SQL Interview Questions

SQL Interview Questions and Answers with Examples | SQL…

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Are you preparing for your sql developer interview?

Then you have come to the right place.

This guide will help you to brush up your SQL skills, regain your confidence and be job
ready!

In this guide you will find a collection of real world SQL interview questions asked in
companies like Google, Oracle, Amazon and Microsoft etc. Each question comes with a
perfectly written answer inline, saving your interview preparation time.

This guide also contains some sql practice problems which you can solve right away
which is simply the fastest and easiest way for clearing your basic concepts of SQL.

Let’s dive right in..

1. What is Database?
A database is an organized collection of data, stored and retrieved digitally from a remote or local
computer system. Databases can be vast and complex, and such databases are developed using fixed
design and modeling approaches.

2. What is DBMS?
DBMS stands for Database Management System. DBMS is a system software responsible for the
creation, retrieval, updation and management of the database. It ensures that our data is consistent,
organized and is easily accessible by serving as an interface between the database and its end users
or application softwares.

3. What is RDBMS? How is it different from DBMS?

RDBMS stands for Relational Database Management System. The key difference here, compared to
DBMS, is that RDBMS stores data in the form of a collection of tables and relations can be defined
between the common fields of these tables. Most modern database management systems like MySQL,
Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, IBM DB2 and Amazon Redshift are based on RDBMS.

4. What is SQL?
SQL stands for Structured Query Language. It is the standard language for relational database
management systems. It is especially useful in handling organized data comprised of entities
(variables) and relations between different entities of the data.

5. What is the difference between SQL and MySQL?

SQL is a standard language for retrieving and manipulating structured databases. On the contrary,
MySQL is a relational database management system, like SQL Server, Oracle or IBM DB2, that is used
to manage SQL databases.
6. What are Tables and Fields?
A table is an organized collection of data stored in the form of rows and columns. Columns can be
categorized as vertical and rows as horizontal. The columns in a table are called fields while the rows
can be referred to as records.

7. What are Constraints in SQL?

Constraints are used to specify the rules concerning data in the table. It can be applied for single or
multiple fields in an SQL table during creation of table or after creationg using the ALTER TABLE
command. The constraints are:

NOT NULL - Restricts NULL value from being inserted into a column.
CHECK - Verifies that all values in a field satisfy a condition.
DEFAULT - Automatically assigns a default value if no value has been specified for the field.
UNIQUE - Ensures unique values to be inserted into the field.
INDEX - Indexes a field providing faster retrieval of records.
PRIMARY KEY - Uniquely identifies each record in a table.
FOREIGN KEY - Ensures referential integrity for a record in another table.

8. What is a Primary Key?

The PRIMARY KEY constraint uniquely identifies each row in a table. It must contain UNIQUE values
and has an implicit NOT NULL constraint.

A table in SQL is strictly restricted to have one and only one primary key, which is comprised of single
or multiple fields (columns).

CREATE TABLE Students ( /* Create table with a single field as primary key */

ID INT NOT NULL

Name VARCHAR(255)

PRIMARY KEY (ID)

);

CREATE TABLE Students ( /* Create table with multiple fields as primary key */

ID INT NOT NULL

LastName VARCHAR(255)

FirstName VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,

CONSTRAINT PK_Student
PRIMARY KEY (ID, FirstName)

);

ALTER TABLE Students /* Set a column as primary key */

ADD PRIMARY KEY (ID);

ALTER TABLE Students /* Set multiple columns as primary key */

ADD CONSTRAINT PK_Student /*Naming a Primary Key*/

PRIMARY KEY (ID, FirstName);

 Q   =>   Write a SQL statement to add PRIMARY KEY 't_id' to the table 'teachers'. +

Q   =>   Write a SQL statement to add primary key constraint 'pk_a' for table 'table_a' and fields
'col_b, col_c'. +

9. What is a UNIQUE constraint?

A UNIQUE constraint ensures that all values in a column are different. This provides uniqueness for the
column(s) and helps identify each row uniquely. Unlike primary key, there can be multiple unique
constraints defined per table. The code syntax for UNIQUE is quite similar to that of PRIMARY KEY
and can be used interchangeably.

CREATE TABLE Students ( /* Create table with a single field as unique */

ID INT NOT NULL UNIQUE

Name VARCHAR(255)

);

CREATE TABLE Students ( /* Create table with multiple fields as unique */

ID INT NOT NULL

LastName VARCHAR(255)

FirstName VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL

CONSTRAINT PK_Student
UNIQUE (ID, FirstName)

);

ALTER TABLE Students /* Set a column as unique */

ADD UNIQUE (ID);

ALTER TABLE Students /* Set multiple columns as unique */

ADD CONSTRAINT PK_Student /* Naming a unique constraint */

UNIQUE (ID, FirstName);

10. What is a Foreign Key?

A FOREIGN KEY comprises of single or collection of fields in a table that essentially refer to the
PRIMARY KEY in another table. Foreign key constraint ensures referential integrity in the relation
between two tables.

The table with the foreign key constraint is labelled as the child table, and the table containing the
candidate key is labelled as the referenced or parent table.
 CREATE TABLE Students ( /* Create table with foreign key - Way 1 */

ID INT NOT NULL

Name VARCHAR(255)

LibraryID INT

PRIMARY KEY (ID)

FOREIGN KEY (Library_ID) REFERENCES Library(LibraryID)

);

CREATE TABLE Students ( /* Create table with foreign key - Way 2 */

ID INT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY

Name VARCHAR(255)

LibraryID INT FOREIGN KEY (Library_ID) REFERENCES Library(LibraryID)

);

ALTER TABLE Students /* Add a new foreign key */

ADD FOREIGN KEY (LibraryID)

REFERENCES Library (LibraryID);

Q   =>   What type of integrity constraint does the foreign key ensure? +

Q   =>   Write a SQL statement to add a FOREIGN KEY 'col_fk' in 'table_y' that references
'col_pk' in 'table_x'. +

11. What is a Join? List its different types.

The SQL Join clause is used to combine records (rows) from two or more tables in a SQL database
based on a related column between the two.
There are four different types of JOINs in SQL:

(INNER) JOIN: Retrieves records that have matching values in both tables involved in the join. This
is the widely used join for queries.

SELECT *

FROM Table_A

JOIN Table_B;

SELECT *

FROM Table_A

INNER JOIN Table_B;

LEFT (OUTER) JOIN: Retrieves all the records/rows from the left and the matched records/rows
from the right table.

SELECT *

FROM Table_A A

LEFT JOIN Table_B B

ON A.col = B.col;

RIGHT (OUTER) JOIN: Retrieves all the records/rows from the right and the matched records/rows
from the left table.

SELECT *

FROM Table_A A

RIGHT JOIN Table_B B

ON A.col = B.col;

FULL (OUTER) JOIN: Retrieves all the records where there is a match in either the left or right
table.

SELECT *

FROM Table_A A

FULL JOIN Table_B B

ON A.col = B.col;

12. What is a Self-Join?

A self JOIN is a case of regular join where a table is joined to itself based on some relation between its
own column(s). Self-join uses the INNER JOIN or LEFT JOIN clause and a table alias is used to assign
different names to the table within the query.
 SELECT A.emp_id AS "Emp_ID",A.emp_name AS "Employee",

B.emp_id AS "Sup_ID",B.emp_name AS "Supervisor"

FROM employee A, employee B

WHERE A.emp_sup = B.emp_id;

13. What is a Cross-Join?

Cross join can be defined as a cartesian product of the two tables included in the join. The table after
join contains the same number of rows as in the cross-product of number of rows in the two tables. If a
WHERE clause is used in cross join then the query will work like an INNER JOIN.

SELECT stu.name, sub.subject

FROM students AS stu

CROSS JOIN subjects AS sub;

Q   =>   Write a SQL statement to CROSS JOIN 'table_1' with 'table_2' and fetch 'col_1' from
table_1 & 'col_2' from table_2 respectively. Do not use alias. +

Q   =>   Write a SQL statement to perform SELF JOIN for 'Table_X' with alias 'Table_1' and
'Table_2', on columns 'Col_1' and 'Col_2' respectively. +

14. What is an Index? Explain its different types.

A database index is a data structure that provides quick lookup of data in a column or columns of a
table. It enhances the speed of operations accessing data from a database table at the cost of
additional writes and memory to maintain the index data structure.

CREATE INDEX index_name /* Create Index */

ON table_name (column_1, column_2);

DROP INDEX index_name; /* Drop Index */

There are different types of indexes that can be created for different purposes:
 Unique and Non-Unique Index:
Unique indexes are indexes that help maintain data integrity by ensuring that no two rows of data in a
table have identical key values. Once a unique index has been defined for a table, uniqueness is
enforced whenever keys are added or changed within the index.

CREATE UNIQUE INDEX myIndex

ON students (enroll_no);

Non-unique indexes, on the other hand, are not used to enforce constraints on the tables with which
they are associated. Instead, non-unique indexes are used solely to improve query performance by
maintaining a sorted order of data values that are used frequently.

Clustered and Non-Clustered Index:

Clustered indexes are indexes whose order of the rows in the database correspond to the order of the
rows in the index. This is why only one clustered index can exist in a given table, whereas, multiple
non-clustered indexes can exist in the table.

The only difference between clustered and non-clustered indexes is that the database manager
attempts to keep the data in the database in the same order as the corresponding keys appear in the
clustered index.

Clustering index can improve the performance of most query operations because they provide a linear-
access path to data stored in the database.

Q   =>   Write a SQL statement to create a UNIQUE INDEX "my_index" on "my_table" for fields
"column_1" & "column_2". +

15. What is the difference between Clustered and Non-

clustered index?
As explained above, the differences can be broken down into three small factors -

1. Clustered index modifies the way records are stored in a database based on the indexed column.
Non-clustered index creates a separate entity within the table which references the original table.
2. Clustered index is used for easy and speedy retrieval of data from the database, whereas, fetching
records from the non-clustered index is relatively slower.
3. In SQL, a table can have a single clustered index whereas it can have multiple non-clustered
indexes.

16. What is Data Integrity?

Data Integrity is the assurance of accuracy and consistency of data over its entire life-cycle, and is a
critical aspect to the design, implementation and usage of any system which stores, processes, or
retrieves data. It also defines integrity constraints to enforce business rules on the data when it is
entered into an application or a database.
17. What is a Query?
A query is a request for data or information from a database table or combination of tables. A database
query can be either a select query or an action query.

SELECT fname, lname /* select query */

FROM myDb.students

WHERE student_id = 1;

UPDATE myDB.students /* action query */

SET fname = 'Captain', lname = 'America'

WHERE student_id = 1;

18. What is a Subquery? What are its types?

A subquery is a query within another query, also known as nested query or inner query . It is used to
restrict or enhance the data to be queried by the main query, thus restricting or enhancing the output of
the main query respectively. For example, here we fetch the contact information for students who have
enrolled for the maths subject:

SELECT name, email, mob, address

FROM myDb.contacts

WHERE roll_no IN (

SELECT roll_no

FROM myDb.students

WHERE subject = 'Maths');

There are two types of subquery - Correlated and Non-Correlated.

A correlated subquery cannot be considered as an independent query, but it can refer the column in
a table listed in the FROM of the main query.
A non-correlated subquery can be considered as an independent query and the output of subquery
is substituted in the main query.

Q   =>   Write a SQL query to update the field "status" in table "applications" from 0 to 1. +

Q   =>   Write a SQL query to select the field "app_id" in table "applications" where "app_id"
less than 1000. +

Q   =>   Write a SQL query to fetch the field "app_name" from "apps" where "apps.id" is equal
to the above collection of "app_id". +

19. What is the SELECT statement?

SELECT operator in SQL is used to select data from a database. The data returned is stored in a result
table, called the result-set.

SELECT * FROM myDB.students;

20. What are some common clauses used with SELECT

query in SQL?
Some common SQL clauses used in conjuction with a SELECT query are as follows:

WHERE clause in SQL is used to filter records that are necessary, based on specific conditions.
ORDER BY clause in SQL is used to sort the records based on some field(s) in ascending (ASC) or
descending order (DESC).

SELECT *

FROM myDB.students

WHERE graduation_year = 2019

ORDER BY studentID DESC;

GROUP BY clause in SQL is used to group records with identical data and can be used in
conjuction with some aggregation functions to produce summarized results from the database.
HAVING clause in SQL is used to filter records in combination with the GROUP BY clause. It is
different from WHERE, since WHERE clause cannot filter aggregated records.

SELECT COUNT(studentId), country

FROM myDB.students

WHERE country != "INDIA"

GROUP BY country

HAVING COUNT(studentID) > 5;

21. What are UNION, MINUS and INTERSECT commands?

The UNION operator combines and returns the result-set retrieved by two or more SELECT
statements.

The MINUS operator in SQL is used to remove duplicates from the result-set obtained by the second
SELECT query from the result-set obtained by the first SELECT query and then return the filtered
results from the first.

The INTERSECT clause in SQL combines the result-set fetched by the two SELECT statements where
records from one match the other and then returns this intersection of result-sets.

Certain conditions need to be met before executing either of the above statements in SQL -

Each SELECT statement within the clause must have the same number of columns
The columns must also have similar data types
The columns in each SELECT statement should necessarily have the same order
 SELECT name FROM Students /* Fetch the union of queries */

UNION

SELECT name FROM Contacts;

SELECT name FROM Students /* Fetch the union of queries with duplicates*/

UNION ALL

SELECT name FROM Contacts;

SELECT name FROM Students /* Fetch names from students */

MINUS /* that aren't present in contacts */

SELECT name FROM Contacts;

SELECT name FROM Students /* Fetch names from students */

INTERSECT /* that are present in contacts as well */

SELECT name FROM Contacts;

Q   =>   Write a SQL query to fetch "names" that are present in either table "accounts" or in
table "registry". +

Q   =>   Write a SQL query to fetch "names" that are present in "accounts" but not in table
"registry". +

Q   =>   Write a SQL query to fetch "names" from table "contacts" that are neither present in
"accounts.name" nor in "registry.name". +

22. What is Cursor? How to use a Cursor?

A database cursor is a control structure that allows for traversal of records in a database. Cursors, in
addition, facilitates processing after traversal, such as retrieval, addition and deletion of database
records. They can be viewed as a pointer to one row in a set of rows.

Working with SQL Cursor

1. DECLARE a cursor after any variable declaration. The cursor declaration must always be associated
with a SELECT Statement.
2. Open cursor to initialize the result set. The OPEN statement must be called before fetching rows
from the result set.
3. FETCH statement to retrieve and move to the next row in the result set.
4. Call the CLOSE statement to deactivate the cursor.
5. Finally use the DEALLOCATE statement to delete the cursor definition and release the associated
resources.
 DECLARE @name VARCHAR(50) /* Declare All Required Variables */

DECLARE db_cursor CURSOR FOR /* Declare Cursor Name*/

SELECT name

FROM myDB.students

WHERE parent_name IN ('Sara', 'Ansh')

OPEN db_cursor /* Open cursor and Fetch data into @name */

FETCH next

FROM db_cursor

INTO @name

CLOSE db_cursor /* Close the cursor and deallocate the resources */

DEALLOCATE db_cursor

23. What are Entities and Relationships?

Entity: An entity can be a real-world object, either tangible or intangible, that can be easily identifiable.
For example, in a college database, students, professors, workers, departments, and projects can be
referred to as entities. Each entity has some associated properties that provide it an identity.

Relationships: Relations or links between entities that have something to do with each other. For
example - The employees table in a company's database can be associated with the salary table in the
same database.
24. List the different types of relationships in SQL.
One-to-One - This can be defined as the relationship between two tables where each record in one
table is associated with the maximum of one record in the other table.
One-to-Many & Many-to-One - This is the most commonly used relationship where a record in a
table is associated with multiple records in the other table.
Many-to-Many - This is used in cases when multiple instances on both sides are needed for
defining a relationship.
Self Referencing Relationships - This is used when a table needs to define a relationship with
itself.

25. What is an Alias in SQL?

An alias is a feature of SQL that is supported by most, if not all, RDBMSs. It is a temporary name
assigned to the table or table column for the purpose of a particular SQL query. In addition, aliasing can
be employed as an obfuscation technique to secure the real names of database fields. A table alias is
also called a correlation name .

An alias is represented explicitly by the AS keyword but in some cases the same can be performed
without it as well. Nevertheless, using the AS keyword is always a good practice.

SELECT A.emp_name AS "Employee" /* Alias using AS keyword */

B.emp_name AS "Supervisor"

FROM employee A, employee B /* Alias without AS keyword */

WHERE A.emp_sup = B.emp_id;

Q   =>   Write an SQL statement to select all from table "Limited" with alias "Ltd". +

26. What is a View?

A view in SQL is a virtual table based on the result-set of an SQL statement. A view contains rows and
columns, just like a real table. The fields in a view are fields from one or more real tables in the
database.
27. What is Normalization?
Normalization represents the way of organizing structured data in the database efficiently. It includes
creation of tables, establishing relationships between them, and defining rules for those relationships.
Inconsistency and redundancy can be kept in check based on these rules, hence, adding flexibility to
the database.

28. What is Denormalization?

Denormalization is the inverse process of normalization, where the normalized schema is converted
into a schema which has redundant information. The performance is improved by using redundancy
and keeping the redundant data consistent. The reason for performing denormalization is the
overheads produced in query processor by an over-normalized structure.

29. What are the various forms of Normalization?

Normal Forms are used to eliminate or reduce redundancy in database tables. The different forms are
as follows:

1. First Normal Form

A relation is in first normal form if every attribute in that relation is a single-valued attribute. If a
relation contains composite or multi-valued attribute, it violates the first normal form. Let's consider the
following students table. Each student in the table, has a name, his/her address and the books they
issued from the public library -

Students Table

Student Address Books Issued Salutation

 Until the Day I Die (Emily
Amanora Park Town
Sara Carpenter),
Ms.
94
Inception (Christopher Nolan)

The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho),

Ansh 62nd Sector A-10 Mr.

Inferno (Dan Brown)

24th Street Park Beautiful Bad (Annie Ward),

Sara Mrs.
Avenue Woman 99 (Greer Macallister)

Ansh Windsor Street 777 Dracula (Bram Stoker) Mr.

As we can observe, the Books Issued field has more than one values per record and to convert it into
1NF, this has to be resolved into separate individual records for each book issued. Check the following
table in 1NF form -

Students Table (1st Normal Form)

Student Address Books Issued Salutation

Amanora Park Town Until the Day I Die (Emily

Sara Ms.
94 Carpenter)

Amanora Park Town

Sara Inception (Christopher Nolan) Ms.
94

Ansh 62nd Sector A-10 The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho) Mr.

Ansh 62nd Sector A-10 Inferno (Dan Brown) Mr.

24th Street Park

Sara Beautiful Bad (Annie Ward) Mrs.
Avenue

24th Street Park

Sara Woman 99 (Greer Macallister) Mrs.
Avenue

Ansh Windsor Street 777 Dracula (Bram Stoker) Mr.

2. Second Normal Form

A relation is in second normal form if it satisfies the conditions for first normal form and does not contain
any partial dependency. A relation in 2NF has no partial dependency, i.e., it has no non-prime
attribute that depends on any proper subset of any candidate key of the table. Often, specifying a single
column Primary Key is the solution to the problem. Examples -

Example 1 - Consider the above example. As we can observe, Students Table in 1NF form has a
candidate key in the form of [Student, Address] that can uniquely identify all records in the table. The
field Books Issued (non-prime attribute) depends partially on the Student field. Hence, the table is not in
2NF. To convert it into 2nd Normal Form, we will partition the tables into two while specifying a new
Primary Key attribute to identify the individual records in the Students table. The Foreign Key constraint
will be set on the other table to ensure referential integrity.

Students Table (2nd Normal Form)

Student_ID Student Address Salutation

1 Sara Amanora Park Town 94 Ms.

2 Ansh 62nd Sector A-10 Mr.

3 Sara 24th Street Park Avenue Mrs.

4 Ansh Windsor Street 777 Mr.

Books Table (2nd Normal Form)

Student_ID Book Issued

1 Until the Day I Die (Emily Carpenter)

1 Inception (Christopher Nolan)

2 The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)

2 Inferno (Dan Brown)

3 Beautiful Bad (Annie Ward)

3 Woman 99 (Greer Macallister)

4 Dracula (Bram Stoker)

Example 2 - Consider the following dependencies in relation R(W,X,Y,Z)

WX -> Y [W and X together determine Y]

XY -> Z [X and Y together determine Z]

Here, WX is the only candidate key and there is no partial dependency, i.e., any proper subset of WX
doesn’t determine any non-prime attribute in the relation.

3. Third Normal Form

A relation is said to be in the third normal form, if it satisfies the conditions for second normal form and
there is no transitive dependency between the non-prime attributes, i.e.,all non-prime attributes are
determined only by the candidate keys of the relation and not by any other non-prime attribute.

Example 1 - Consider the Students Table in the above example. As we can observe, Students Table
in 2NF form has a single candidate key Student_ID (primary key) that can uniquely identify all records
in the table. The field Salutation (non-prime attribute), however, depends on the Student Field rather
than the candidate key. Hence, the table is not in 3NF. To convert it into 3rd Normal Form, we will once
again partition the tables into two while specifying a new Foreign Key constraint to identify the
salutations for individual records in the Students table. The Primary Key constraint for the same will be
set on the Salutations table to identify each record uniquely.

Students Table (3rd Normal Form)

Student_ID Student Address Salutation_ID

1 Sara Amanora Park Town 94 1

2 Ansh 62nd Sector A-10 2

3 Sara 24th Street Park Avenue 3

4 Ansh Windsor Street 777 1

Books Table (3rd Normal Form)

Student_ID Book Issued

1 Until the Day I Die (Emily Carpenter)

1 Inception (Christopher Nolan)

2 The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)

2 Inferno (Dan Brown)

3 Beautiful Bad (Annie Ward)

3 Woman 99 (Greer Macallister)

4 Dracula (Bram Stoker)

Salutations Table (3rd Normal Form)

Salutation_ID Salutation

1 Ms.

2 Mr.

3 Mrs.

Example 2 - Consider the following dependencies in relation R(P,Q,R,S,T)

P -> QR [P together determine C]

RS -> T [B and C together determine D]

Q -> S

T -> P

For the above relation to exist in 3NF, all possible candidate keys in above relation should be {P, RS,
QR, T}.

4. Boyce-Codd Normal Form

A relation is in Boyce-Codd Normal Form if satisfies the conditions for third normal form and for every
functional dependency, Left-Hand-Side is super key. In other words, a relation in BCNF has non-trivial
functional dependencies in the form X –> Y, such that X is always a super key. For example - In the
above example, Student_ID serves as the sole unique identifier for the Students Table and
Salutation_ID for the Salutations Table, thus these tables exist in BCNF. Same cannot be said for the
Books Table and there can be several books with common Book Names and same Student_ID.

30. What are the TRUNCATE, DELETE and DROP

statements?
DELETE statement is used to delete rows from a table.

DELETE FROM Candidates

WHERE CandidateId > 1000;

TRUNCATE command is used to delete all the rows from the table and free the space containing the table.

TRUNCATE TABLE Candidates;

DROP command is used to remove an object from the database. If you drop a table, all the rows in the table
is deleted and the table structure is removed from the database.

DROP TABLE Candidates;

Q   =>   Write a SQL statement to wipe a table 'Temporary' from memory. +

Q   =>   Write a SQL query to remove first 1000 records from table 'Temporary' based on 'id'. +

Q   =>   Write a SQL statement to delete the table 'Temporary' while keeping its relations intact.
+

31. What is the difference between DROP and TRUNCATE

statements?
If a table is dropped, all things associated with the tables are dropped as well. This includes - the
relationships defined on the table with other tables, the integrity checks and constraints, access
privileges and other grants that the table has. To create and use the table again in its original form, all
these relations, checks, constraints, privileges and relationships need to be redefined. However, if a
table is truncated, none of the above problems exist and the table retains its original structure.

32. What is the difference between DELETE and TRUNCATE

statements?
The TRUNCATE command is used to delete all the rows from the table and free the space containing
the table.

The DELETE command deletes only the rows from the table based on the condition given in the where
clause or deletes all the rows from the table if no condition is specified. But it does not free the space
containing the table.

33. What are Aggregate and Scalar functions?

An aggregate function performs operations on a collection of values to return a single scalar value.
Aggregate functions are often used with the GROUP BY and HAVING clauses of the SELECT
statement. Following are the widely used SQL aggregate functions:

AVG() - Calculates the mean of a collection of values.

COUNT() - Counts the total number of records in a specific table or view.
MIN() - Calculates the minimum of a collection of values.
MAX() - Calculates the maximum of a collection of values.
SUM() - Calculates the sum of a collection of values.
FIRST() - Fetches the first element in a collection of values.
LAST() - Fetches the last element in a collection of values.
Note: All aggregate functions described above ignore NULL values except for the COUNT function.

A scalar function returns a single value based on the input value. Following are the widely used SQL
scalar functions:

LEN() - Calculates the total length of the given field (column).

UCASE() - Converts a collection of string values to uppercase characters.
LCASE() - Converts a collection of string values to lowercase characters.
MID() - Extracts substrings from a collection of string values in a table.
CONCAT() - Concatenates two or more strings.
RAND() - Generates a random collection of numbers of given length.
ROUND() - Calculates the round off integer value for a numeric field (or decimal point values).
NOW() - Returns the current data & time.
FORMAT() - Sets the format to display a collection of values.

34. What is User-defined function? What are its various

types?
The user-defined functions in SQL are like functions in any other programming language that accept
parameters, perform complex calculations, and return a value. They are written to use the logic
repetitively whenever required. There are two types of SQL user-defined functions:

Scalar Function: As explained earlier, user-defined scalar functions return a single scalar value.
Table Valued Functions: User-defined table-valued functions return a table as output.
Inline: returns a table data type based on a single SELECT statement.
 Multi-statement: returns a tabular result-set but, unlike inline, multiple SELECT statements can be
used inside the function body.

35. What is OLTP?

OLTP stands for Online Transaction Processing, is a class of software applications capable of
supporting transaction-oriented programs. An essential attribute of an OLTP system is its ability to
maintain concurrency. To avoid single points of failure, OLTP systems are often decentralized. These
systems are usually designed for a large number of users who conduct short transactions. Database
queries are usually simple, require sub-second response times and return relatively few records. Here
is an insight into the working of an OLTP system [ Note - The figure is not important for interviews ] -

36. What are the differences between OLTP and OLAP?

OLTP stands for Online Transaction Processing, is a class of software applications capable of
supporting transaction-oriented programs. An important attribute of an OLTP system is its ability to
maintain concurrency. OLTP systems often follow a decentralized architecture to avoid single points of
failure. These systems are generally designed for a large audience of end users who conduct short
transactions. Queries involved in such databases are generally simple, need fast response times and
return relatively few records. Number of transactions per second acts as an effective measure for such
systems.
OLAP stands for Online Analytical Processing, a class of software programs which are characterized
by relatively low frequency of online transactions. Queries are often too complex and involve a bunch of
aggregations. For OLAP systems, the effectiveness measure relies highly on response time. Such
systems are widely used for data mining or maintaining aggregated, historical data, usually in multi-
dimensional schemas.

37. What is Collation? What are the different types of

Collation Sensitivity?
Collation refers to a set of rules that determine how data is sorted and compared. Rules defining the
correct character sequence are used to sort the character data. It incorporates options for specifying
case-sensitivity, accent marks, kana character types and character width. Below are the different types
of collation sensitivity:

Case sensitivity: A and a are treated differently.

Accent sensitivity: a and á are treated differently.
Kana sensitivity: Japanese kana characters Hiragana and Katakana are treated differently.
Width sensitivity: Same character represented in single-byte (half-width) and double-byte (full-width)
are treated differently.

38. What is a Stored Procedure?

A stored procedure is a subroutine available to applications that access a relational database
management system (RDBMS). Such procedures are stored in the database data dictionary. The sole
disadvantage of stored procedure is that it can be executed nowhere except in the database and
occupies more memory in the database server. It also provides a sense of security and functionality as
users who can't access the data directly can be granted access via stored procedures.
 DELIMITER $$

CREATE PROCEDURE FetchAllStudents()

BEGIN
SELECT * FROM myDB.students;

END $$

DELIMITER ;

39. What is a Recursive Stored Procedure?

A stored procedure which calls itself until a boundary condition is reached, is called a recursive stored
procedure. This recursive function helps the programmers to deploy the same set of code several times
as and when required. Some SQL programming languages limit the recursion depth to prevent an
infinite loop of procedure calls from causing a stack overflow, which slows down the system and may
lead to system crashes.

DELIMITER $$ /* Set a new delimiter => $$ */

CREATE PROCEDURE calctotal( /* Create the procedure */

IN number INT, /* Set Input and Ouput variables */

OUT total INT

) BEGIN

DECLARE score INT DEFAULT NULL; /* Set the default value => "score" */
SELECT awards FROM achievements /* Update "score" via SELECT query */

WHERE id = number INTO score;

IF score IS NULL THEN SET total = 0; /* Termination condition */

ELSE

CALL calctotal(number+1); /* Recursive call */

SET total = total + score; /* Action after recursion */

END IF;

END $$ /* End of procedure */

DELIMITER ; /* Reset the delimiter */

40. How to create empty tables with the same structure as

another table?
Creating empty tables with the same structure can be done smartly by fetching the records of one table
into a new table using the INTO operator while fixing a WHERE clause to be false for all records.
Hence, SQL prepares the new table with a duplicate structure to accept the fetched records but since
no records get fetched due to the WHERE clause in action, nothing is inserted into the new table.

SELECT * INTO Students_copy

FROM Students WHERE 1 = 2;

41. What is Pattern Matching in SQL?

SQL pattern matching provides for pattern search in data if you have no clue as to what that word
should be. This kind of SQL query uses wildcards to match a string pattern, rather than writing the exact
word. The LIKE operator is used in conjunction with SQL Wildcards to fetch the required information.

1. Using the % wildcard to perform a simple search

The % wildcard matches zero or more characters of any type and can be used to define wildcards both
before and after the pattern. Search a student in your database with first name beginning with the letter
K:

SELECT *

FROM students

WHERE first_name LIKE 'K%'

2. Omitting the patterns using the NOT keyword

Use the NOT keyword to select records that don't match the pattern. This query returns all students
whose first name does not begin with K.

SELECT *

FROM students

WHERE first_name NOT LIKE 'K%'

3. Matching a pattern anywhere using the % wildcard twice

Search for a student in the database where he/she has a K in his/her first name.

SELECT *

FROM students

WHERE first_name LIKE '%Q%'

4. Using the _ wildcard to match pattern at a specific position

The _ wildcard matches exactly one character of any type. It can be used in conjunction with %
wildcard. This query fetches all students with letter K at the third position in their first name.

SELECT *

FROM students

WHERE first_name LIKE '__K%'

5. Matching patterns for specific length

The _ wildcard plays an important role as a limitation when it matches exactly one character. It limits
the length and position of the matched results. For example -

SELECT * /* Matches first names with three or more letters */

FROM students

WHERE first_name LIKE '___%'

SELECT * /* Matches first names with exactly four characters */

FROM students

WHERE first_name LIKE '____'

Conclusion
SQL is a language for the database. It has a vast scope and robust capability of creating and
manipulating variety of database objects using commands like CREATE, ALTER, DROP etc and also in
loading the database objects using commands like INSERT.
It also provides options for Data
Manipulation using commands like DELETE, TRUNCATE and also does effective retrieval of data using
cursor commands like FETCH, SELECT etc. There are many such commands which provide a large
amount of control to the programmer to interact with the database in an efficient way without wasting
much resources.
The popularity of SQL has grown so much that almost every programmer relies on
this to implement their application's storage functionalities thereby making it an exciting language to
learn. Learning this provides the developer a benefit of understanding the data structures used for
storing the organization's data and giving additional level of control and in-depth understanding of the
application.

Practice SQL Questions asked in

Interviews

Q - Which statement is true for a PRIMARY KEY constraint?

Primary key defines a realtionship between two tables.

A table in SQL must have a primary key associated with it to uniquely identify its
records.

A table in SQL is indexed by default based on its primary key.

Primary key may or may not be unique but can be comprised of multiple fields.
Q - Which statement is false for a FOREIGN KEY constraint?

Foreign key defines a relationship between two tables.

Foreign Key is automatically created when two tables are joined.

Foreign Key uniquely identifies all the records in the referenced table.

Foreign key may or may not be unique but can be comprised of multiple fields.

Q - What is a Query?

A SELECT or UPDATE statement in SQL.

A request for data from a table in the database.

A request to input data from the user.

A request for data from single or multiple tables in the database.

Q - What does SQL stand for?

Structured Question Language

Strong Query Language

Structured Query Language

Strong Question Language

Q - Which statement is used to update data in the database?

MODIFY

UPDATE

ALTER TABLE

SAVE AS

Q - Query to select all records with "bar" in their name?

SELECT * FROM people WHERE name = "%bar%";

SELECT * FROM people WHERE name LIKE "%bar%";

SELECT * FROM people WHERE name IN ("bar");

SELECT * FROM people WHERE name = "_bar_"
Q - Which statement is false for ORDER BY statement?

Requires a ASC or DESC keyword explicitly to sort the result set.

Sorts the result set in descending order using the DESC keyword.

Can sort based on multiple columns.

None of the above.

Q - SQL query used to fetch unique values from a field?

SELECT UNIQUE column_name FROM table_name;

SELECT DISTINCT column_name FROM table_name;

SELECT column_name FROM table_name WHERE COUNT(column_name) = 1;

SELECT UNIQUE column_name FROM table_name WHERE COUNT(column_name) = 1;

Q - What is the main advantage of a clustered index over a non-clustered index?

It is easier to create and manipulate.

It requires extra memory but allows for speedy retrieval of records.

It does not require additonal memory and allows for speedy retrieval of records.

None of the above.

Q - Normalization which has neither composite values nor partial

dependencies?

Second Normal Formal

Third Normal Form

Boyce-Codd Normal Form

All of the above

Q - An SQL query to delete a table from the database and memory while keeping
the structure of the table intact?

DROP TABLE table_name;

DROP FROM TABLE table_name;

DELETE FROM TABLE table_name;

TRUNCATE TABLE table_name;
Q - Which of the following is known as a virtual table in SQL?

SELF JOIN

INNER JOIN

VIEW

NONE

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