SQL Interview Questions

1. What is SQL?
Structured Query Language is a database tool which is used to create
and access database to support software application.
2. What are different types of statements supported by SQL?

3. What is DBMS?
A Database Management System (DBMS) is a program that controls
creation, maintenance and use of a database.
DBMS can be termed as File Manager that manages data in a database
rather than saving it in file systems.
4. What is RDBMS?
RDBMS stands for Relational Database Management System. RDBMS
store the data into the collection of tables, which is related by common
fields between the columns of the table. It also provides relational
operators to manipulate the data stored into the tables.
Example: SQL Server.
5. Why do we use SQL constraints? Which constraints we can use while
creating database in SQL?
Constraints are used to set the rules for all records in the table. If any
constraints get violated then it can abort the action that caused it.
Constraints are defined while creating the database itself with CREATE
TABLE statement or even after the table is created once with ALTER
TABLE statement.
There are 5 major constraints are used in SQL, such as
NOT NULL: That indicates that the column must have some value and
cannot be left null
UNIQUE: This constraint is used to ensure that each row and column
has unique value and no value is being repeated in any other row or
column
PRIMARY KEY: This constraint is used in association with NOT NULL
and UNIQUE constraints such as on one or the combination of more
than one column to identify the particular record with a unique identity.
FOREIGN KEY: It is used to ensure the referential integrity of data in the
table and also matches the value in one table with another using Primary
Key
CHECK: It is used to ensure whether the value in columns fulfills the
specified condition
6. What are different JOINS used in SQL?
7. What is normalization?
Normalization is the process of minimizing redundancy and dependency
by organizing fields and table of a database. The main aim of
Normalization is to add, delete or modify field that can be made in a
single table.

8. What are all the different normalizations?

The normal forms can be divided into 4 forms, and they are explained
below -.
1. First Normal Form (1NF): This should remove all the duplicate
columns from the table. Creation of tables for the related data and
identification of unique columns.
2. Second Normal Form (2NF): Meeting all requirements of the first
normal form. Placing the subsets of data in separate tables and Creation
of relationships between the tables using primary keys.
3.Third Normal Form (3NF): This should meet all requirements of 2NF.
Removing the columns which are not dependent on primary key
constraints.
4. Fourth Normal Form (4NF): Meeting all the requirements of third
normal form and it should not have multivalued dependencies.

9. How many Aggregate Functions are available there in SQL?

SQL Aggregate Functions calculates values from multiple columns in a

table and returns a single value.
There are 7 aggregate functions we use in SQL
AVG(): Returns the average value from specified columns
COUNT(): Returns number of table rows
MAX(): Returns largest value among the records
MIN(): Returns smallest value among the records
SUM(): Returns the sum of specified column values
FIRST(): Returns the first value
LAST(): Returns Last value
10. What is an Index? What are all the different types of indexes?
An index is performance tuning method of allowing faster retrieval of
records from the table. An index creates an entry for each value and it
will be faster to retrieve data. This indexing does not allow the field to
have duplicate values if the column is unique indexed. Unique index can
be applied automatically when primary key is defined.
1. Clustered Index: This type of index reorders the physical order of the
table and search based on the key values. Each table can have only one
clustered index.
2. Non-Clustered Index: Non-Clustered Index does not alter the physical
order of the table and maintains logical order of data. Each table can
have 999 non clustered indexes.
11. What is SQL Injection?
SQL Injection is a type of database attack technique where malicious
SQL statements are inserted into an entry field of database such that
once it is executed the database is opened for an attacker. This
technique is usually used for attacking Data-Driven Applications to have
an access to sensitive data and perform administrative tasks on
databases.
For Example: SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name WHERE
condition;
12. What is the difference between “Primary Key” and “Unique Key”?
1.We can have only one Primary Key in a table whereas we can have
more than one Unique Key in a table.
2. The Primary Key cannot have a NULL value whereas a Unique Key
may have only one null value.
3. By default, a Primary Key is a Clustered Index whereas by default, a
Unique Key is a unique non-clustered index.
4. A Primary Key supports an Auto Increment value whereas a Unique
Key doesn't support an Auto Increment value.
13. What is ISNULL() operator?
ISNULL function is used to check whether value given is NULL or not
NULL in sql server. This function also provides to replace a value with
the NULL.
14. What are Magic Tables in SQL Server?
Insert and Delete tables are created when the trigger is fired for any DML
command. Those tables are called Magic Tables in SQL Server. These
magic tables are used inside the triggers for data transaction.
15. What is a Cursor?
A database Cursor is a control which enables traversal over the rows or
records in the table. This can be viewed as a pointer to one row in a set
of rows. Cursor is very much useful for traversing such as retrieval,
addition and removal of database records.
16. How to change Database name in SQL server?

17. What is referential integrity?

Referential integrity refers to the consistency that must be maintained
between primary and foreign keys, i.e. every foreign key value must have
a corresponding primary key value.
18. How exceptions can be handled in SQL Server Programming?
Exceptions are handled using TRY—-CATCH constructs and it is handles
by writing scripts inside the TRY block and error handling in the CATCH
block.
19. What is an execution plan? When would you use it? How would you
view the execution plan?
An execution plan is basically a road map that graphically or textually
shows the data retrieval methods chosen by the SQL Server query
optimizer for a stored procedure or ad- hoc query and is a very useful
tool for a developer to understand the performance characteristics of a
query or stored procedure since the plan is the one that SQL Server will
place in its cache and use to execute the stored procedure or query.
From within Query Analyzer is an option called "Show Execution Plan"
(located on the Query drop-down menu). If this option is turned on it will
display query execution plan in separate window when query is ran
again.
20. How to 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.
21. How to select UNIQUE records from a table using a SQL Query?
Using GROUP BY Function

22. How to delete DUPLICATE records from a table using a SQL Query?
Consider the same EMPLOYEE table as source discussed in previous
question
Using ROWID and ROW_NUMBER Analytic Function
23.How to read TOP 5 records from a table using a SQL query?

Consider below table DEPARTMENTS as the source data

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.

24. 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.

25. How to find the employee with second MAX Salary using a SQL
query?

Consider below EMPLOYEES table as the source data

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.
26. How to find the employee with third MAX Salary using a SQL query
without using Analytic Functions?

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.

STEP-2:

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

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.

27. What is Trigger?

Trigger allows us to execute a batch of SQL code when a table event

occurs (Insert, update or delete command executed against a specific
table)

28. What is CHECK Constraint?

A CHECK constraint is used to limit the values or type of data that can
be stored in a column. They are used to enforce domain integrity.

29. What is Database White Box Testing?

Database White Box Testing involves Database Consistency and ACID

properties Database triggers and logical views Decision Coverage,
Condition Coverage, and Statement Coverage Database Tables, Data
Model, and Database Schema Referential integrity rules

30. What are Nested Triggers?

Triggers may implement data modification logic by using INSERT,

UPDATE, and DELETE statement. These triggers that contain data
modification logic and find other triggers for data modification are called
Nested Triggers.

31. Assume you have the below tables on sessions that users have, and
a users table. Write a query to get the active user count of daily cohorts.

By definition, daily cohorts are active users from a particular day. First,
we can use a subquery to get the sessions of new users by day using an
inner join with users. This is to filter for only active users by a particular
join date for the cohort. Then we can get a distinct count to return the
active user count:
32. Assume you are given the below table on transactions from users for
purchases. Write a query to get the list of customers where their earliest
purchase was at least $50.

Although we could use a self join on transaction_date =

MIN(transaction_date) for each user, we can also use the RANK()
window function to get the ordering of purchase by customer, and then
use that subquery to filter on customers where the first purchase (rank
one) is at least 50 dollars. Note that this requires the subquery to include
spend as well
33. Assume you are given the below table on transactions from users.
Write a query to get the number of users and total products bought per
latest transaction date where each user is bucketed into their latest
transaction date.

First, we need to get the latest transaction date for each user, along with
the number of products they have purchased. This can be done in a
subquery where we GROUP BY user_id and take a COUNT(DISTINCT
product_id) to get the number of products they have purchased, and a
MAX(transaction_date) to get the latest transaction date (while casting to
a date). Then, using this subquery, we can simply do an aggregation by
the transaction date column in the previous subquery, while doing a
COUNT() on the number of users, and a SUM() on the number of
products:
34. Assume you are given the below tables on users and their time spent
on sending and opening Snaps. Write a query to get the breakdown for
each age breakdown of the percentage of time spent on sending versus
opening snaps.

We can get the breakdown of total time spent on each activity by each
user by filtering out for the activity_type and taking the sum of time spent.
In doing this, we want to do an outer join with the age bucket to get the
total time by age bucket for both activity types. This results in the below
two subqueries. Then, we can use these two subqueries to sum them by
joining on the appropriate age bucket and take the proportion for send
time and the proportion for open time per age bucket:
35. Assume you are given the below table on reviews from users. Define
a top-rated place as a business whose reviews only consist of 4 or 5
stars. Write a query to get the number and percentage of businesses that
are top-rated places.

First, we need to get the places where the reviews are all 4 or 5 stars.
We can do this using a HAVING clause, instead of a WHERE clause
since the reviews need to all be 4 stars or above. For the HAVING
condition, we can use a CASE statement that filters for 4 or 5 stars and
then take a SUM over them. This can then be compared with the total
row count of the particular business_id reviews to ensure that the count
of top reviews matches with the total review count. With the relevant
businesses, we can then do an outer join with the original table on
business_id to get a COUNT of distinct business_id matches, and then
the percentage by comparing the COUNT from the top places with the
overall COUNT of business_id:
36. What is an SQL View?

A view is a virtual table whose contents are obtained from an existing

table or tables, called base tables. The retrieval happens through an
SQL statement, incorporated into the view. So, you can think of a view
object as a view into the base table. The view itself does not contain any
real data; the data is electronically stored in the base table. The view
simply shows the data contained in the base table.

37.
38.
39.

The query will result in 50 rows as a “cartesian product” or “cross join”,

which is the default whenever the ‘where’ clause is omitted.

40.

Which of the following is the correct outcome of the SQL query below?
Solution: A

The query will extract the course ids where student receive the grade “C”
in the course.

41. What is the correct outcome of the SQL query below?

The above query first joined the ENROLLED and STUDENT tables then
it will evaluate the where condition and then it will return the name, grade
of the students, those took 15-415 and got a grade ‘A’ or ‘B’ in the
course. But for the given two tables it will give zero records in output.

42. Which of the following query will find all the unique students who
have taken more than one course?
43. What are the tuples additionally deleted to preserve reference
integrity when the rows (2,4) are deleted from the below table. Suppose
you are using ‘ON DELETE CASCADE’.

When (2,4) is deleted. Since C is a foreign key referring A with delete on

cascade, all entries with value 2 in C must be deleted. So (5, 2) and (7,
2) are deleted. As a result of this 5 and 7 are deleted from A which
causes (9, 5) to be deleted.

44. Suppose you have a table “Loan_Records”.

SELECT Count(*)  FROM  ( (SELECT Borrower, Bank_Manager FROM   Loan_Records) AS S

NATURAL JOIN (SELECT Bank_Manager, Loan_Amount FROM   Loan_Records) AS T );

What is the output of the following SQL query?

45. What will be the output of the below query?

Query: SELECT Company, AVG(Salary) FROM AV1 HAVING AVG(Salary) > 1200 GROUP BY
Company WHERE Salary > 1000 ;

This query will give the error because ‘WHERE’ is always evaluated before ‘GROUP BY’
and ‘Having’ is always evaluated after ‘GROUP BY’.

46. SQL Query to find the second highest salary of Employee

There are many ways to find the second highest salary of an Employee
in SQL, you can either use SQL Join or Subquery to solve this problem.
Here is an SQL query using Subquery:
47. SQL Query to find Max Salary from each department.

You can find the maximum salary for each department by grouping all
records by DeptId and then using MAX() function to calculate the
maximum salary in each group or each department.

These questions become more interesting if the Interviewer will ask you
to print the department name instead of the department id, in that case,
you need to join the Employee table with Department using the foreign
key DeptID, make sure you do LEFT or RIGHT OUTER JOIN to include
departments without any employee as well.

In this query, we have used RIGHT OUTER JOIN because we need the
name of the department from the Department table which is on the right
side of the JOIN clause, even if there is no reference of dept_id on the
Employee table. 

48. Write SQL Query to display the current date?

SQL has built-in function called GetDate() which returns the current

timestamp.

49. Write an SQL Query to print the name of the distinct employee whose
DOB is between 01/01/1960 to 31/12/1975.
50. Write an SQL Query to find an employee whose salary is equal to or
greater than 10000.

51. Write SQL Query to find duplicate rows in a database? and then write
SQL query to delete them?

to Delete:

52. How do you find all employees who are also managers?

You have given a standard employee table with an additional column

mgr_id, which contains the employee id of the manager.
You need to know about self-join to solve this problem. In Self Join, you
can join two instances of the same table to find out additional details as
shown below

this will show employee name and manager name in two columns like

One follow-up is to modify this query to include employees which don't

have a manager. To solve that, instead of using the inner join, just use
the left outer join, this will also include employees without managers.

53. The Trips table holds all taxi trips. Each trip has a unique Id, while
Client_Id and Driver_Id are both foreign keys to the Users_Id at
the Users table. Status is an ENUM type of (‘completed’,
‘cancelled_by_driver’, ‘cancelled_by_client’).
Write a SQL query to find the cancellation rate of requests made by
unbanned users between Oct 1, 2013 and Oct 3, 2013. For the above
tables, your SQL query should return the following rows with the
cancellation rate being rounded to two decimal places.
The solution looks like that:

select
result.Request_at as "Day",
round(sum(case when result.Status = 'completed' then 0 else 1
end) / count(*), 2) as "Cancellation Rate"
from (
select
Driver_Id,
Status,
Request_at
from trips left join users on trips.client_id=users.users_id
where users.banned = 'NO'
) result
left join users on result.driver_id=users.users_id
where
users.Banned ='NO'
and result.Request_at between '2013-10-01' and '2013-10-03'
group by
result.Request_at

54. Write a SQL query to find all duplicate emails in a table named
Person.
For example, your query should return the following for the above table:

Solution:

Since all email are in lowercase we can simply groupby email and print
those that have a count >1.

55. Given a Weather table, write a SQL query to find all dates' Ids with
higher temperature compared to its previous (yesterday's) dates.
The solution is to join the table to itself when the dates differ by one
day (DATEDIFF() function) and make sure that the temperature is higher
than the previous date.

56. The Employee table holds all employees including their managers.

Every employee has an Id, and there is also a column for the manager
Id.
Given the Employee table, write a SQL query that finds out employees
who earn more than their managers. For the above table, Joe is the only
employee who earns more than his manager.

The solution is to join again the table to itself as shown below:

57. The Employee table holds all employees. Every employee has an Id,

a salary, and there is also a column for the department Id.
58. X city opened a new cinema, many people would like to go to
this cinema. The cinema also gives out a poster indicating the
movies’ ratings and descriptions.

Please write a SQL query to output movies with an odd numbered

ID and a description that is not 'boring'. Order the result by rating.

For example, table cinema:

59.

For example, given the above Employee table, the nth highest salary

where n = 2 is 200. If there is no nth highest salary, then the query should
return null.
60. What is Identity?

Identity (or AutoNumber) is a column that automatically generates

numeric values. A start and increment value can be set, but most DBA
leave these at 1. A GUID column also generates numbers; the value of
this cannot be controlled. Identity/GUID columns do not need to be
indexed.

61. What are indexes?

A database index is a data structure that improves the speed of data

retrieval operations on a database table at the cost of additional writes
and the use of more storage space to maintain the extra copy of data.
Data can be stored only in one order on disk. To support faster access
according to different values, faster search like binary search for different
values is desired, For this purpose, indexes are created on tables. These
indexes need extra space on disk, but they allow faster search according
to different frequently searched values.

62.What is a Composite Primary Key ?

A Composite primary key is a set of columns whose values uniquely
identify every row in a table. What it means is that, table which contains
composite primary key will be indexed based on columns specified in the
primary key. This key will be referred in Foreign Key tables.

63.What are user defined datatypes and when you should go for them?

User defined datatypes let you extend the base SQL Server datatypes by
providing a descriptive name, and format to the database. Take for
example, in your database, there is a column called Flight_Num which
appears in many tables. In all these tables it should be varchar(8). In this
case you could create a user defined datatype called Flight_num_type of
varchar(8) and use it across all your tables.

64.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 SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION
LEVEL, which lets you customize the isolation level at the connection
level.

65. Explain Active/Active and Active/Passive cluster configurations

Hopefully you have experience setting up cluster servers. But if you

don't, 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.

66. 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.

67. What is a table called, if it has neither Cluster nor Non-cluster Index?
What is it used for?

Unindexed table or Heap. Microsoft Press Books and Book on Line

(BOL) refers it as Heap. A heap is a table that does not have a clustered
index and, therefore, the pages are not linked by pointers. The IAM
pages are the only structures that link the pages in a table together.
Unindexed tables are good for fast storing of data. Many times it is better
to drop all indexes from table and then do bulk of inserts and to restore
those indexes after that

68. What is a Scheduled Jobs or What is a Scheduled Tasks?

Scheduled tasks let user automate processes that run on regular or

predictable cycles. User can schedule administrative tasks, such as cube
processing, to run during times of slow business activity. User can also
determine the order in which tasks run by creating job steps within a SQL
Server Agent job. E.g. back up database, Update Stats of Tables. Job
steps give user control over flow of execution. If one job fails, user can
configure SQL Server Agent to continue to run the remaining tasks or to
stop execution.

69. How to get @@ERROR and @@ROWCOUNT at the same time?

If @@Rowcount is checked after Error checking statement then it will

have 0 as the value of @@Recordcount as it would have been reset.
And if @@Recordcount is checked before the error-checking statement
then @@Error would get reset. To get @@error and @@rowcount at
the same time do both in same statement and store them in local
variable. SELECT @RC = @@ROWCOUNT, @ER = @@ERROR

70. What is CHECK Constraint?

A CHECK constraint is used to limit the values that can be placed in a

column. The check constraints are used to enforce domain integrity.
71. From the following table of user IDs, actions, and dates, write a query
to return the publication and cancellation rate for each user.
72. From the following table of transactions between two users, write a
query to return the change in net worth for each user, ordered by
decreasing net change.
73.
74.
75.
76. What is the SELECT statement?
77. What is an Alias in SQL?

An alias is a feature of SQL that is supported by most, if not all,

RDBMSs. It is a temporary name assigned to the table or table
column for the purpose of a particular SQL query. In addition,
aliasing can be employed as an obfuscation technique to secure
the real names of database fields. A table alias is also called
a correlation name .
An alias is represented explicitly by the AS keyword but in some
cases the same can be performed without it as well. Nevertheless,
using the AS keyword is always a good practice.

78. What is Denormalization?

Denormalization is the inverse process of normalization, where the

normalized schema is converted into a schema which has redundant
information. The performance is improved by using redundancy and
keeping the redundant data consistent. The reason for performing
denormalization is the overheads produced in query processor by an
over-normalized structure.

79. What is the difference between DROP and TRUNCATE statements?

If a table is dropped, all things associated with the tables are dropped as
well. This includes - the relationships defined on the table with other
tables, the integrity checks and constraints, access privileges and other
grants that the table has. To create and use the table again in its original
form, all these relations, checks, constraints, privileges and relationships
need to be redefined. However, if a table is truncated, none of the above
problems exist and the table retains its original structure.

80. What is the difference between DELETE and TRUNCATE

statements?
The TRUNCATE command is used to delete all the rows from the table
and free the space containing the table.
The DELETE command deletes only the rows from the table based on
the condition given in the where clause or deletes all the rows from the
table if no condition is specified. But it does not free the space containing
the table.

81. What do you mean by data integrity?

Data Integrity defines the accuracy as well as the consistency of the data
stored in a database. It also defines integrity constraints to enforce
business rules on the data when it is entered into an application or a
database.

82. How can you fetch first 5 characters of the string?

There are a lot of ways to fetch characters from a string. For example:

Select SUBSTRING(StudentName,1,5) as studentname from student

83. What is a Stored Procedure?

A Stored Procedure is a function which consists of many SQL

statements to access the database system. Several SQL statements are
consolidated into a stored procedure and execute them whenever and
wherever required which saves time and avoid writing code again and
again.

84. What do you mean by Collation?

Collation is defined as a set of rules that determine how data can be

sorted as well as compared. Character data is sorted using the rules that
define the correct character sequence along with options for specifying
case-sensitivity, character width etc.

85. What is a Datawarehouse?

Datawarehouse refers to a central repository of data where the data is

assembled from multiple sources of information. Those data are
consolidated, transformed and made available for the mining as well as
online processing. Warehouse data also have a subset of data called
Data Marts.

86. What is a primary key?

A primary key is used to uniquely identify all table records. It cannot have
NULL values, and it must contain unique values. A table can have only
one primary key that consists of single or multiple fields.

87. What is a Unique Key?

The key which can accept only the null value and cannot accept the
duplicate values is called Unique Key. The role of the unique key is to
make sure that each column and row are unique.

88. What is the difference between Primary key and Unique Key?

Both Primary and Unique key carry unique values but the primary key
can not have a null value where the Unique key can. And in a table,
there cannot be more than one Primary key but unique keys can be
multiple.

89. What is a foreign key?

A foreign key is an attribute or a set of attributes that references to the

primary key of some other table. Basically, it is used to link together two
tables.

90. What are Entities and Relationships?

Entities: Entity can be a person, place, thing, or any identifiable object for which data
can be stored in a database.

Relationships: Relationships between entities can be referred to as the connection

between two tables or entities.

91. What is the ACID property in a database?

The full form of ACID is Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability.
To check the reliability of the transactions, ACID properties are used.

 Atomicity refers to completed or failed transactions, where

transaction refers to a single logical operation on data. This
implies that if any aspect of a transaction fails, the whole
transaction fails and the database state remains unchanged.
 Consistency means that the data meets all of the validity
guidelines. The transaction never leaves the database without
finishing its state.
 Concurrency management is the primary objective of isolation.
 Durability ensures that once a transaction is committed, it will
occur regardless of what happens in between, such as a power
outage, a fire, or some other kind of disturbance.

92. What do you know about the stuff() function?

The stuff function deletes a part of the string and then inserts another
part into the string starting at a specified position.

93. What is a stored procedure? Give an example.

A stored procedure is a prepared SQL code that can be saved and reused. In
other words, we can consider a stored procedure to be a function
consisting of many SQL statements to access the database system. We
can consolidate several SQL statements into a stored procedure and
execute them whenever and wherever required.
A stored procedure can be used as a means of modular programming,
i.e., we can create a stored procedure once, store it, and call it multiple
times as required. This also supports faster execution when compared to
executing multiple queries.
94. From the following user activity table, write a query to return the
fraction of users who are retained (show some activity) a given number of
days after joining. By convention, users are considered active on their
join day (day 0).
95. From the given trips and users tables for a taxi service, write
a query to return the cancellation rate in the first two days in
October, rounded to two decimal places, for trips not involving
banned riders or drivers. From LeetCode.
96. Explain the difference between OLTP and OLAP.

OLTP: It stands for Online Transaction Processing, and we can consider

it to be a category of software applications that is efficient for supporting
transaction-oriented programs. One of the important attributes of the
OLTP system is its potential to keep up the consistency. The OLTP
system often follows decentralized planning to keep away from single
points of failure. This system is generally designed for a large audience
of end-users to perform short transactions. Also, queries involved in such
databases are generally simple, need fast response time, and in
comparison, return only a few records. So, the number of transactions
per second acts as an effective measure for those systems.

OLAP: OLAP stands for Online Analytical Processing, and it is a

category of software programs that are identified by a comparatively
lower frequency of online transactions. For OLAP systems, the efficiency
of computing depends highly on the response time. Hence, such
systems are generally used for data mining or maintaining aggregated
historical data, and they are usually used in multi-dimensional schemas.

97. What do you understand by Self Join?

Self Join in SQL is used for joining a table with itself. Here, depending
upon some conditions, each row of the table is joined with itself and with
other rows of the table.

98. What is the difference between Union and Union All operators?

The Union operator is used to combine the result set of two or more

select statements. For example, the first select statement returns the fish
shown in Image A, and the second returns the fish shown in Image B.
Then, the Union operator will return the result of the two select
statements as shown in Image A U B. Also, if there is a record present in
both tables, then we will get only one of them in the final result.

99. What is Cursor? How to use a Cursor?

A database Cursor is a control that allows you to navigate around the

table’s rows or documents. It can be referred to as a pointer for a row in
the set of rows. Cursors are extremely useful for database traversal
operations like extraction, insertion, and elimination.

 After any variable declaration, DECLARE a cursor. A SELECT

Statement must always be aligned with the cursor declaration.
 To initialize the result set, OPEN statements must be called
before fetching the rows from the result table.
 To grab and switch to the next row in the result set, use the
FETCH statement.
 To deactivate the cursor, use the CLOSE expression.
 Finally, use the DEALLOCATE clause to uninstall the cursor
description and clear all the resources associated with it.

100. What is the use of the Intersect operator?

The Intersect operator helps combine two select statements and returns
only those records that are common to both the select statements. So,
after we get Table A and Table B over here and if we apply the Intersect
operator on these two tables, then we will get only those records that are
common to the result of the select statements of these two.