the highest salary paid for each job.
SELECT JOB, MAX(SAL) FROM EMPLOYEE GROUP BY JOB
3. In which year did most people join the company? Display the year and the number of Employees.
SELECT TO_CHAR(HIREDATE,'YYYY') "YEAR", COUNT(EMPNO) "NO. OF EMPLOYEES"
FROM EMPLOYEE
GROUP BY TO_CHAR(HIREDATE,'YYYY')
HAVING COUNT(EMPNO) = (SELECT MAX(COUNT(EMPNO))
FROM EMPLOYEE
GROUP BY TO_CHAR(HIREDATE,'YYYY'));
4. Write a correlated sub-query to list out the Employees who earn more than the average salary of
their department.
SELECT ENAME,SAL
FROM EMPLOYEE E
WHERE SAL > (SELECT AVG(SAL)
FROM EMPLOYEE F
WHERE E.DEPTNO = F.DEPTNO);
5. Find the nth maximum salary.
SELECT ENAME, SAL
FROM EMPLOYEE A
WHERE &N = (SELECT COUNT (DISTINCT(SAL))
FROM EMPLOYEE B
WHERE A.SAL<=B.SAL);
6. Select the duplicate records (Records, which are inserted, that already exist) in the EMPLOYEE
table.
SELECT * FROM EMPLOYEE A
WHERE A.EMPNO IN (SELECT EMPNO
FROM EMPLOYEE
GROUP BY EMPNO
HAVING COUNT(EMPNO)>1)
AND A.ROWID!=MIN (ROWID));
7. Write a query to list the length of service of the Employees (of the form n years and m months).
SELECT ENAME "EMPLOYEE",TO_CHAR(TRUNC(MONTHS_BETWEEN(SYSDATE,HIREDATE)/12))
||' YEARS '|| TO_CHAR(TRUNC(MOD(MONTHS_BETWEEN
(SYSDATE, HIREDATE),12)))||' MONTHS ' "LENGTH OF SERVICE"
FROM EMPLOYEE;

Interview Questions in SQL/PLSQL

SET-2
1. Difference between varchar and varchar2 data types?
2. In which language Oracle has been developed?
3. What is RAW datatype?
4. What is the use of NVL function?
The NVL function is used to replace NULL values with another or given value. Example is
NVL(Value, replace value)
5. Whether any commands are used for Months calculation? If so, What are they?
6. What are nested tables?
7. What is COALESCE function?
8. What is BLOB datatype?
9. How do we represent comments in Oracle?
10. What is DML?
11. What is the difference between TRANSLATE and REPLACE?
12. How do we display rows from the table without duplicates?
13. What is the usage of Merge Statement?
14. What is NULL value in oracle?
NULL value represents missing or unknown data. This is used as a place holder or represented it in as
default entry to indicate that there is no actual data present.
15. What is USING Clause and give example?
16. What is key preserved table?
17. What is WITH CHECK OPTION?
18. What is the use of Aggregate functions in Oracle?
19. What do you mean by GROUP BY Clause?
20. What is a sub query and what are the different types of subqueries?
21. What is cross join?

Interview Questions in SQL/PLSQL

22. What are temporal data types in Oracle?
23. How do we create privileges in Oracle?
24. What is VArray?
25. How do we get field details of a table?
26. What is the difference between rename and alias?
27. What is a View?
28. What is a cursor variable?
29. What are cursor attributes?
30. What are SET operators?
31. How can we delete duplicate rows in a table?
32. What are the attributes of Cursor?
Attributes of Cursor are
%FOUND
Returns NULL if cursor is open and fetch has not been executed
Returns TRUE if the fetch of cursor is executed successfully.
Returns False if no rows are returned.
%NOT FOUND
Returns NULL if cursor is open and fetch has not been executed
Returns False if fetch has been executed
Returns True if no row was returned
%ISOPEN
Returns true if the cursor is open
Returns false if the cursor is closed
%ROWCOUNT
Returns the number of rows fetched. It has to be iterated through entire cursor to give exact real
count.
33. Can we store pictures in the database and if so, how it can be done?
34. What is an integrity constraint?

Interview Questions in SQL/PLSQL

35. What is an ALERT?
36. What is hash cluster?
37. What are the various constraints used in Oracle?
38. What is difference between SUBSTR and INSTR?
39. What is the parameter mode that can be passed to a procedure?
IN, OUT and INOUT are the modes of parameters that can be passed to a procedure.
40. What are the different Oracle Database objects?
There are different data objects in Oracle
Tables set of elements organized in vertical and horizontal
Views Virtual table derived from one or more tables
Indexes Performance tuning method for processing the records
Synonyms Alias name for tables
Sequences Multiple users generate unique numbers
Tablespaces Logical storage unit in Oracle
41. What are the differences between LOV and List Item?
42. What are privileges and Grants?
43. What is the difference between $ORACLE_BASE and $ORACLE_HOME?
44. What is the fastest query method to fetch data from the table?
Row can be fetched from table by using ROWID. Using ROW ID is the fastest query method to fetch
data from the table.
45. What is the maximum number of triggers that can be applied to a single table?
12 is the maximum number of triggers that can be applied to a single table.
46. How to display row numbers with the records?
Display row numbers with the records numbers

Select rownum, <fieldnames> from table;

1
Select rownum, <fieldnames> from table;
This query will display row numbers and the field values from the given table.
47. How can we view last record added to a table?
Last record can be added to a table and this can be done by

Interview Questions in SQL/PLSQL

Select * from (select * from employees order by rownum desc) where rownum<2;
1
Select * from (select * from employees order by rownum desc) where rownum<2;

48. What is the data type of DUAL table?

The DUAL table is a one-column table present in oracle database. The table has a single
VARCHAR2(1) column called DUMMY which has a value of X.
49. What is difference between Cartesian Join and Cross Join?
There are no differences between the join. Cartesian and Cross joins are same. Cross join gives
cartesian product of two tables Rows from first table is multiplied with another table which is
called cartesian product.
Cross join without where clause gives Cartesian product.
50. How to display employee records who gets more salary than the average salary in the
department?