Top SQL Queries for Interview Preparation

1. 1. Basic SELECT and WHERE

SELECT * FROM Employee WHERE department = 'Sales';
Covers: SELECT, WHERE clause - Filtering data.

2. 2. DISTINCT Values
SELECT DISTINCT department FROM Employee;
Covers: DISTINCT - Removing duplicates.

3. 3. Aggregate Functions and GROUP BY

SELECT department, COUNT(*) AS total_employees
FROM Employee
GROUP BY department;
Covers: COUNT, GROUP BY - Aggregation by groups.

4. 4. HAVING Clause
SELECT department, AVG(salary) AS avg_salary
FROM Employee
GROUP BY department
HAVING AVG(salary) > 50000;
Covers: HAVING - Filtering after grouping.

5. 5. ORDER BY
SELECT * FROM Employee ORDER BY salary DESC;
Covers: ORDER BY - Sorting results.

6. 6. LIMIT / TOP
SELECT * FROM Employee ORDER BY salary DESC LIMIT 5;
Covers: LIMIT or TOP (in SQL Server) - Top N results.

7. 7. BETWEEN and IN
SELECT * FROM Employee WHERE salary BETWEEN 40000 AND 60000;
SELECT * FROM Employee WHERE department IN ('Sales', 'HR');
Covers: BETWEEN, IN - Range and list filters.

8. 8. INNER JOIN
SELECT e.name, d.department_name
FROM Employee e
JOIN Department d ON e.dept_id = d.id;
Covers: JOIN - Combining data from multiple tables.

9. 9. LEFT JOIN
SELECT e.name, d.department_name
FROM Employee e
LEFT JOIN Department d ON e.dept_id = d.id;
Covers: LEFT JOIN - All from left, matching from right.

10. 10. Subquery in WHERE

SELECT name FROM Employee
WHERE dept_id IN (SELECT id FROM Department WHERE location = 'New York');
Covers: Subqueries - Query within a query.

11. 11. Correlated Subquery

SELECT name, salary FROM Employee e
WHERE salary > (SELECT AVG(salary) FROM Employee WHERE dept_id = e.dept_id);
Covers: Correlated Subqueries - Row-wise dependent subquery.

12. 12. CASE Statement

SELECT name,
CASE
WHEN salary > 80000 THEN 'High'
WHEN salary > 50000 THEN 'Medium'
ELSE 'Low'
END AS salary_band
FROM Employee;
Covers: CASE - Conditional logic in SQL.

13. 13. UNION vs UNION ALL

SELECT name FROM Employees_US
UNION
SELECT name FROM Employees_UK;
Covers: UNION / UNION ALL - Combining result sets.

14. 14. UPDATE Statement

UPDATE Employee SET salary = salary * 1.1 WHERE department = 'Sales';
Covers: UPDATE - Modifying existing data.

15. 15. DELETE Statement

DELETE FROM Employee WHERE join_date < '2020-01-01';
Covers: DELETE - Removing rows.

16. 16. INSERT INTO SELECT

INSERT INTO Employees_Archive (id, name, department)
SELECT id, name, department FROM Employee WHERE join_date < '2020-01-01';
Covers: INSERT SELECT - Data migration between tables.

17. 17. EXISTS Clause

SELECT name FROM Employee e
WHERE EXISTS (
SELECT 1 FROM Project p WHERE p.emp_id = e.id
);
Covers: EXISTS - Checking for related data existence.

18. 18. NULL Handling with IS NULL / COALESCE

SELECT name, COALESCE(manager, 'No Manager') FROM Employee;
Covers: IS NULL, COALESCE - NULL value handling.

19. 19. String Functions

SELECT UPPER(name), LENGTH(name) FROM Employee;
Covers: String manipulation - UPPER, LENGTH, CONCAT, etc.

20. 20. Window Functions (Advanced)

SELECT name, department, salary,
RANK() OVER (PARTITION BY department ORDER BY salary DESC) AS rank_in_dept
FROM Employee;
Covers: OVER, RANK, PARTITION BY - Analytical queries.

21. 21. Date Functions

SELECT name, DATEDIFF(CURDATE(), join_date) AS days_worked FROM Employee;
Covers: Date functions - DATEDIFF, NOW(), CURDATE().

22. 22. CREATE TABLE & Constraints

CREATE TABLE Department (
id INT PRIMARY KEY,
name VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL,
location VARCHAR(100)
);
Covers: Table creation and constraints - PRIMARY KEY, NOT NULL.

23. 23. ALTER TABLE

ALTER TABLE Employee ADD COLUMN bonus DECIMAL(10,2);
Covers: Schema changes.

24. 24. Indexing

CREATE INDEX idx_salary ON Employee(salary);
Covers: Performance optimization via indexing.

25. 25. Views

CREATE VIEW HighEarners AS
SELECT name, salary FROM Employee WHERE salary > 70000;
Covers: VIEW - Virtual table abstraction.

26. 26. Find Second Highest Salary

SELECT MAX(salary) AS SecondHighest
FROM Employee
WHERE salary < (SELECT MAX(salary) FROM Employee);
Covers: Subquery with MAX - Finding ranked values.

27. 27. Find Duplicate Records

SELECT name, COUNT(*) AS count
FROM Employee
GROUP BY name
HAVING COUNT(*) > 1;
Covers: Identifying duplicates using GROUP BY, HAVING.

28. 28. Find Employees Without Department

SELECT e.name
FROM Employee e
LEFT JOIN Department d ON e.dept_id = d.id
WHERE d.id IS NULL;
Covers: LEFT JOIN and NULL filtering - Anti join.

29. 29. DELETE Duplicate Records (Retain One)

DELETE FROM Employee
WHERE id NOT IN (
SELECT MIN(id)
FROM Employee
GROUP BY name, department
);
Covers: Duplicate deletion strategy.

30. 30. CTE (Common Table Expression)

WITH DepartmentSalary AS (
SELECT department, AVG(salary) AS avg_salary
FROM Employee
GROUP BY department
)
SELECT * FROM DepartmentSalary WHERE avg_salary > 60000;
Covers: CTE - Readable subqueries.

31. 31. Intersect / Minus / Except

SELECT name FROM Employees_US
INTERSECT
SELECT name FROM Employees_UK;

SELECT name FROM Employees_US

EXCEPT
SELECT name FROM Employees_UK;
Covers: Set operations - INTERSECT, EXCEPT (use MINUS in Oracle).

32. 32. Transaction Handling

BEGIN TRANSACTION;
UPDATE Accounts SET balance = balance - 1000 WHERE id = 1;
UPDATE Accounts SET balance = balance + 1000 WHERE id = 2;

COMMIT;
Covers: BEGIN, COMMIT, ROLLBACK - Transaction integrity.

33. 33. Stored Procedure Example

DELIMITER //
CREATE PROCEDURE GetEmployeeCount()
BEGIN
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM Employee;
END //
DELIMITER ;
Covers: Procedural SQL - CREATE PROCEDURE, control flow.

34. 34. Self Join

SELECT e1.name AS Employee, e2.name AS Manager
FROM Employee e1
JOIN Employee e2 ON e1.manager_id = e2.id;
Covers: SELF JOIN - Hierarchical relationships.

35. 35. Pivot Query (Aggregation by Columns)

SELECT
SUM(CASE WHEN gender = 'Male' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS MaleCount,
SUM(CASE WHEN gender = 'Female' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS FemaleCount
FROM Employee
GROUP BY department;
Covers: Conditional aggregation - pivot logic using CASE.

36. 36. Find Nth Highest Salary using DENSE_RANK

SELECT * FROM (
SELECT name, salary, DENSE_RANK() OVER (ORDER BY salary DESC) AS rnk
FROM Employee
) AS ranked
WHERE rnk = 3;
Covers: Window function with filtering - Nth record.

37. 37. Update with Join

UPDATE Employee e
JOIN Department d ON e.dept_id = d.id
SET e.department = d.name;
Covers: UPDATE with JOIN - Cross-table update.

38. 38. Delete with Join

DELETE e FROM Employee e
JOIN Department d ON e.dept_id = d.id
WHERE d.location = 'Remote';
Covers: DELETE with JOIN - Targeted multi-table deletion.

39. 39. Query to Transpose Rows to Columns

SELECT
SUM(CASE WHEN subject = 'Math' THEN marks END) AS Math,
SUM(CASE WHEN subject = 'Science' THEN marks END) AS Science
FROM Marks
WHERE student_id = 101;
Covers: Pivot-like transformation without built-in pivot.

40. 40. JSON Field Querying

SELECT data->>'$.address.city' AS city
FROM Customers
WHERE JSON_EXTRACT(data, '$.age') > 25;
Covers: JSON querying - modern SQL features in MySQL/PostgreSQL.