Viva Questions

1. What isSQL?
Structured Query Language
2. What isdatabase?
A database is a logically coherent collection of data with some inherent meaning,
representing some aspect of real world and which is designed, built and populated with
data for a specificpurpose.
3. What isDBMS?
It is a collection of programs that enables user to create and maintain a database. In
other words it is general-purpose software that provides the users with the processes of
defining, constructing and manipulating the database for various applications.
4. What is a Databasesystem?
The database and DBMS software together is called as Database system.
5. Advantages of DBMS?
➢ Redundancy iscontrolled.
➢ Unauthorized access isrestricted.
➢ Providing multiple userinterfaces.
➢ Enforcing integrityconstraints.
➢ Providing backup andrecovery.
6. Disadvantage in File ProcessingSystem?
➢ Data redundancy &inconsistency.
➢ Difficult in accessingdata.
➢ Dataisolation.
➢ Dataintegrity.
➢ Concurrent access is notpossible.
➢ SecurityProblems.
7. Describe the three levels of dataabstraction?
There are three levels of abstraction:
➢ Physical level: The lowest level of abstraction describes how data arestored.
➢ Logical level: The next higher level of abstraction, describes what data are stored in
database and what relationship among thosedata.

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 ➢ View level:The highest level of abstraction describes only part of entiredatabase.
8. Define the "integrityrules"
There are two Integrity rules.
➢ EntityIntegrity:Statesthat―PrimarykeycannothaveNULLvalue□
➢ Referential Integrity:States that ―Foreign Key can be either a NULL value or
should be Primary Key value of otherrelation.
9. What is extension and intension?
Extension - It is the number of tuples present in a table at any instance. This is
time dependent.
Intension -It is a constant value that gives the name, structure of table and the
constraints laid on it.
10. What is DataIndependence?

Dataindependencemeansthat―theapplicationisindependentofthestoragestructureand
access strategy of data□. In other words, The ability to modify the schema definition in
onelevel should not affect the schema definition in the next higherlevel.
Two types of Data Independence:

➢ Physical Data Independence: Modification in physical level should not affect

the logicallevel.
➢ Logical Data Independence: Modification in logical level should affect the view
level.
NOTE: Logical Data Independence is more difficult to achieve
11. What is a view? How it is related to dataindependence?

A view may be thought of as a virtual table, that is, a table that does not really exist
in its own right but is instead derived from one or more underlying base table. In other
words, there is no stored file that direct represents the view instead a definition of view is
stored in data dictionary.
Growth and restructuring of base tables is not reflected in views. Thus the view can
insulate users from the effects of restructuring and growth in the database. Hence accounts
for logical data independence.
12. What is DataModel?

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 A collection of conceptual tools for describing data, data relationships data semantics
and constraints.
13. What is E-Rmodel?

This data model is based on real world that consists of basic objects called entities
and of relationship among these objects. Entities are described in a database by a set of
attributes.
14. What is Object Orientedmodel?

This model is based on collection of objects. An object contains values stored in

instance variables within the object. An object also contains bodies of code that operate on
the object. These bodies of code are called methods. Objects that contain same types of
values and the same methods are grouped together into classes.
15. What is anEntity?

It is an 'object' in the real world with an independent existence.

16. What is an Entitytype?

It is a collection (set) of entities that have same attributes.

17. What is an Entityset?

It is a collection of all entities of particular entity type in the database.

18. What is an Extension of entity type?

The collections of entities of a particular entity type are grouped together into an entity
set.
19. What is anattribute?

It is a particular property, which describes the entity.

20. What is a Relation Schema and aRelation?

A relation Schema denoted by R(A1, A2, …, An) is made up ofthe relation name
R and the list of attributes Ai that it contains. A relation isdefined as a set of tuples. Let r
be the relation which contains set tuples (t1,t2, t3, ...,tn). Each tuple is
an ordered list of n- values t=(v1,v2, ...,vn).
21. What is degree of aRelation?

It is the number of attribute of its relation schema.

22. What isRelationship?

It is an association among two or more entities.

23. What is Relationshipset?

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 The collection (or set) of similar relationships.
24. What is Relationshiptype?

Relationship type defines a set of associations or a relationship set among a given

set of entity types.
25. What is degree of Relationshiptype?

It is the number of entity type participating.

26. What is DDL (Data DefinitionLanguage)?

A data base schema is specified by a set of definitions expressed by a special

language called DDL.
27. What is VDL (View DefinitionLanguage)?

It specifies user views and their mappings to the conceptual schema.

28. What is SDL (Storage DefinitionLanguage)?

This language is to specify the internal schema. This language may specify the
mapping between two schemas.
29. What is Data Storage - DefinitionLanguage?

The storage structures and access methods used by databasesystem are specified by
a set of definition in a special type of DDL calleddata storage- definitionlanguage.
30. What is DML (Data ManipulationLanguage)?

This language that enable user to access or manipulate dataasorganized by

appropriate datamodel.
➢ Procedural DML or Low level: DML requires a user to specify what data are
needed and how to get thosedata.
➢ Non-Procedural DML or High level: DML requires a user to specify what data are
needed without specifying how to get thosedata.
31. What is DMLCompiler?

It translates DML statements in a query language intolow-level instruction that

the query evaluation engine canunderstand.
32. What is RelationalAlgebra?
It is a procedural query language. It consists of a set ofoperationsthat take one or
two relations as input and produce a newrelation.
33. What is RelationalCalculus?

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 It is an applied predicate calculus specifically tailored for relational databases
proposed by E.F. Codd. E.g. of languages based on it are DSL, ALPHA,QUEL.
34. What isnormalization?

It is a process of analyzing the given relation schemas basedontheir Functional

Dependencies (FDs) and primary key to achieve theproperties
➢ Minimizingredundancy
➢ Minimizing insertion, deletion and updateanomalies.
35. What is FunctionalDependency?

A Functional dependency is denotedbyX Y between two sets of attributes X and Y

thataresubsetsofRspecifiesaconstraintonthepossibletuplethatcanformarelationstaterof
R. The constraint is for any two tuples t1 and t2 in r if t1[X] = t2[X] then they have t1[Y] =
t2[Y]. This means the value of X component of a tuple uniquely determines the value of
component Y.
36. When is a functional dependency F said to beminimal?

➢ Every dependency in F has a single attribute for its right handside.

➢ We cannot replace any dependencyX A in F with adependencyY A where Y is a
proper subset of X and still have a set of dependency that is equivalent toF.
➢ We cannot remove any dependency from F and still have set of dependency that is
equivalent toF.
37. What is Multivalueddependency?

Multivalued dependency denoted by X Y specified on relation schema R, where X

and Y are both subsets of R, specifies the following constraint on any relation r of R: if two
tuples t1 and t2 exist in r such that t1[X] = t2[X] then t3 and t4 should also exist in r with
the followingproperties
➢ t3[x] = t4[X] = t1[X] =t2[X]
➢ t3[Y] = t1[Y] and t4[Y] =t2[Y]
➢ t3[Z] = t2[Z] and t4[Z] = t1[Z]
where [Z = (R-(X U Y)) ]
38. What is Lossless join property?

It guarantees that the spurious tuple generation does not occur with respect to
relation schemas after decomposition.

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39. What is 1 NF (NormalForm)?

The domain of attribute must include only atomic (simple, indivisible) values.
40. What is Fully Functionaldependency?

It is based on concept of full functional dependency. A functional dependency X Y is

fully functional dependency if removal of any attribute A from X means that the dependency
does not hold anymore.
41. What is2NF?

A relation schema R is in 2NF if it is in 1NF and every non-prime attribute A in R is

fully functionally dependent on primary key.
42. What is3NF?

A relation schema R is in 3NF if it is in 2NF and for every FD X A either of the

following istrue
➢ X is a Super-key ofR.
➢ A is a prime attribute ofR.
In other words, if every non prime attribute is non-transitively dependent on primary key.
43. What is BCNF (Boyce-Codd NormalForm)?

A relation schema R is in BCNF if it is in 3NF and satisfies additional constraints that

for every FD X A, X must be a candidate key.
44. What is4NF?

A relation schema R is said to be in 4NF if for every Multivalued dependency X Y

that holds over R, one of following istrue
➢ X is subset or equal to (or) XY =R.
➢ X is a superkey.
45. What is5NF?

A Relation schema R is said to be 5NF if for every join dependency {R1, R2, ...,Rn}
that holds R, one the following is true
➢ Ri = R for somei.
➢ The join dependency is implied by the set of FD, over R in which the left side is key ofR.

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46. What is Domain-Key Normal Form?

A relation is said to be in DKNF if all constraints and dependencies that should hold on
the constraint can be enforced by simply enforcing the domain constraint and key constraint
on the relation.
47. What are partial, alternate,, artificial, compound and naturalkey?

Partial Key:
It is a set of attributes that can uniquely identify weak entities and that are
related to same owner entity. It is sometime called as Discriminator.
Alternate Key:
All Candidate Keys excluding the Primary Key are known as Alternate Keys.
ArtificialKey:
If no obvious key, either stand alone or compound is available, then the last
resort is to simply create a key, by assigning a unique number to each record or occurrence.
Then this is known as developing an artificial key.
CompoundKey:
If no single data element uniquely identifies occurrences within a construct,
then combining multiple elements to create a unique identifier for the construct is known as
creating a compound key.
NaturalKey:
When one of the data elements stored within a construct is utilized as the
primary key, then it is called the natural key.
48. What is indexing and what are the different kinds ofindexing?

Indexing is a technique for determining how quickly specific data can be found.
➢ Binary search styleindexing
➢ B-Treeindexing
➢ Inverted listindexing
➢ Memory residenttable
➢ Table indexing

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49. What is system catalog or catalog relation? How is better knownas?

A RDBMS maintains a description of all the data that it contains, information about
every relation and index that it contains. This information is stored in a collection of
relations maintained by the system called metadata. It is also called datadictionary.
50. What is meant by queryoptimization?

The phase that identifies an efficient execution plan for evaluating a query that has
the least estimated cost is referred to as query optimization.
51. What is join dependency and inclusiondependency?

JoinDependency:
A Join dependency is generalization of Multivalued dependency.A JD
{R1, R2, ...,Rn} is said to hold over a relation R if R1, R2, R3, ..., Rn is a lossless-
join decomposition of R . There is no set of sound and complete inference rules for
JD. InclusionDependency:
An Inclusion Dependency is a statement of the form that some columns of a
relation are contained in other columns. A foreign key constraint is an example of inclusion
dependency.
52. What is durability inDBMS?

Once the DBMS informs the user that a transaction has successfully completed, its
effects should persist even if the system crashes before all its changes are reflected on disk.
This property is calleddurability.
53. What do you mean by atomicity andaggregation?

Atomicity:
Either all actions are carried out or none are. Users should not have to worry about
the effect of incomplete transactions. DBMS ensures this by undoing the actions of
incomplete transactions.
Aggregation:
A concept which is used to model a relationship between a collection of entities and
relationships. It is used when we need to express a relationship among relationships.

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54. What is a PhantomDeadlock?

In distributed deadlock detection, the delay in propagating local information might

cause the deadlock detection algorithms to identify deadlocks that do not really exist. Such
situations are called phantom deadlocks and they lead to unnecessary aborts.

55. What is a checkpoint and when does itoccur?

A Checkpoint is like a snapshot of the DBMS state. By taking checkpoints, the DBMS
can reduce the amount of work to be done during restart in the event of subsequent
crashes.

56. What are the different phases oftransaction?

Different phases are

➢ Analysisphase
➢ RedoPhase
➢ Undophase
57. What do you mean by flat filedatabase?

It is a database in which there are no programs or user access languages. It has no

cross- file capabilities but is user-friendly and provides user-interface management.
58. What is "transparentDBMS"?

It is one, which keeps its Physical Structure hidden from user.

59. Brief theory of Network, Hierarchical schemas and theirproperties

Network schema uses a graph data structure to organize records example for such a
database management system is CTCG while a hierarchical schema uses a tree data
structure example for such a system is IMS.
60. What is aquery?

A query with respect to DBMS relates to user commands that are used to interact
with a data base. The query language can be classified into data definition language and
data manipulation language.
61. What do you mean by Correlatedsubquery?

Subqueries, or nested queries, are used to bring back a set of rows to be used by the
parentquery.Dependingonhowthesubqueryiswritten,itcanbeexecutedoncefortheparent

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query or it can be executed once for each row returned by the parent query. If the subquery
is executed for each row of the parent, this is called a correlated subquery.
A correlated subquery can be easily identified if it contains any references to the
parent subquery columns in its WHERE clause. Columns from the subquery cannot be
referenced anywhere else in the parent query. The following example demonstrates a non-
correlated subquery.
E.g. Select * From CUST Where '10/03/1990' IN (Select ODATE From ORDER Where
CUST.CNUM = ORDER.CNUM)
62. What are the primitive operations common to all record managementsystems?

Addition, deletion and modification.

63. Name the buffer in which all the commands that are typed in

arestored ‘Edit’Buffer
64. What are the unary operations in RelationalAlgebra?

PROJECTION and SELECTION.

65. Are the resulting relations of PRODUCT and JOIN operation thesame?

No.
PRODUCT: Concatenation of every row in one relation with every row in another.
JOIN: Concatenation of rows from one relation and related rows from another.
66. What is RDBMSKERNEL?

Two important pieces of RDBMS architecture are the kernel, which is the software,
and the data dictionary, which consists of the system-level data structures used by the
kernel to manage the database
You might think of an RDBMS as an operating system (or set of subsystems),
designed specifically for controlling data access; its primary functions are storing, retrieving,
and securing data. An RDBMS maintains its own list of authorized users and their associated
privileges; manages memory caches and paging; controls locking for concurrent resource
usage; dispatches and schedules user requests; and manages space usage within its table-
space structures.
67. Name the sub-systems of aRDBMS

I/O, Security, Language Processing, Process Control, Storage Management, Logging

and Recovery, Distribution Control, Transaction Control, Memory Management, Lock
Management

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68. Which part of the RDBMS takes care of the data dictionary?How

Data dictionary is a set of tables and database objects that is stored in a special area
of the database and maintained exclusively by the kernel.
69. What is the job of the information stored indata-dictionary?

The information in the data dictionary validates the existence of the objects, provides
access to them, and maps the actual physical storage location.
70. Not only RDBMS takes care of locating data italso

Determines an optimal access path to store or retrieve the data

71. How do you communicate with anRDBMS?

You communicate with an RDBMS using Structured Query Language (SQL)

72. Define SQL and state the differences between SQL and other conventional

programmingLanguages
SQL is a nonprocedural language that is designed specifically for data access
operations on normalized relational database structures. The primary difference between
SQL and other conventional programming languages is that SQL statements specify what
data operations should be performed rather than how to perform them.
73. Name the three major set of files on disk that compose a database inOracle

There are three major sets of files on disk that compose a database. All the files are
binary. These are
➢ Database files
➢ Control files
➢ Redologs
The most important of these are the database files where the actual data resides.
The control files and the redo logs support the functioning of the architecture itself.
All three sets of files must be present, open, and available to Oracle for any data on
the database to be useable. Without these files, you cannot access the database, and the
database administrator might have to recover some or all of the database using a backup, if
there is one.
74. What is an OracleInstance?

The Oracle system processes, also known as Oracle background processes, provide
functions for the user processes—functions that would otherwise be done by the user
processes themselves

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 Oracle database-wide system memory is known as the SGA, the system global area
or shared global area. The data and control structures in the SGA are shareable, and all the
Oracle background processes and user processes can use them.
The combination of the SGA and the Oracle background processes is known as an
Oracle instance
75. What are the four Oracle system processes that must always be up and running

for the database to beuseable

The four Oracle system processes that must always be up and running for the
database to be useable include DBWR (Database Writer), LGWR (Log Writer), SMON
(System Monitor), and PMON (Process Monitor).

76. What are database files, control files and log files. How many of these files

should a database have at least? Why?

Database Files
The database files hold the actual data and are typically the largest in size.
Depending on their sizes, the tables (and other objects) for all the user accounts can go in
one database file—but that's not an ideal situation because it does not make the database
structure very flexible for controlling access to storage for different users, putting the
database on different disk drives, or backing up and restoring just part of the database.
You must have at least one database file but usually, more than one files are used.
In terms of accessing and using the data in the tables and other objects, the number (or
location) of the files is immaterial.
The database files are fixed in size and never grow bigger than the size at which they
werecreated
ControlFiles
The control files and redo logs support the rest of the architecture. Any database
must have at least one control file, although you typically have more than one to guard
against loss. The control file records the name of the database, the date and time it was
created, the location of the database and redoes logs, and the synchronization information
to ensure that all three sets of files are always in step. Every time you add a new database
or redo log file to the database, the information is recorded in the control files.

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Redo Logs
Any database must have at least two redo logs. These are the journals for the
database; the redo logs record all changes to the user objects or system objects. If any
type of failure occurs, the changes recorded in the redo logs can be used to bring the
database to a consistent state without losing any committed transactions. In the case of
non-data loss failure, Oracle can apply the information in the redo logs automatically
without intervention from theDBA.
The redo log files are fixed in size and never grow dynamically from the size at which
they were created.
77. What isROWID?

The ROWID is a unique database-wide physical address for every row on every table.
Once assigned (when the row is first inserted into the database), it never changes until the
row is deleted or the table is dropped.
The ROWID consists of the following three components, the combination of which
uniquely identifies the physical storage location of the row.
➢ Oracle database file number, which contains the block with therows
➢ Oracle block address, which contains therow
➢ The row within the block (because each block can hold manyrows)
The ROWID is used internally in indexes as a quick means of retrieving rows with a
particular key value. Application developers also use it in SQL statements as a quick way to
access a row once they know the ROWID
78. What is Oracle Block? Can two Oracle Blocks have the sameaddress?

Oracle "formats" the database files into a number of Oracle blocks when they are
first created—making it easier for the RDBMS software to manage the files and easier to
read data into the memory areas.
The block size should be a multiple of the operating system block size. Regardless of
the block size, the entire block is not available for holding data; Oracle takes up some space
to manage the contents of the block. This block header has a minimum size, but it can
grow.
These Oracle blocks are the smallest unit of storage. Increasing the Oracle block size
can improve performance, but it should be done only when the database is first created.
Each Oracle block is numbered sequentially for each database file starting at 1. Two
blocks can have the same block address if they are in different database files.

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79. What is databaseTrigger?

A database trigger is a PL/SQL block that can defined to automatically execute for
insert, update, and delete statements against a table. The trigger can e defined to execute
once for the entire statement or once for every row that is inserted, updated, or deleted.
For any one table, there are twelve events for which you can define database triggers. A
database trigger can call database procedures that are also written in PL/SQL.
80. Name two utilities that Oracle provides, which are use for backup andrecovery.

Along with the RDBMS software, Oracle provides two utilities that you can use to
back up and restore the database. These utilities are Exportand Import.
The Export utility dumps the definitions and data for the specified part of the
database to an operating system binary file. The Import utility reads the file produced by an
export, recreates the definitions of objects, and inserts the data
If Export and Import are used as a means of backing up and recovering the
database, all the changes made to the database cannot be recovered since the export was
performed. The best you can do is recovering the database to the time when the export was
last performed.

81. Name two utilities that Oracle provides, which are use for backup andrecovery.

Along with the RDBMS software, Oracle provides two utilities that you can use to
back up and restore the database. These utilities are Exportand Import.
The Export utility dumps the definitions and data for the specified part of the
database to an operating system binary file. The Import utility reads the file produced by an
export, recreates the definitions of objects, and inserts the data
If Export and Import are used as a means of backing up and recovering the
database, all the changes made to the database cannot be recovered since the export was
performed. The best you can do is recovering the database to the time when the export was
last performed.
82. What are stored-procedures? And what are the advantages of usingthem.

Stored procedures are database objects that perform a user defined operation. A
stored procedure can have a set of compound SQL statements. A stored procedure executes
the SQL commands and returns the result to the client. Stored procedures are used to
reduce network traffic.

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83. Tables derived from theERD

a) Are totallyunnormalised
b) Are always in 1NF
c) Can be furtherdenormalised
d) May have multi-valuedattributes
e) Are always in1NF
84. Spurious tuples may occur dueto

i. Badnormalization
ii. Thetajoins
iii. Updating tables fromjoin
a) i&ii b) ii &iii
c)i&iii d) ii &iii
(a) i& iii because theta joins are joins made on keys that are not primary keys.
85. In mapping of ERD toDFD

a) entities in ERD should correspond to an existing entity/store inDFD

b) entity in DFD is converted to attributes of an entity inERD
c) relations in ERD has 1 to 1 correspondence to processes inDFD
d) relationships in ERD has 1 to 1 correspondence to flows inDFD
(a) entities in ERD should correspond to an existing entity/store inDFD
dominant entity is theentity

a) on the N side in a 1 : Nrelationship

b) on the 1 side in a 1 : Nrelationship
c) on either side in a 1 : 1relationship
d) nothing to do with 1 : 1 or 1 : Nrelationship
(b) on the 1 side in a 1 : Nrelationship
87. Select 'NORTH', CUSTOMER From CUST_DTLS Where REGION = 'N' Order By

CUSTOMER Union Select 'EAST', CUSTOMER From CUST_DTLS WhereREGION

= 'E' Order By CUSTOMER
The above is

a) Not anerror
b) Error - the string in single quotes 'NORTH' and'SOUTH'

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 c) Error - the string should be in doublequotes
d) Error - ORDER BYclause
(d) Error - the ORDER BY clause. Since ORDER BY clause cannot be used in UNIONS
88. What is StorageManager?

It is a program module that provides the interface between the low-level data stored
in database, application programs and queries submitted to the system.
89. What is BufferManager?

It is a program module, which is responsible for fetching data from disk storage into
main memory and deciding what data to be cache in memory.
90. What is TransactionManager?

It is a program module, which ensures that database, remains in a consistent state

despite system failures and concurrent transaction execution proceeds without conflicting.
91. What is FileManager?

It is a program module, which manages the allocation of space on disk storage and
data structure used to represent information stored on a disk.

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