What is the purpose of using SET ANSI NULLS ON?

The purpose of using SET ANSI_NULLS ON to follow the ISO Standard. Acording to this = and <> should not be used for null comparison. Instead we use null and is not null how ever if you will use = null it will return zero rows. If we want to use = or <> for null comparison use SET ANSI_NULLS OFF it means do not follow ISO Standard. SET ANSI_NULLS should be set to ON for executing distributed queries for maintaining compatibility of queries across Servers. Difference between cluster and non cluster index in sql? A clustered index is a special type of index that reorders the way records in the table are physically stored. Therefore table can have only one clustered index. The leaf nodes of a clustered index contain the data pages. A non clustered index is a special type of index in which the logical order of the index does not match the physical stored order of the rows on disk. The leaf node of a non clustered index does not consist of the data pages. Instead, the leaf nodes contain index rows. Can we create non primary key as cluster index? Yes we can do this on non-primary key column but that column must be unique and the primary key column of that table must have non-clustered index because there is one cluster index in table. By default primary key column contains clustered index so its recommended to create such non-primary key clustered index column first and then should create primary key column so in such case the primary key on that column will be with non-clustered. But its highly recommended to create primary key column as a clustered indexed column. Can we call a Trigger in store procedure? A Trigger is also a special kind of Stored Procedure which will fire automatically on the happening of an event like before or after insert, update or delete. We cannot call a trigger explicitly from a Stored Procedure. Difference Between GETDATE and SYSDATETIME? When we use GETDATE the precision is till miliseconds and in case of SYSDATETIME the precision is till nanoseconds. Get top two records without Top keyword. [SQL] set rowcount 2 select Column1, Column2 from TableName

Difference between Set and Select. -Set is a ANSI standard for variable assignment. It assigns value to only one variable at a time. -Select is a Non-ANSI standard when assigning variables. It assigns multiple variable at a time. -When assigning from a query that returns more than one value, SET will fail with an error. -When assigning from a query that returns more than one value, SELECT will assign the last value returned by the query and hide the fact that the query returned more than one row. How to get number of Maximum connection can be establish to SQL? select @@MAX_Connections Why we use SET ROWCOUNT in Sql? This syntax is used in SQL Server to stop processing the query after the specified number of rows are returned. What are the Global Temporary Tables? We can create global temporary tables but these are not using much in sql an the name of these table start with two pound signs. For example, ##globaltbl is a global temporary table. As the name suggest these table is Global temporary tables and visible to all SQL Server connections. When we create any one of these all users can see it. What is a View in SQL? View is just a virtual table nothing else which is based or we can say develop with SQL SELECT query.So we can say that its a real database table (it has columns and rows just like a regular table),but one difference is that real tables store data, but views can''t. View data is generated dynamically when the view is referenced. And view can also references one or more existing database tables or other views. We can say that it is filter of database. Why Group BY and Order By clause are so expensive? Both Group By and Order By clause requires Temporary table to process the result of query so these are expensive.

What is the use of SET NOCOUNT ON? When we use SELECT and DML statement in SQL. SQL server return a message which specify the number of rows effected by these statements. This information helps coder when they are debugging the code other wise this is not useful we can disable this by typing SET NOCOUNT ON. It is very helpful when we are doing on store procedure contains lots of statements, loops its also increase in performance and boost network traffic. What are the differences between SQL and PL/SQL? We can get modify, Retrieve by single command or statement in SQL but PL/SQL process all SQL statements one at a time. With PL/SQL, an entire block of statement process in a single command line. SQL is structured query language, various queries are used to handle the database in a simplified manner. While PL/SQL is procedural language contains various types of variables, functions and procedures and other major diffrence is Sql as the name suggest it is just structured query language wheareas PLSQL is a combination of Programming language & SQL. What is a join? List different types of joins Joins are used in queries to explain how different tables are related. Joins also let you select data from a table depending upon data from another table. Types of joins: -INNER JOIN -OUTER JOIN (OUTER JOIN is further classified as LEFT OUTER JOINS, RIGHT OUTER JOINS and FULL OUTER JOINS) -CROSS JOINs What is a Cursor? Cursor is a database object used by applications to manipulate data in a set on a row-by-row basis, instead of the typical SQL commands that operate on all the rows in the set at one time. For example, you can use cursor to include a list of all user databases and make multiple operations against each database by passing each database name as a variable. Difference between stored procedure and user defined function 1>Procedure can return zero or n values whereas function can return one value which is mandatory. 2>Procedures can have input, output parameters for it whereas functions can have only input parameters. 3>Procedure allow select as well as DML statement in it whereas function allow only select statement in it. 4>Functions can be called from procedure whereas procedures cannot be called from function. 5>Exception can be handled by try-catch block in a procedure whereas try-catch block cannot be used in a function. 6>We can go for transaction management in procedure whereas we can''t go in function. 7>Procedures can not be utilized in a select statement whereas function can be embedded in a select statement.

What is Extent and Page? Extent is a basic unit of storage to provide space for tables. Every extent has number of data pages. As new records are inserted new data pages are allocated. There are eight data pages in an extent. So as soon as the eight pages are consumed it allocates new extent with data pages. While extent is basic unit storage from database point of view, page is a unit of allocation within extent. What are the types of JOIN used in SQL Server? -Inner join - Outer Join (Left outer join and right outer join) - Self Join - Cross Join Whats the difference between UNION and UNION ALL ? UNION SQL syntax is used to select information from two tables. But it selects only distinct records from both the table, while UNION ALL selects all records from both the tables. What is a cursor? It is used to handle a set of data. Using cursors, you can loop through all the rows and update data accordingly.

What are the steps involved in creating a cursor? 1. Declare Cursor 2. Open Cursor 3. Fetch the data''s 4. Operation 5. Close and Deallocate How is the SUBSTR keyword used in SQL? SUBSTR is used for string manipulation with column name, first position and string length used as arguments. What is a trigger? Write its syntax. A Trigger is also a special kind of Stored Procedure which will fire automatically on the happening of an event like before or after insert, update or delete. We cannot call a trigger explicitly from a Stored Procedure. [SQL] CREATE TRIGGER TriggerName ON TableName AFTER INSERT | UPDATE | DELETE AS Query to be executed... GO What are CODD rules? There are 12 rules that every DBMS should adhere in order to be true RDBMS. These rules were laid by E.F.CODD in 1969. 1. Information Rule 2. Guaranteed access rule 3. Systematic treatment of null values 4. Dynamic on-line catalog based on the relational model 5. Comprehensive data sub-language Rule 6. View updating Rule 7. High-level insert, update and delete 8. Physical data independence 9. Logical data independence 10.Integrity independence 11.Distribution independence 12.Non-subversion Rule How many types of relationship exists in Database designing? 1. One to One 2. One to Many 3. Many to Many What is a DDL, DML and DCL concept? DDL (Data definition language) defines your database structure. CREATE and ALTER are DDL statements as they affect the way your database structure is organized. DML (Data Manipulation Language) lets you do basic functionalities like INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE and MODIFY data in database. DCL (Data Control Language) controls you DML and DDL statements so that your data is protected and has consistency. COMITT and ROLLBACK are DCL control statements. DCL guarantees ACID fundamentals of a transaction. Difference between DELETE and TRUNCATE. - DELETE table can be rolled back while TRUNCATE can not be. - DELETE TABLE syntax logs the deletes thus making the delete operations low. TRUNCATE table does not log any information but it logs information about deallocation of data page of the table. So TRUNCATE table is faster as compared to delete table. - DELETE table can have criteria while TRUNCATE can not. - TRUNCATE table can not have triggers. What is a Cursor? Cursor is a database object used by applications to manipulate data in a set on a row-by-row basis, instead of the typical SQL commands that operate on all the rows in the set at one time.

What is normalization? Explain different levels of normalization? Check out the article Q100139 from Microsoft knowledge base and of course, there's much more information available in the net. It will be a good idea to get a hold of any RDBMS fundamentals text book, especially the one by C. J. Date. Most of the times, it will be okay if you can explain till third normal form. What is de-normalization and when would you go for it? As the name indicates, de-normalization is the reverse process of normalization. It is the controlled introduction of redundancy in to the database design. It helps improve the query performance as the number of joins could be reduced. How do you implement one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-many relationships while designing tables? One-to-One relationship can be implemented as a single table and rarely as two tables with primary and foreign key relationships. One-to-Many relationships are implemented by splitting the data into two tables with primary key and foreign key relationships. Many-to-Many relationships are implemented using a junction table with the keys from both the tables forming the composite primary key of the junction table.

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What is normalization? Explain different levels of normalization? Check out the article Q100139 from Microsoft knowledge base and of course, there's much more information available in the net. It will be a good idea to get a hold of any RDBMS fundamentals text book, especially the one by C. J. Date. Most of the times, it will be okay if you can explain till third normal form. What is de-normalization and when would you go for it? As the name indicates, de-normalization is the reverse process of normalization. It is the controlled introduction of redundancy in to the database design. It helps improve the query performance as the number of joins could be reduced. How do you implement one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-many relationships while designing tables? One-to-One relationship can be implemented as a single table and rarely as two tables with primary and foreign key relationships. One-to-Many relationships are implemented by splitting the data into two tables with primary key and foreign key relationships. Many-to-Many relationships are implemented using a junction table with the keys from both the tables forming the composite primary key of the junction table. It will be a good idea to read up a database designing fundamentals text book.

What's the difference between a primary key and a unique key?

Both primary key and unique enforce uniqueness of the column on which they are defined. But by default primary key creates a clustered index on the column, where are unique creates a non-clustered index by default. Another major difference is that, primary key does not allow

NULLs, but unique key allows one NULL only.

What are user defined data types and when you should go for them? User defined data types let you extend the base SQL Server data types by providing a descriptive name, and format to the database. Take for example, in your database, there is a column called all these tables it should be

Flight_Num

which appears in many tables. In

varchar(8).

In this case you could create a user defined data type called

Flight_num_type of varchar(8) and use it across all your tables.

See

sp_addtype, sp_droptype in books online.

What is bit data type and what's the information that can be stored inside a bit column? Bit data type is used to store Boolean information like 1 or 0 (true or hold either a 1 or 0 and there was no support for third state, which is

false). Until SQL Server 6.5 bit data type could

can represent a

NULL. But from SQL Server 7.0 onwards, bit data type

NULL.

Define candidate key, alternate key, composite key. A

candidate key

is one that can identify each row of a table uniquely. Generally a candidate key becomes the

primary key of the table. If the table has more than one candidate key, one of them will become the primary key, and the rest are called

alternate keys. composite key.

A key formed by combining at least two or more columns is called

What are defaults? Is there a column to which a default cannot be bound? A default is a value that will be used by a column, if no value is supplied to that column while inserting data. columns and timestamp columns can't have defaults bound to them. See What is a transaction and what are ACID properties? A transaction is a logical unit of work in which, all the steps must be performed or none. properties, see SQL Server books online or any Explain different isolation levels An isolation level determines the degree of isolation of data between concurrent transactions. The default SQL Server isolation level is Read Committed. Here are the other isolation levels (in the ascending order of isolation): Read Uncommitted, Read Committed, Repeatable Read, Serializable. See SQL Server books online for an explanation of the isolation levels. Be sure to read about isolation level at the connection level.

IDENTITY

CREATE DEFAULT in books online.

ACID

stands for Atomicity,

Consistency, Isolation, Durability. These are the properties of a transaction. For more information and explanation of these

RDBMS fundamentals text book.

SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL,

which lets you customize the

CREATE INDEX myIndex ON myTable (myColumn)

What type of Index will get created after executing the above statement?

Non-clustered index. Important thing to note: By default a clustered index gets created on the primary key, unless specified otherwise. What is the maximum size of a row? 8060 bytes. Do not be surprised with questions like 'What is the maximum number of columns per table'. Check out SQL Server books online for the page titled: "Maximum Capacity Specifications". Explain Active/Active and Active/Passive cluster configurations Hopefully you have experience setting up cluster servers. But if you do not, at least be familiar with the way clustering works and the two clustering configurations Active/Active and Active/Passive. SQL Server books online has enough information on this topic and there is a good white paper available on Microsoft site. Explain the architecture of SQL Server This is a very important question and you better be able to answer it if consider yourself a DBA. SQL Server books online is the best place to read about SQL Server architecture. Read up the chapter dedicated to SQL Server Architecture. What is Lock Escalation? Lock escalation is the process of converting a lot of low level locks (like row locks, page locks) into higher level locks (like table locks). Every lock is a memory structure too many locks would mean, more memory being occupied by locks. To prevent this from happening, SQL Server escalates the many fine-grain locks to fewer coarse-grain locks. Lock escalation threshold was definable in SQL Server 6.5, but from SQL Server 7.0 onwards it's dynamically managed by SQL Server. What's the difference between DELETE TABLE and TRUNCATE TABLE commands?

DELETE TABLE
slow.

is a logged operation, so the deletion of each row gets logged in the transaction log, which makes it also deletes all the rows in a table, but it will not log the deletion of each row, instead it logs

TRUNCATE TABLE

the de-allocation of the data pages of the table, which makes it faster. Of course, back. Explain the storage models of OLAP Check out

TRUNCATE TABLE

can be rolled

MOLAP, ROLAP and HOLAP in SQL Server books online for more information.

What are the new features introduced in SQL Server 2000 (or the latest release of SQL Server at the time of your interview)? What changed between the previous version of SQL Server and the current version? This question is generally asked to see how current is your knowledge. Generally there is a section in the beginning of the books online titled "What's New", which has all such information. Of course, reading just that is not enough, you should have tried those things to better answer the questions. Also check out the section titled "Backward Compatibility" in books online which talks about the changes that have taken place in the new version. What are constraints? Explain different types of constraints. Constraints enable the RDBMS enforce the integrity of the database automatically, without needing you to create triggers, rule or defaults.

Types of constraints:

NOT NULL, CHECK, UNIQUE, PRIMARY KEY, FOREIGN KEY TABLE",

For an explanation of these constraints see books online for the pages titled: "Constraints" and "CREATE "ALTER

TABLE"

What is an index? What are the types of indexes? How many clustered indexes can be created on a table? I create a separate index on each column of a table. what are the advantages and disadvantages of this approach? Indexes in SQL Server are similar to the indexes in books. They help SQL Server retrieve the data quicker. Indexes are of two types. Clustered indexes and non-clustered indexes. When you create a clustered index on a table, all the rows in the table are stored in the order of the clustered index key. So, there can be only one clustered index per table. Non-clustered indexes have their own storage separate from the table data storage. Non-clustered indexes are stored as B-tree structures (so do clustered indexes), with the leaf level nodes having the index key and it's row locater. The row located could be the RID or the Clustered index key, depending up on the absence or presence of clustered index on the table. If you create an index on each column of a table, it improves the query performance, as the query optimizer can choose from all the existing indexes to come up with an efficient execution plan. At the same time, data modification operations (such as is used. What is RAID and what are different types of RAID configurations?

INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE)

will become slow, as every time data changes in the table, all the indexes

need to be updated. Another disadvantage is that, indexes need disk space, the more indexes you have, more disk space

RAID

stands for

Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, RAID

used to provide fault tolerance to database

servers. There are six information about

levels 0 through 5 offering different levels of performance, fault tolerance. MSDN has some

RAID levels and for detailed information, check out the RAID advisory board's homepage

What are the steps you will take to improve performance of a poor performing query? This is a very open ended question and there could be a lot of reasons behind the poor performance of a query. But some general issues that you could talk about would be: No indexes, table scans, missing or out of date statistics, blocking, excess recompilations of stored procedures, procedures and triggers without

SET NOCOUNT ON,

poorly written query

with unnecessarily complicated joins, too much normalization, excess usage of cursors and temporary tables. Some of the tools/ways that help you troubleshooting performance problems are:

SET SHOWPLAN_ALL ON, SET SHOWPLAN_TEXT ON, SET STATISTICS IO ON,

SQL Server Profiler, Windows NT /2000 Performance monitor, Graphical execution plan in Query Analyzer. Download the white paper on performance tuning SQL Server from Microsoft web site. What are the steps you will take, if you are tasked with securing an SQL Server?

Again this is another open ended question. Here are some things you could talk about: Preferring NT authentication, using server, database and application roles to control access to the data, securing the physical database files using permissions, using an unguessable encryption, setting up

NTFS

SA

password, restricting physical access to the SQL Server, renaming the

Administrator account on the SQL Server computer, disabling the Guest account, enabling auditing, using multi-protocol

SSL, setting up firewalls, isolating SQL Server from the web server etc.

Read the white paper on SQL Server security from Microsoft website. Also check out My SQL Server security best practices What is a deadlock and what is a live lock? How will you go about resolving deadlocks? Deadlock is a situation when two processes, each having a lock on one piece of data, attempt to acquire a lock on the other's piece. Each process would wait indefinitely for the other to release the lock, unless one of the user processes is terminated. SQL Server detects deadlocks and terminates one user's process. A livelock is one, where a request for an exclusive lock is repeatedly denied because a series of overlapping shared locks keeps interfering. SQL Server detects the situation after four denials and refuses further shared locks. A livelock also occurs when read transactions monopolize a table or page, forcing a write transaction to wait indefinitely. Check out

SET DEADLOCK_PRIORITY

and "Minimizing

Deadlocks"

in SQL Server books online. Also

check out the article Q169960 from Microsoft knowledge base. What is blocking and how would you troubleshoot it? Blocking happens when one connection from an application holds a lock and a second connection requires a conflicting lock type. This forces the second connection to wait, blocked on the first. Read up the following topics in SQL Server books online: Understanding and avoiding blocking, Coding efficient transactions. Explain CREATE DATABASE syntax Many of us are used to creating databases from the Enterprise Manager or by just issuing the command:

CREATE DATABASE MyDB.

But what if you have to create a database with two file groups, one on drive C and the other on drive D with log on drive E with an initial size of 600 MB and with a growth factor of 15%? That's why being a DBA you should be familiar with the

CREATE DATABASE

syntax. Check out SQL Server books online for more information.

How to restart SQL Server in single user mode? How to start SQL Server in minimal configuration mode? SQL Server can be started from command line, using the

SQLSERVR.EXE.

This EXE has some very important

parameters with which a DBA should be familiar with. -m is used for starting SQL Server in single user mode and their explanations. As a part of your job, what are the DBCC commands that you commonly use for database maintenance?

-f

is

used to start the SQL Server in minimal configuration mode. Check out SQL Server books online for more parameters and

DBCC DBCC

CHECKDB, CHECKTABLE,

DBCC DBCC DBCC DBCC DBCC SHRINKFILE etc.

CHECKCATALOG, CHECKALLOC, SHOWCONTIG, SHRINKDATABASE,

But there are a whole load of DBCC commands which are very useful for DBAs. Check out SQL Server books online for more information. What are statistics, under what circumstances they go out of date, how do you update them? Statistics determine the selectivity of the indexes. If an indexed column has unique values then the selectivity of that index is more, as opposed to an index with non-unique values. Query optimizer uses these indexes in determining whether to choose an index or not while executing a query. Some situations under which you should update statistics:

1. 2.

If there is significant change in the key values in the index If a large amount of data in an indexed column has been added, changed, or removed (that is, if the distribution of key values has changed), or the table has been truncated using the TRUNCATE TABLE statement and then repopulated

3.

Database is upgraded from a previous version

Look up SQL Server books online for the following commands:

UPDATE STATS_DATE, DBCC CREATE DROP sp_autostats, sp_createstats, sp_updatestats

STATISTICS, SHOW_STATISTICS, STATISTICS, STATISTICS,

What are the different ways of moving data/databases between servers and databases in SQL Server? There are lots of options available, you have to choose your option depending upon your requirements. Some of the options you have are:

BACKUP/RESTORE, Detaching Replication, DTS, BCP, logshipping, INSERT...SELECT, and attaching databases,

SELECT...INTO,
creating

INSERT

scripts to generate data.

Explain different types of BACKUPs available in SQL Server? Given a particular scenario, how would you go about choosing a backup plan? Types of backups you can create in SQL Sever 7.0+ are Full database backup, differential database backup, transaction log backup, filegroup backup. Check out the

BACKUP and RESTORE

commands in SQL Server books online. Be prepared to

write the commands in your interview. Books online also has information on detailed backup/restore architecture and when one should go for a particular kind of backup. What is database replication? What are the different types of replication you can set up in SQL Server? Replication is the process of copying/moving data between databases on the same or different servers. SQL Server supports the following types of replication scenarios: * * Transactional replication (with immediate updating * Merge replication See SQL Server books online for in-depth coverage on replication. Be prepared to explain how different replication agents function, what are the main system tables used in replication etc. How to determine the service pack currently installed on SQL Server? The global variable Snapshot subscribers, with queued updating replication subscribers)

@@Version

stores the build number of the

sqlservr.exe,

which is used to determine the

service pack installed. To know more about this process visit SQL Server service packs and versions. What are cursors? Explain different types of cursors. What are the disadvantages of cursors? How can you avoid cursors? Cursors allow row-by-row processing of the resultsets. Types of cursors:

Static, Dynamic, Forward-only, Keyset-driven.

See books online for more information. Disadvantages of cursors: Each time you fetch a row from the cursor, it results in a network roundtrip, where as a normal

SELECT

query makes only one round trip, however large the resultset is. Cursors are also costly because they require

more resources and temporary storage (results in more IO operations). Further, there are restrictions on the statements that can be used with some types of cursors. Most of the times, set based operations can be used instead of cursors. Here is an example: If you have to give a flat hike to your employees using the following criteria:

SELECT

Salary Salary

between between

30000 40000

and and

40000 55000

---

5000 7000

hike hike

Salary between 55000 and 65000 -- 9000 hike

In this situation many developers tend to use a cursor, determine each employee's salary and update his salary according to the above formula. But the same can be achieved by multiple update statements or can be combined in a single

UPDATE statement as shown below: UPDATE CASE WHEN WHEN END

Another situation in which developers tend to use cursors: You need to call a stored procedure when a column in a particular row meets certain condition. You don't have to use cursors for this. This can be achieved using long as there is a unique key to identify each row. Write down the general syntax for a SELECT statements covering all the options. Here's the basic syntax: (Also checkout

tbl_emp WHEN salary salary salary BETWEEN 30000 AND AND BETWEEN BETWEEN 40000 55000

SET AND 40000 55000 65000 THEN THEN

salary THEN salary salary salary + + +

= 5000 7000 10000

WHILE

loop, as

SELECT in books online for advanced syntax). select_list new_table_] table_source search_condition] BY group_by__expression] search_condition]

SELECT [INTO FROM [WHERE [GROUP [HAVING [ORDER BY order__expression [ASC | DESC] ]
What is a join and explain different types of joins?

Joins are used in queries to explain how different tables are related. Joins also let you select data from a table depending upon data from another table. Types of joins:

INNER OUTER CROSS JOINs OUTER JOINs

are further classified as

JOINs, JOINs,

LEFT RIGHT FULL OUTER JOINS. OUTER

OUTER JOINS

JOINS,
and

For more information see pages from books online titled: "Join Fundamentals" and "Using Joins". Can you have a nested transaction? Yes, very much. Check out

BEGIN TRAN, COMMIT, ROLLBACK, SAVE TRAN

and

@@TRANCOUNT

What is an extended stored procedure? Can you instantiate a COM object by using T-SQL? An extended stored procedure is a function within a DLL (written in a programming language like C, C++ using Open Data Services (ODS) API) that can be called from T-SQL, just the way we call normal stored procedures using the statement. See books online to learn how to create extended stored procedures and how to add them to SQL Server. Yes, you can instantiate a COM (written in languages like VB, VC++) object from T-SQL by using procedure. Also see books online for

EXEC

sp_OACreate

stored

sp_OAMethod, sp_OAGetProperty, sp_OASetProperty, sp_OADestroy.

What is the system function to get the current user's user id?

USER_ID().

Also check out other system functions like

USER_NAME(), SYSTEM_USER, SESSION_USER, CURRENT_USER, USER, SUSER_SID(), HOST_NAME().

What are triggers? How many triggers you can have on a table? How to invoke a trigger on demand? Triggers are special kind of stored procedures that get executed automatically when an

INSERT, UPDATE

or

DELETE

operation takes place on a table.

In SQL Server 6.5 you could define only 3 triggers per table, one for

INSERT,

one for

UPDATE

and one for

DELETE.

From SQL Server 7.0 onwards, this restriction is gone, and you could create multiple triggers per each action. But in 7.0 there's no way to control the order in which the triggers fire. In SQL Server 2000 you could specify which trigger fires first or fires last using

sp_settriggerorder UPDATE,

Triggers cannot be invoked on demand. They get triggered only when an associated action ( INSERT,

DELETE) happens on the table on which they are defined.

Triggers are generally used to implement business rules, auditing. Triggers can also be used to extend the referential integrity checks, but wherever possible, use constraints for this purpose, instead of triggers, as constraints are much faster. Till SQL Server 7.0, triggers fire only after the data modification operation happens. So in a way, they are called post triggers. But in SQL Server 2000 you could create pre triggers also. Search SQL Server 2000 books online for

INSTEAD

OF

triggers.

Also check out books online for 'inserted There is a trigger defined for

table', 'deleted table' and COLUMNS_UPDATED() OLTP

system. The trigger is written to instantiate a

INSERT

operations on a table, in an

COM object and pass the newly inserted rows to it for some custom processing.
What do you think of this implementation? Can this be implemented better? Instantiating

COM

objects is a time consuming process and since you are doing it from within a trigger, it slows down the

data insertion process. Same is the case with sending emails from triggers. This scenario can be better implemented by logging all the necessary data into a separate table, and have a job which periodically checks this table and does the needful. What is a self join? Explain it with an example. Self join is just like any other join, except that two instances of the same table will be joined in the query. Here is an example: Employees table which contains rows for normal employees as well as managers. So, to find out the managers of all the employees, you need a self join.

CREATE ( empid mgrid empname ) INSERT INSERT INSERT INSERT emp emp emp emp

TABLE

emp int, int, char(10)

SELECT SELECT SELECT SELECT

1,2,'Vyas' 2,3,'Mohan' 3,NULL,'Shobha' 4,2,'Shridhar'

INSERT emp SELECT 5,2,'Sourabh' SELECT FROM t1.empname emp [Employee], t1, t2.empname emp [Manager] t2

WHERE t1.mgrid = t2.empid

Here is an advanced query using a bosses)

LEFT OUTER JOIN

that even returns the employees without managers (super

SELECT FROM LEFT emp ON

t1.empname

[Employee],

COALESCE(t2.empname, emp OUTER

'No

manager')

[Manager] t1 JOIN t2

t1.mgrid = t2.empid