1.

How to select UNIQUE records

from a table using a SQL Query?
Consider below EMPLOYEE table as the source data

CREATE TABLE EMPLOYEE (

EMPLOYEE_ID NUMBER(6,0),

NAME VARCHAR2(20),

SALARY NUMBER(8,2)

);

INSERT INTO EMPLOYEE(EMPLOYEE_ID,NAME,SALARY)

VALUES(100,'Jennifer',4400);

INSERT INTO EMPLOYEE(EMPLOYEE_ID,NAME,SALARY)

VALUES(100,'Jennifer',4400);

INSERT INTO EMPLOYEE(EMPLOYEE_ID,NAME,SALARY)

VALUES(101,'Michael',13000);

INSERT INTO EMPLOYEE(EMPLOYEE_ID,NAME,SALARY)

VALUES(101,'Michael',13000);

INSERT INTO EMPLOYEE(EMPLOYEE_ID,NAME,SALARY)

VALUES(101,'Michael',13000);

INSERT INTO EMPLOYEE(EMPLOYEE_ID,NAME,SALARY) VALUES(102,'Pat',6000);

INSERT INTO EMPLOYEE(EMPLOYEE_ID,NAME,SALARY) VALUES(102,'Pat',6000);

INSERT INTO EMPLOYEE(EMPLOYEE_ID,NAME,SALARY) VALUES(103,'Den',11000);

SELECT * FROM EMPLOYEE;

EMPLOYEE_ID NAME SALARY

100 Jennifer 4400

100 Jennifer 4400

101 Michael 13000

101 Michael 13000

101 Michael 13000

102 Pat 6000

102 Pat 6000

103 Den 11000

METHOD-1: Using GROUP BY Function

GROUP BY clause is used with SELECT statement to collect data from
multiple records and group the results by one or more columns.
The GROUP BY clause returns one row per group. By applying GROUP
BY function on all the source columns, unique records can be queried
from the table.

Below is the query to fetch the unique records using GROUP BY function.

Query:

SELECT EMPLOYEE_ID,

NAME,
 SALARY

FROM EMPLOYEE

GROUP BY EMPLOYEE_ID, NAME, SALARY;

Result:

EMPLOYEE_ID NAME SALARY

100 Jennifer 4400

101 Michael 13000

102 Pat 6000

103 Den 11000

METHOD-2: Using ROW_NUMBER Analytic Function

The ROW_NUMBER Analytic function is used to provide consecutive
numbering of the rows in the result by the ORDER selected for
each PARTITION specified in the OVER clause. It will assign the value 1
for the first row and increase the number of the subsequent rows.

Using ROW_NUMBER Analytic function, assign row numbers to each unique

set of records.

Query:

SELECT EMPLOYEE_ID,

NAME,

SALARY,

ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY EMPLOYEE_ID,NAME,SALARY ORDER BY

EMPLOYEE_ID) AS ROW_NUMBER
FROM EMPLOYEE;

Result:

EMPLOYEE_ID NAME SALARY ROW_NUMBER

100 Jennifer 4400 1

100 Jennifer 4400 2

101 Michael 13000 1

101 Michael 13000 2

101 Michael 13000 3

102 Pat 6000 1

102 Pat 6000 2

103 Den 11000 1

Once row numbers are assigned, by querying the rows with row number 1 will
give the unique records from the table.
Query:

SELECT EMPLOYEE_ID, NAME, SALARY

FROM( SELECT

EMPLOYEE_ID,

NAME,

SALARY,
 ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY EMPLOYEE_ID,NAME,SALARY ORDER BY
EMPLOYEE_ID) AS ROW_NUMBER

FROM EMPLOYEE)

WHERE ROW_NUMBER = 1;

Result:

EMPLOYEE_ID NAME SALARY

101 Michael 13000

100 Jennifer 4400

102 Pat 6000

103 Den 11000

Related Article: SQL Analytic Functions Interview Questions

2. How to delete DUPLICATE

records from a table using a SQL
Query?
Consider the same EMPLOYEE table as source discussed in previous
question

METHOD-1: Using ROWID and ROW_NUMBER

Analytic Function
An Oracle server assigns each row in each table with a unique ROWID to
identify the row in the table. The ROWID is the address of the row which
contains the data object number, the data block of the row, the row
position and data file.

STEP-1: Using ROW_NUMBER Analytic function, assign row numbers to each

unique set of records. Select ROWID of the rows along with the source
columns

Query:

SELECT ROWID,

EMPLOYEE_ID,

NAME,SALARY,

ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY EMPLOYEE_ID,NAME,SALARY ORDER BY

EMPLOYEE_ID) AS ROW_NUMBER

FROM EMPLOYEE;

Result:

ROWID EMPLOYEE_ID NAME SALARY RO

AAASnBAAEAAACrWAAA 100 Jennifer 4400 1

AAASnBAAEAAACrWAAB 100 Jennifer 4400 2

AAASnBAAEAAACrWAAC 101 Michael 13000 1

AAASnBAAEAAACrWAAD 101 Michael 13000 2

AAASnBAAEAAACrWAAE 101 Michael 13000 3

AAASnBAAEAAACrWAAF 102 Pat 6000 1

AAASnBAAEAAACrWAAG 102 Pat 6000 2

 AAASnBAAEAAACrWAAH 103 Den 11000 1

STEP-2: Select ROWID of records with ROW_NUMBER > 1

Query:

SELECT ROWID FROM(

SELECT ROWID,

EMPLOYEE_ID,

NAME,

SALARY,

ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY EMPLOYEE_ID,NAME,SALARY

ORDER BY EMPLOYEE_ID) AS ROW_NUMBER

FROM EMPLOYEE)

WHERE ROW_NUMBER > 1;

Result:

ROWID

AAASnBAAEAAACrWAAB

AAASnBAAEAAACrWAAD

AAASnBAAEAAACrWAAE

AAASnBAAEAAACrWAAG
STEP-3: Delete the records from the source table using the ROWID values
fetched in previous step

Query:

DELETE FROM EMP WHERE ROWID IN (

SELECT ROWID FROM(

SELECT ROWID,

ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY EMPLOYEE_ID,NAME,SALARY ORDER BY

EMPLOYEE_ID) AS ROW_NUMBER

FROM EMPLOYEE)

WHERE ROW_NUMBER > 1);

Result:

The table EMPLOYEE will have below records after deleting the duplicates

ROWID EMPLOYEE_ID NAME SALARY

AAASnBAAEAAACrWAAA 100 Jennifer 4400

AAASnBAAEAAACrWAAC 101 Michael 13000

AAASnBAAEAAACrWAAF 102 Pat 6000

AAASnBAAEAAACrWAAH 103 Den 11000

METHOD-2: Using ROWID and Correlated subquery

Correlated subquery is used for row-by-row processing. With a normal
nested subquery, the inner SELECT query runs once and executes first.
The returning values will be used by the main query. A correlated
subquery, however, executes once for every row of the outer query. In
other words, the inner query is driven by the outer query.
In the below query, we are comparing the ROWIDs’ of the unique set of
records and keeping the record with MIN ROWID and deleting all other rows.

Query:

DELETE FROM EMPLOYEE A WHERE ROWID > (SELECT MIN(ROWID) FROM EMPLOYEE B
WHERE B.EMPLOYEE_ID = A.EMPLOYEE_ID );

Result:

The table EMPLOYEE will have below records after deleting the duplicates

ROWID EMPLOYEE_ID NAME SALARY

AAASnBAAEAAACrWAAA 100 Jennifer 4400

AAASnBAAEAAACrWAAC 101 Michael 13000

AAASnBAAEAAACrWAAF 102 Pat 6000

AAASnBAAEAAACrWAAH 103 Den 11000

The opposite of above discussed case can be implemented by keeping the

record with MAX ROWID from the unique set of records and delete all other
duplicates by executing below query.

Query:

DELETE FROM EMPLOYEE A WHERE ROWID < (SELECT MAX(ROWID) FROM EMPLOYEE B
WHERE B.EMPLOYEE_ID = A.EMPLOYEE_ID );

Result:

The table EMPLOYEE will have below records after deleting the duplicates

ROWID EMPLOYEE_ID NAME SALARY

AAASnBAAEAAACrWAAA 100 Jennifer 4400

AAASnBAAEAAACrWAAC 101 Michael 13000

AAASnBAAEAAACrWAAF 102 Pat 6000

AAASnBAAEAAACrWAAH 103 Den 11000

3. How to read TOP 5 records from

a table using a SQL query?
Consider below table DEPARTMENTS as the source data

CREATE TABLE Departments(

Department_ID number,

Department_Name varchar(50)

);

INSERT INTO DEPARTMENTS VALUES('10','Administration');

INSERT INTO DEPARTMENTS VALUES('20','Marketing');

INSERT INTO DEPARTMENTS VALUES('30','Purchasing');

INSERT INTO DEPARTMENTS VALUES('40','Human Resources');

INSERT INTO DEPARTMENTS VALUES('50','Shipping');

INSERT INTO DEPARTMENTS VALUES('60','IT');

INSERT INTO DEPARTMENTS VALUES('70','Public Relations');

INSERT INTO DEPARTMENTS VALUES('80','Sales');

SELECT * FROM Departments;

DEPARTMENT_ID DEPARTMENT_NAME

10 Administration

20 Marketing

30 Purchasing

40 Human Resources

50 Shipping

60 IT

70 Public Relations

80 Sales

ROWNUM is a “Pseudocolumn” that assigns a number to each row

returned by a query indicating the order in which Oracle selects the row
from a table. The first row selected has a ROWNUM of 1, the second has
2, and so on.

Query:

SELECT * FROM Departments WHERE ROWNUM <= 5;

Result:
 DEPARTMENT_ID DEPARTMENT_NAME

10 Administration

20 Marketing

30 Purchasing

40 Human Resources

50 Shipping

4. How to read LAST 5 records from

a table using a SQL query?
Consider the same DEPARTMENTS table as source discussed in previous
question.

In order to select the last 5 records we need to find (count of total number of
records – 5) which gives the count of records from first to last but 5 records.

Using the MINUS function we can compare all records from

DEPARTMENTS table with records from first to last but 5 from
DEPARTMENTS table which give the last 5 records of the table as result.

MINUS operator is used to return all rows in the first SELECT statement

that are not present in the second SELECT statement.

Query:

SELECT * FROM Departments

MINUS

SELECT * FROM Departments WHERE ROWNUM <= (SELECT COUNT(*)-5 FROM

Departments);

Result:

DEPARTMENT_ID DEPARTMENT_NAME

40 Human Resources

50 Shipping

60 IT

70 Public Relations

80 Sales

5. What is the result of Normal Join,

Left Outer Join, Right Outer Join
and Full Outer Join between the
tables A & B?
Table_A

COL
 1

null

Table_B

COL

null

null

Normal Join:
Normal Join or Inner Join is the most common type of join. It returns the
rows that are exact match between both the tables.

The following Venn diagram illustrates a Normal join when combining two
result sets:
Query:

SELECT a.COL as A,

b.COL as B

FROM TABLE_A a JOIN TABLE_B b

ON a.COL = b.COL;

Result:

A B

1 1

1 1

0 0

Left Outer Join:

The Left Outer Join returns all the rows from the left table and only the
matching rows from the right table. If there is no matching row found
from the right table, the left outer join will have NULL values for the
columns from right table.

The following Venn diagram illustrates a Left join when combining two result
sets:

Query:

SELECT a.COL as A,

b.COL as B

FROM TABLE_A a LEFT OUTER JOIN TABLE_B b

ON a.COL = b.COL;

Result:

A B

1 1

1 1
 0 0

NULL NULL

Right Outer Join:

The Right Outer Join returns all the rows from the right table and only
the matching rows from the left table. If there is no matching row found
from the left table, the right outer join will have NULL values for the
columns from left table.

The following Venn diagram illustrates a Right join when combining two result
sets:

Query:

SELECT a.COL as A,

b.COL as B

FROM TABLE_A a RIGHT OUTER JOIN TABLE_B b

ON a.COL = b.COL;

Result:
 A B

1 1

1 1

0 0

NULL NULL

NULL NULL

Full Outer Join:

The Full Outer Join returns all the rows from both the right table and the
left table. If there is no matching row found, the missing side columns
will have NULL values.

The following Venn diagram illustrates a Full join when combining two result
sets:

Query:
SELECT a.COL as A,

b.COL as B

FROM TABLE_A a FULL OUTER JOIN TABLE_B b

ON a.COL = b.COL;

Result:

A B

1 1

1 1

0 0

NULL NULL

NULL NULL

NULL NULL

NOTE: NULL do not match with NULL

6. How to find the employee with

second MAX Salary using a SQL
query?
Consider below EMPLOYEES table as the source data
CREATE TABLE Employees(

EMPLOYEE_ID NUMBER(6,0),

NAME VARCHAR2(20 BYTE),

SALARY NUMBER(8,2)

);

INSERT INTO EMPLOYEES(EMPLOYEE_ID,NAME,SALARY)

VALUES(100,'Jennifer',4400);

INSERT INTO EMPLOYEES(EMPLOYEE_ID,NAME,SALARY)

VALUES(101,'Michael',13000);

INSERT INTO EMPLOYEES(EMPLOYEE_ID,NAME,SALARY) VALUES(102,'Pat',6000);

INSERT INTO EMPLOYEES(EMPLOYEE_ID,NAME,SALARY) VALUES(103,'Den',

11000);

INSERT INTO EMPLOYEES(EMPLOYEE_ID,NAME,SALARY)

VALUES(104,'Alexander',3100);

INSERT INTO EMPLOYEES(EMPLOYEE_ID,NAME,SALARY)

VALUES(105,'Shelli',2900);

INSERT INTO EMPLOYEES(EMPLOYEE_ID,NAME,SALARY)

VALUES(106,'Sigal',2800);

INSERT INTO EMPLOYEES(EMPLOYEE_ID,NAME,SALARY) VALUES(107,'Guy',2600);

INSERT INTO EMPLOYEES(EMPLOYEE_ID,NAME,SALARY)

VALUES(108,'Karen',2500);

SELECT * FROM Employees;

EMPLOYEE_ID NAME SALARY

 100 Jennifer 4400

101 Michael 13000

102 Pat 6000

103 Den 11000

104 Alexander 3100

105 Shelli 2900

106 Sigel 2800

107 Guy 2600

108 Karen 2500

METHOD-1: Without using SQL Analytic Functions

In order to find the second MAX salary, employee record with MAX salary
needs to be eliminated. It can be achieved by using below SQL query.

Query:

SELECT MAX(salary) AS salary FROM Employees WHERE salary NOT IN (

SELECT MAX(salary) AS salary FROM Employees);

Result:

SALARY

11000
The above query only gives the second MAX salary value. In order to fetch the
entire employee record with second MAX salary we need to do a self-join on
Employee table based on Salary value.

Query:

WITH

TEMP AS(

SELECT MAX(salary) AS salary FROM Employees WHERE salary NOT IN (

SELECT MAX(salary) AS salary FROM Employees)

SELECT a.* FROM Employees a JOIN TEMP b on a.salary = b.salary

Result:

EMPLOYEE_ID NAME SALARY

103 Den 11000

METHOD-2: Using SQL Analytic Functions

Query:

The DENSE_RANK is an analytic function that calculates the rank of a

row in an ordered set of rows starting from 1. Unlike the RANK function,
the DENSE_RANK function returns rank values as consecutive integers.

SELECT Employee_Id,

Name,

Salary

FROM(
 SELECT Employees.*,

DENSE_RANK() OVER(ORDER BY Salary DESC) as SALARY_RANK

FROM Employees)

WHERE SALARY_RANK =2

Result:

EMPLOYEE_ID NAME SALARY

103 Den 11000

By replacing the value of SALARY_RANK, any highest salary

rank can be found easily.
Related Article: SQL Analytic Functions Interview Questions

7. How to find the employee with

third MAX Salary using a SQL
query?
Consider the same EMPLOYEES table as source discussed in previous
question

In order to find the third MAX salary, we need to eliminate the top 2 salary
records. But we cannot use the same method we used for finding second
MAX salary (not a best practice). Imagine if we have to find the fifth MAX
salary. We should not be writing a query with four nested sub queries.

STEP-1:

The approach here is to first list all the records based on Salary in the
descending order with MAX salary on top and MIN salary at bottom. Next,
using ROWNUM select the top 2 records.
Query:

SELECT salary FROM(

SELECT salary FROM Employees ORDER BY salary DESC)

WHERE ROWNUM < 3;

Result:

Salary

13000

11000

STEP-2:

Next find the MAX salary from EMPLOYEE table which is not one of top two
salary values fetched in the earlier step.

Query:

SELECT MAX(salary) as salary FROM Employees WHERE salary NOT IN (

SELECT salary FROM(

SELECT salary FROM Employees ORDER BY salary DESC)

WHERE ROWNUM < 3

);

Result:

SALARY

6000

STEP-3:
In order to fetch the entire employee record with third MAX salary we need to
do a self-join on Employee table based on Salary value.

Query:

WITH

TEMP AS(

SELECT MAX(salary) as salary FROM Employees WHERE salary NOT IN (

SELECT salary FROM(

SELECT salary FROM Employees ORDER BY salary DESC)

WHERE ROWNUM < 3)

SELECT a.* FROM Employees a join TEMP b on a.salary = b.salary

Result:

EMPLOYEE_ID NAME SALARY

102 Pat 6000

In order to find the employee with nth highest salary, replace the
rownum value with n in above query.

References:
https://www.toptal.com/sql/interview-questions
https://intellipaat.com/blog/interview-question/sql-interview-questions/