Curious Freaks - DBMS Important Interview Questions

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1. Database
A Database is a collection of related data organised in a way that data can be
easily accessed, managed and updated. Databases can be software based or
hardware based, with one sole purpose, storing data.

2. DBMS
A DBMS is a software that allows creation, definition and manipulation of
databases, allowing users to store, process and analyse data easily. DBMS
provides us with an interface or a tool, to perform various operations like
creating a database, storing data in it, updating data, creating tables in the
database.DBMS also provides protection and security to the databases. It
also maintains data consistency in case of multiple users.

3. Need for DBMS

● Processing queries and object management.
● Controlling redundancy and inconsistency.
● Efficient memory management and indexing.
● Concurrency control and transaction management.
● Access control and ease in accessing data.

4. Keys
Super Key - The set of attributes which can uniquely identify a tuple is known
as super key.
Candidate Key - The minimal set of attributes which can uniquely identify a
tuple is known as candidate key.
Primary Key - There can be more than one candidate key in relation, out of
which one can be chosen as primary key.
Alternate Key - The candidate key other than primary key is known as
alternate key.

5. Transaction
A transaction can be defined as a group of tasks. It is a very small unit of a
program and it may contain several low level tasks. A transaction must
maintain ACID properties in order to ensure accuracy, completeness and data
integrity.

Atomicity(A) - This property states that a transaction must be treated as an

atomic unit that is either all of its operations are executed or none. There must
be no state in the database where a transaction is left partially completed.
State should be defined either before the execution of the transaction or after
the execution/abortion/failure of transaction.
Consistency(C) - The database must remain in a consistent state after any
transaction. No transaction should have any adverse effect on the data
residing in the database.
 Isolation(I) - In a database system where more than one transaction is being
executed simultaneously and in parallel, the property of isolation states that all
the transactions will be carried out and executed as if it is the only transaction
in the system. No transaction will affect the existence of any other transaction.
Durability(D) - The database should be durable enough to hold all its latest
updates even if the system fails or restarts. If a transaction commits but the
system fails before the data could be written on disk, then the data will be
updated once the system springs back into action.

6. States of Transaction
● Active
● Partially committed
● Failed
● Aborted
● Committed

7. Normalization
It is a technique of organizing the data in the database. Systematic approach
of decomposing tables to eliminate data redundancy and undesirable
characteristics like insertion,update and deletion anomalies.

Problems without normalization

● Extra memory space.
● Difficult to handle and update the database without facing data loss.

8. Normalization rule
Normalization rules are divided into the following normal forms
● First Normal Form (1NF)
● Second Normal Form (2NF)
● Third Normal Form (3NF)
● Boyce and Codd Normal Form (BCNF)
● Fourth Normal Form (4NF)
● Fifth Normal Form (5NF)

9. First Normal Form (1NF)

● Should have only single valued attributes/columns.
● Values stored in a column should be of the same domain.
● All the columns in a table should have unique names.
● Order in which data is stored does not matter.
Using the 1NF, data redundancy increases as there will be many columns
with the same data in multiple rows but each row as a whole will be unique.
10. Second Normal Form (2NF)
● Should be in 1NF.
● No Partial dependency.

Partial dependency means that a non-prime attribute is functionally

dependent on part of a candidate key.

11. Third Normal Form (3NF)

● Should be in 2NF.
● Does not have transitive dependency.

Transitive dependency is when a non-prime attribute depends on other

non-prime attributes rather than depending upon the prime attribute.

Advantage of removing transitive dependency

● Amount of data duplication is reduced.
● Data integrity is achieved.

12. Boyce and Codd Normal Form (BCNF)

A 3NF table which does not have multiple overlapping candidate keys is said
to be in BCNF.
● It should be in 3NF.
● For each functional dependency X->Y, X should be a super key.

13. Fourth Normal Form (4NF)

● It should be in BCNF.
● Should not have multi-valued dependency.

Multi-valued dependency
For a dependency A->B, if for a single value of A, multiple values of B exist,
then the table may have multi-valued dependency. Table should have at
least 3 columns and for a relation R(A,B,C) if there is a multi-valued
dependency between A and B, then B and C should be independent of each
other.

14. Fifth Normal Form (5NF)

● Should be on 4NF.
● Should not have join dependency.

15. Different levels of abstraction in the DBMS

Physical Level: It is the lowest level of abstraction and describes how the
data is stored.
 Logical Level: This is the next level of abstraction after the Physical level.
This layer determines what data is stored in the database, and what is the
relationship between the data points.

View Level: The View Level is the highest level of abstraction and it describes
only a part of the entire database.

16. Entity-relationship model

It is a diagrammatic approach to database design, where you represent
real-world objects as entities and mention relationships between them.

17. Entity and Entity Set

Entity: An entity is a real-world object having attributes, which are nothing but
characteristics of that particular object.
Entity Set: An entity set is the collection of all the entities of a particular entity
type in a database.

18. Types of attributes

Simple attribute: The attributes with values that are atomic and cannot be
broken down further are simple attributes.
Composite attribute: A composite attribute is made up of more than one
simple attribute.
Derived attribute: These are the attributes which are not present in the whole
database management system, but are derived using other attributes.
Single-valued attribute: As the name suggests, they have a single value.
Multi-valued attribute: And, they can have multiple values.

19. Difference between Unique key and Primary key

Unique key Primary key

Unique Key can have a NULL value The primary key cannot have a
NULL value

Each table can have more than one Each table can have only one
unique key primary key

20. Relational Database Management System (RDBMS)

RDBMS is the most commonly used database. In RDBMS data is represented
in terms of tuples(rows). It contains a number of tables and each table has its
own primary key. Due to the collection of an organized set of tables, data can
be accessed easily in RDBMS.
21. Difference between procedure and function

Procedure Function

Used mainly to execute certain Used mainly to perform some

process calculation

RETURN will simply exit the control RETURN will exit the control from
from sub program sub program and also returns the
value

Uses OUT parameter to return a Uses RETURN to return a value

value

Return data type will not be specified Return data type is mandatory at the
at the time of creation time of creation

22. Indexing
Indexing is a data structure technique to efficiently retrieve records from the
database files based on some attributes on which the indexing has been
done.

Types of indexing
Primary Index − Primary index is defined on an ordered data file. The data
file is ordered on a key field. The key field is generally the primary key of the
relation.
Secondary Index − Secondary index may be generated from a field which is
a candidate key and has a unique value in every record, or a non-key with
duplicate values.
Clustering Index − Clustering index is defined on an ordered data file. The
data file is ordered on a non-key field.

23. Hashing
Hashing is an effective technique to calculate the direct location of a data
record on the disk without using index structure.Hashing uses hash functions
with search keys as parameters to generate the address of a data record.

Types of hashing
Static Hashing - In static hashing, when a search-key value is provided, the
hash function always computes the same address.
Dynamic Hashing - The problem with static hashing is that it does not
expand or shrink dynamically as the size of the database grows or shrinks.
 Dynamic hashing provides a mechanism in which data buckets are added and
removed dynamically and on-demand. Dynamic hashing is also known as
extended hashing.

24. Deadlock
Deadlock is a situation which occurs when two transactions wait on a
resource which is locked or other transaction holds. Deadlocks can be
prevented by making all the transactions acquire all the locks at the same
instance of time. So, once a deadlock occurs, the only way to cure it is to
abort one of the transactions and remove the partially completed work.

25. Differences between an exclusive lock and a shared lock

Exclusive lock Shared lock

An exclusive lock is a lock on a data A shared lock allows more than one
item when a transaction is about to transaction to read the data items.
perform the write operation.

SQL

1. SQL
Structured Query Language is the core of the relational database which is
used for accessing and managing the databases. This language is used to
manipulate and retrieve data from a structured data format in the form of
tables and holds relationships between those tables. So, SQL is used to
communicate with the database.

2. Sub-queries
A subquery is a query inside another query where a query is defined to
retrieve data or information back from the database. In a subquery, the outer
query is called the main query whereas the inner query is called subquery.
Subqueries are always executed first and the result of the subquery is passed
on to the main query. It can be nested inside a SELECT, UPDATE or any
other query. A subquery can also use any comparison operators such as >,<
or =.
3. Data Definition Language(DDL)
DDL changes the structure of the table like creating a table, deleting a table,
altering a table.All the commands of DDL are auto-committed that means it
permanently saves all the changes in the database.

DDL Commands
1. Create - It is used to create a new database or table.
CREATE TABLE TABLE_NAME (COLUMN1 DATATYPE, COLUMN2 DATATYPE,...);

2. Alter - It is used to alter the structure of the database like

adding,renaming,dropping and changing the datatype of column.
ALTER TABLE TABLE_NAME ADD COLUMN_NAME DATATYPE;

3.Truncate - It is used to delete all the rows from the table and free the space
containing the table.
TRUNCATE TABLE TABLE_NAME;

4. Drop - It is used to delete both the structure and record stored in the table.
DROP TABLE TABLE_NAME;

4. Data Manipulation Language(DML)

DML commands are used for manipulating the data stored in the table. It is
responsible for all forms of changes in the database.The command of DML is
not auto-committed, which means it can't permanently save all the changes in
the database.They can be rolled back.

DML Commands
1. Insert - It is used to insert data into the row of a table.
INSERT INTO TABLE_NAME VALUES(VALUE1,VALUE2,VALUE3,...);

2. Update - This command is used to update or modify the value of a column

in the table.
UPDATE TABLE_NAME SET COLUMN1=VALUE1,COLUMN2=VALUE2 WHERE
CONDITION;

3. Delete - It is used to remove one or more rows from a table.

DELETE FROM TABLE_NAME WHERE CONDITION;
5. Transaction Control Language(TCL)
These commands are used to keep a check on other commands and their
effect on the database.These commands can annul changes made by other
commands by rolling the data back to its original state.It can also make any
temporary changes permanent.

TCL Commands
1. Commit - Commit command is used to save all the transactions to the
database.
COMMIT;

2. Rollback - Rollback command is used to undo transactions that have not

already been saved to the database.
ROLLBACK;

3. Savepoint - It is used to roll the transaction back to a certain point without

rolling back the entire transaction.
SAVEPOINT SAVEPOINT_NAME;

6. Data Control Language(DCL)

DCL commands are used to grant and take back authority from any database
user.

DCL Commands
1. Grant - It is used to give user access privileges to a database.
2. Revoke - It is used to take back permissions from the user.

7. Data Query Language(DQL)

DQL is used to fetch the data from the database.

DQL Command
1. Select - It is used to select the attribute based on the condition described
by WHERE clause.
SELECT COLUMN1,COLUMN2 FROM TABLE_NAME;

8. Difference between Drop, Truncate, Delete

Drop Truncate Delete

Used to delete a Used to delete all rows Used to delete a row in

database, table or a from a table the table
view

Deletes the full Preserves the structure Deletes the structure of

structure of the table of the table the row from a table
9. Difference between WHERE and HAVING clause

WHERE HAVING

WHERE clause works on row’s data HAVING clause works on

and cannot be used with aggregates aggregated data

Used only with SELECT statement Used in a GROUP BY clause

It is called pre filter It is called post filter

10. LIKE clause

LIKE clause is used in the condition in SQL query with the WHERE clause.
LIKE clause compares data with an expression using wildcard operators to
match patterns given in the condition.
There are two wildcard operators that are used in the LIKE clause.

● Percent sign %: represents zero, one or more than one character.

● Underscore sign _: represents only a single character.

11. Order by clause

Order by clause is used with a SELECT statement for arranging retrieved data
in sorted order. The Order by clause by default sorts the retrieved data in
ascending order. To sort the data in descending order DESC keyword is used
with Order by clause.
SELECT column-list|* FROM table-name ORDER BY ASC | DESC;

12. Group by clause

Group by clause is used to group the results of a SELECT query based on
one or more columns. It is also used with SQL functions to group the result
from one or more tables.

13. Having clause

Having clause is used with SQL Queries to give more precise condition for a
statement. It is used to mention condition in Group by based SQL queries, just
like WHERE clause is used with SELECT query.

14. Distinct
The distinct keyword is used with the SELECT statement to retrieve unique
values from the table. Distinct removes all the duplicate records while
retrieving records from any table in the database.
SELECT DISTINCT column-name FROM table-name;

15. SQL Joins

A JOIN clause is used to combine rows from two or more tables, based on a
related column between them. It is used to merge two tables or retrieve data
from there.
16. Cross Join or Cartesian Product
This type of JOIN returns the cartesian product of rows from the tables in Join.
It will return a table which consists of records which combine each row from
the first table with each row of the second table.If there is no condition
specified then it returns all possible pairing of rows from both the tables
whether they are matched or unmatched.
SELECT column-name-list FROM table-name1 CROSS JOIN table-name2;

17. Inner Join

This is a simple JOIN in which the result is based on matched data as per the
equality condition specified in the SQL query.
SELECT column-name-list FROM
table-name1 INNER JOIN table-name2
WHERE table-name1.column-name = table-name2.column-name;

18. Natural Join

Natural Join is a type of Inner join which is based on columns having the
same name and same datatype present in both the tables to be joined.
SELECT * FROM table-name1 NATURAL JOIN table-name2;

19. Outer Join

Outer Join is based on both matched and unmatched data. Outer Joins
subdivide further into,

Left Outer Join

The left outer join returns a resultset table with the matched data from the
two tables and then the remaining rows of the left table and null from the right
table's columns.
SELECT column-name-list FROM
table-name1 LEFT OUTER JOIN table-name2
ON table-name1.column-name = table-name2.column-name;

Right Outer Join

The right outer join returns a resultset table with the matched data from the
two tables being joined, then the remaining rows of the right table and null for
the remaining left table's columns.
SELECT column-name-list FROM
table-name1 RIGHT OUTER JOIN table-name2
ON table-name1.column-name = table-name2.column-name;

Full Outer Join

The full outer join returns a resultset table with the matched data of two tables
then remaining rows of both left table and then the right table.
SELECT column-name-list FROM
table-name1 FULL OUTER JOIN table-name2
ON table-name1.column-name = table-name2.column-name;
20. Difference between Natural join and Inner Join

Natural Join Inner Join

Natural Join joins two tables based Inner join joins two tables on the
on the same attribute name and basis of the column which is
datatypes. explicitly specified in the ON clause.

The resulting table will contain all the The resulting table will contain all the
attributes of both the tables but keep attributes of both the tables including
only one copy of each common duplicate columns also.
column.

21. Difference between Inner Join and Outer Join

Inner Join Outer Join

Returns combined tuple between Returns the combined tuple from a

two or more tables. specified table even when the join
condition fails.

When attributes are not common It does not depend upon the
then it will return nothing. common attributes. If the attribute is
blank then NULL is placed there.

22. Difference between Join and Union

Join Union

Combines data from many tables Combines the result set of two or
based on a matched condition more select statements.
between them.

It combines data into new columns. It combines data into new rows.

Number of columns selected from Number of columns selected from

each table may not be same. each table should be same.

It may not return distinct columns. It returns distinct rows.

23. Set Operations in SQL

SQL supports few Set operations which can be performed on the table data.
These are used to get meaningful results from data stored in the table, under
different special conditions.
The different Set Operations are
● Union
● Union All
● Minus
● Intersect
24. Sequence
Sequence is a feature supported by some database systems to produce
unique values on demand. Some DBMS like MySQL support
AUTO_INCREMENT in place of Sequence.
CREATE SEQUENCE sequence-name
START WITH initial-value
INCREMENT BY increment-value
MAXVALUE maximum-value
CYCLE | NOCYCLE;

25. View
A VIEW in SQL is a logical subset of data from one or more tables. View is
used to restrict data access.
CREATE or REPLACE VIEW view_name
AS
SELECT column_name(s)
FROM table_name
WHERE condition

Types of views
● Simple
● Complex
26. SQL Alias
Alias is used to give an alias name to a table or a column, which can be a
resultset table too. This is quite useful in case of large or complex queries.
Alias is mainly used for giving a short alias name for a column or a table with
complex names.
SELECT column-name FROM table-name AS alias-name

27. SQL Functions

SQL provides many built-in functions to perform operations on data. These
functions are useful while performing mathematical calculations, string
concatenations, sub-strings etc.
SQL functions are divided into two categories
● Aggregate function
● Scalar function
28. Aggregate Functions
These functions return a single value after performing calculations on a group
of values.

Following are some Aggregate functions

● AVG()
● COUNT()
● FIRST()
● LAST()
● MAX()
● MIN()
● SUM()
29. Scalar Functions
Scalar functions return a single value from an input.

Following are some Aggregate functions

● UCASE()
● LCASE()
● MID()
● ROUND()

30. SQL Constraints

SQL Constraints are rules used to limit the type of data that can go into a
table, to maintain the accuracy and integrity of the data inside the table.

Constraints can be divided into the following two types:

1. Column level constraints: Limits only column data.
2. Table level constraints: Limits whole table data.

Constraints are used to make sure that the integrity of data is maintained in
the database. Following are the most used constraints that can be applied to a
table.
1. NOT NULL
2. UNIQUE
3. PRIMARY KEY
4. FOREIGN KEY
5. CHECK
6. DEFAULT