Answers to SQL Practice Questions

ANSWERS: (A) Create/Alter/Drop Table Commands:

CREATE TABLE EMP

(emp_num int ,
emp_fname char(20) WITH DEFAULT 'unknown' ,
emp_lname char(20) NOT NULL ,
job_class char(3) ,
hiredate date NOT NULL ,
CONSTRAINT emp_pk PRIMARY KEY (emp_num) ,
CONSTRAINT job_fk FOREIGN KEY (job_class) REFERENCES job (job_code)
CONSTRAINT emp_lname_uk UNIQUE ( emp_lname ) ,
CONSTRAINT hiredate_ck CHECK ( hiredate >= '1/1/1990' )
)

2. CREATE TABLE JOB (

job_code char( 3 ) ,
job_class char( 30 ) ,
chg_hour decimal (5,2) WITH DEFAULT 15 ,
CONSTRAINT job_pk PRIMARY KEY (job_code) ,
CONSTRAINT job_class_ck CHECK ( chg_hour >= 15 )
)

3. ALTER TABLE job

ADD COLUMN
overtimeCharge dec (6,2) NOT NULL

4. ALTER TABLE job

ADD CONSTRAINT
charge_ck CHECK( chg_hour >= 25 )

5. ALTER TABLE job

ALTER column
Job_Class set default 'NA'
6. ALTER TABLE job
ALTER column
Chg_Hour set NOT NULL

7. ALTER TABLE job

ALTER column
Chg_Hour set data type decimal (12,2)

8. ALTER TABLE job

DROP constraint charge_ck

9. ALTER TABLE job

DROP COLUMN overtimeCharge

10. ALTER TABLE job

DROP COLUMN chg_hour

11. DROP TABLE job

12. DROP TABLE emp

ANSWERS: (B) Data Manipulation Commands:

1. Insert the last 3 rows shown into the EMP table.

INSERT into emp ( emp_num, emp_fname, emp_lname, job_class, hiredate )

VALUES
( 106, 'William', 'Smithfield', 'PRG', '10/31/2002' ),

INSERT into emp ( emp_num, emp_fname, emp_lname )

VALUES
( 114, 'Annelise', 'Jones' )

INSERT into emp ( emp_num, emp_lname )

VALUES ( 118, 'Frommer' )

2. Update the employee fname to Jim instead of James for employee 118
(Note: if no WHERE clause is used, then all records are updated)

UPDATE emp
SET emp_fname = 'Jim'
WHERE emp_num = 118

3. Update the Database Designer chg_hour value by 10%

UPDATE job
SET chg_hour = chg_hour * 1.1
WHERE job_class = 'Database Designer'

4. Remove the row from the job table for job code PRG
( Note: if no WHERE clause is used, then all records are deleted )

DELETE
FROM job
WHERE job_code = 'PRG'
5. Remove the JOB table and all of it's data

DROP TABLE job

6. Remove the employees from the employee table WHERE the hiredate is before 1-Jan-90

DELETE
FROM emp
WHERE hiredate < '1-Jan-90'

7. Remove the emp table and all of it's data

DROP TABLE emp

ANSWER: (C) Select Commands:

1. Show the employee first and last names and their job class description and hourly charge.

SELECT emp.emp_fname ,
emp.emp_lname ,
job.job_class ,
job.chg_hour
FROM emp, job
WHERE emp.job_class = job.job_code

2. Same question as above, but only show the records WHERE the chg_hour is <100

SELECT emp.emp_fname ,
emp.emp_lname ,
job.job_class ,
job.chg_hour
FROM emp, job
WHERE emp.job_class = job.job_code
AND job.chg_hour = < 100

3. Select the hours worked and lastname and hiredate for all employees.

(Note: the default for all selects is to show all records that are joined. The above statement has no
further conditions for the WHERE clause)

SELECT emp.emp_lname ,
emp.hiredate ,
proj_emp.hour
FROM emp, proj_emp
WHERE emp.emp_num = proj_emp.emp_num
4. Create a view called: WORK_INFO which will select the hours worked and lastname and hiredate for
all employees hired before 1-jan-02.

(Note: the default for all selects is to show all records that are joined. The above statement has no
further conditions for the WHERE clause)

CREATE VIEW WORK_INFO as

SELECT emp.emp_lname ,
emp.hiredate ,
proj_emp.hour
FROM emp, proj_emp
WHERE emp.emp_num = proj_emp.emp_num
AND
emp.hiredate < '1-jan-02'

5. Select employee fname and lname and all projects that they are working on. Save this select statement
as a view called: EMP_PROJECTS

(Note: the default for all selects is to show all records that are joined. The above statement has no
further conditions for the WHERE clause)

CREATE VIEW EMP_PROJECTS as

SELECT emp.emp_fname ,
emp.emp_lname ,
project.proj_name
FROM emp, project , proj_emp
WHERE proj_emp.proj_num = project.proj_num
AND proj_emp.emp_num = emp.emp_num

6. Select employee fname and lname and all projects that they are working on for
project 18.

SELECT emp.emp_fname ,
emp.emp_lname ,
project.proj_name
FROM emp, project , proj_emp
WHERE proj_emp.proj_num = project.proj_num
AND proj_emp.emp_num = emp.emp_num
AND project.proj_num = 18
7. Select all project names and job class descriptions that the project requires.
Save this select statement as a view called: EMP_JOB_SKILLS

CREATE VIEW EMP_JOB_SKILLS as

SELECT project.proj_name , job.job_class
FROM project , job , emp, proj_emp
WHERE proj_emp.proj_num = project.proj_num
AND proj_emp.emp_num = emp.emp_num
AND emp.job_class = job.job_code

8. Select all project names and job class descriptions that the project requires for only the job code of
DBD. Save this statement as a view called: DATABASE_DESIGNERS

CREATE VIEW DATABASE_DESIGNERS as

SELECT project.proj_name ,
job.job_class
FROM project , job , emp, proj_emp
WHERE proj_emp.proj_num = project.proj_num
AND proj_emp.emp_num = emp.emp_num
AND emp.job_class = job.job_code
AND emp.job_class = 'DBD'

9. Select customer first and last name, credit limit, and salesrep first and last name WHERE the credit
limit is >= 1500.

SELECT customer.first_name, customer.last_name,

customer.credit_limit,
salesrep.last_name as salesLastName,
salesrep.first_name as salesFirstName
FROM premiere/customer, premiere/salesrep
WHERE customer.credit_limit >= 1500

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Top 20 SQL Interview Questions with Answers

Last Updated on Saturday, 29 June 2013 12:21
Written by Super User
SQL is a language for accessing and manipulating database standardized by ANSI. To be successful with database-
centric applications (which includes most of the applications Data Warehousing domain), one must be strong
enough in SQL. In this article, we will learn more about SQL by breaking the subject in the form of several question-
answer sessions commonly asked in Interviewes.

SET UP OF SAMPLE DATA FOR PRACTICING SQL

For the purpose of our demonstration, we will primarily use two database tables with just a few records - EMPLOYEE
table and DEPT table. EMPLOYEE table will contain 10 records pertaining to 10 employees with funny sounding
names of an imaginary organization and DEPT or Department table will contain 5 departments of that
organization. Click here to download the DDL/INSERT statements for this data if you want to practice the below
SQLs in your personal computer

Contents of these tables are not same with Oracle emp and dept tables!!

What is the difference between inner and outer join? Explain with
example.
Inner Join

Inner join is the most common type of Join which is used to combine the rows from two tables and create a result
set containing only such records that are present in both the tables based on the joining condition (predicate).

Inner join returns rows when there is at least one match in both tables

If none of the record matches between two tables, then INNER JOIN will return a NULL set. Below is an example of
INNER JOIN and the resulting set.

SELECT dept.name DEPARTMENT, emp.name EMPLOYEE

FROM DEPT dept, EMPLOYEE emp
WHERE emp.dept_id = dept.id

Department Employee

HR Inno

HR Privy

Engineering Robo

Engineering Hash

Engineering Anno

Engineering Darl

Marketing Pete

Marketing Meme

Sales Tomiti

Sales Bhuti

Outer Join

Outer Join can be full outer or single outer

Outer Join, on the other hand, will return matching rows from both tables as well as any unmatched rows from one
or both the tables (based on whether it is single outer or full outer join respectively).
Notice in our record set that there is no employee in the department 5 (Logistics). Because of this if we perform
inner join, then Department 5 does not appear in the above result. However in the below query we perform an outer
join (dept left outer join emp), and we can see this department.

SELECT dept.name DEPARTMENT, emp.name EMPLOYEE

FROM DEPT dept, EMPLOYEE emp
WHERE dept.id = emp.dept_id (+)

Department Employee

HR Inno

HR Privy

Engineering Robo

Engineering Hash

Engineering Anno

Engineering Darl

Marketing Pete

Marketing Meme

Sales Tomiti

Sales Bhuti

Logistics
The (+) sign on the emp side of the predicate indicates that emp is the outer table here. The above SQL can be
alternatively written as below (will yield the same result as above):

SELECT dept.name DEPARTMENT, emp.name EMPLOYEE

FROM DEPT dept LEFT OUTER JOIN EMPLOYEE emp
ON dept.id = emp.dept_id

What is the difference between JOIN and UNION?

SQL JOIN allows us to “lookup” records on other table based on the given conditions between two tables. For
example, if we have the department ID of each employee, then we can use this department ID of the employee table
to join with the department ID of department table to lookup department names.

UNION operation allows us to add 2 similar data sets to create resulting data set that contains all the data from the
source data sets. Union does not require any condition for joining. For example, if you have 2 employee tables with
same structure, you can UNION them to create one result set that will contain all the employees from both of the
tables.

SELECT * FROM EMP1

UNION
SELECT * FROM EMP2;

What is the difference between UNION and UNION ALL?

UNION and UNION ALL both unify for add two structurally similar data sets, but UNION operation returns only the
unique records from the resulting data set whereas UNION ALL will return all the rows, even if one or more rows are
duplicated to each other.

In the following example, I am choosing exactly the same employee from the emp table and performing UNION and
UNION ALL. Check the difference in the result.

SELECT * FROM EMPLOYEE WHERE ID = 5

UNION ALL
SELECT * FROM EMPLOYEE WHERE ID = 5

ID MGR_ID DEPT_ID NAME SAL DOJ

5.0 2.0 2.0 Anno 80.0 01-Feb-2012

5.0 2.0 2.0 Anno 80.0 01-Feb-2012

SELECT * FROM EMPLOYEE WHERE ID = 5

UNION
SELECT * FROM EMPLOYEE WHERE ID = 5

ID MGR_ID DEPT_ID NAME SAL DOJ

5.0 2.0 2.0 Anno 80.0 01-Feb-2012

What is the difference between WHERE clause and HAVING clause?

WHERE and HAVING both filters out records based on one or more conditions. The difference is, WHERE clause can
only be applied on a static non-aggregated column whereas we will need to use HAVING for aggregated columns.

To understand this, consider this example.

Suppose we want to see only those departments where department ID is greater than 3. There is no aggregation
operation and the condition needs to be applied on a static field. We will use WHERE clause here:

SELECT * FROM DEPT WHERE ID > 3

ID NAME

4 Sales

5 Logistics
Next, suppose we want to see only those Departments where Average salary is greater than 80. Here the condition is
associated with a non-static aggregated information which is “average of salary”. We will need to use HAVING clause
here:

SELECT dept.name DEPARTMENT, avg(emp.sal) AVG_SAL

FROM DEPT dept, EMPLOYEE emp
WHERE dept.id = emp.dept_id (+)
GROUP BY dept.name
HAVING AVG(emp.sal) > 80

DEPARTMENT AVG_SAL

Engineering 90
As you see above, there is only one department (Engineering) where average salary of employees is greater than 80.

What is the difference among UNION, MINUS and INTERSECT?

UNION combines the results from 2 tables and eliminates duplicate records from the result set.

MINUS operator when used between 2 tables, gives us all the rows from the first table except the rows which are
present in the second table.

INTERSECT operator returns us only the matching or common rows between 2 result sets.

To understand these operators, let’s see some examples. We will use two different queries to extract data from our
emp table and then we will perform UNION, MINUS and INTERSECT operations on these two sets of data.

UNION
SELECT * FROM EMPLOYEE WHERE ID = 5
UNION
SELECT * FROM EMPLOYEE WHERE ID = 6

ID MGR_ID DEPT_ID NAME SAL DOJ

5 2 2.0 Anno 80.0 01-Feb-2012

6 2 2.0 Darl 80.0 11-Feb-2012

MINUS
SELECT * FROM EMPLOYEE
MINUS
SELECT * FROM EMPLOYEE WHERE ID > 2

ID MGR_ID DEPT_ID NAME SAL DOJ

1 2 Hash 100.0 01-Jan-2012

2 1 2 Robo 100.0 01-Jan-2012

INTERSECT
SELECT * FROM EMPLOYEE WHERE ID IN (2, 3, 5)
INTERSECT
SELECT * FROM EMPLOYEE WHERE ID IN (1, 2, 4, 5)

ID MGR_ID DEPT_ID NAME SAL DOJ

5 2 2 Anno 80.0 01-Feb-2012

2 1 2 Robo 100.0 01-Jan-2012

What is Self Join and why is it required?

Self Join is the act of joining one table with itself.

Self Join is often very useful to convert a hierarchical structure into a flat structure

In our employee table example above, we have kept the manager ID of each employee in the same row as that of the
employee. This is an example of how a hierarchy (in this case employee-manager hierarchy) is stored in the RDBMS
table. Now, suppose if we need to print out the names of the manager of each employee right beside the employee,
we can use self join. See the example below:

SELECT e.name EMPLOYEE, m.name MANAGER

FROM EMPLOYEE e, EMPLOYEE m
WHERE e.mgr_id = m.id (+)

EMPLOYEE MANAGER
Pete Hash

Darl Hash

Inno Hash

Robo Hash

Tomiti Robo

Anno Robo

Privy Robo

Meme Pete

Bhuti Tomiti

Hash
The only reason we have performed a left outer join here (instead of INNER JOIN) is we have one employee in this
table without a manager (employee ID = 1). If we perform inner join, this employee will not show-up.

How can we transpose a table using SQL (changing rows to column or

vice-versa) ?

The usual way to do it in SQL is to use CASE statement or DECODE statement.

How to generate row number in SQL Without ROWNUM

Generating a row number – that is a running sequence of numbers for each row is not easy using plain SQL. In fact,
the method I am going to show below is not very generic either. This method only works if there is at least one
unique column in the table. This method will also work if there is no single unique column, but collection of
columns that is unique. Anyway, here is the query:

SELECT name, sal, (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM EMPLOYEE i WHERE o.name >= i.name) row_num
FROM EMPLOYEE o
order by row_num

NAME SAL ROW_NUM

Anno 80 1

Bhuti 60 2
Darl 80 3

Hash 100 4

Inno 50 5

Meme 60 6

Pete 70 7

Privy 50 8

Robo 100 9

Tomiti 70 10
The column that is used in the row number generation logic is called “sort key”. Here sort key is “name” column. For
this technique to work, the sort key needs to be unique. We have chosen the column “name” because this column
happened to be unique in our Employee table. If it was not unique but some other collection of columns was, then
we could have used those columns as our sort key (by concatenating those columns to form a single sort key).

Also notice how the rows are sorted in the result set. We have done an explicit sorting on the row_num column,
which gives us all the row numbers in the sorted order. But notice that name column is also sorted (which is
probably the reason why this column is referred as sort-key). If you want to change the order of the sorting from
ascending to descending, you will need to change “>=” sign to “<=” in the query.

As I said before, this method is not very generic. This is why many databases already implement other methods to
achieve this. For example, in Oracle database, every SQL result set contains a hidden column called ROWNUM. We
can just explicitly select ROWNUM to get sequence numbers.

How to select first 5 records from a table?

This question, often asked in many interviews, does not make any sense to me. The problem here is how do you
define which record is first and which is second. Which record is retrieved first from the database is not
deterministic. It depends on many uncontrollable factors such as how database works at that moment of execution
etc. So the question should really be – “how to select any 5 records from the table?” But whatever it is, here is the
solution:
In Oracle,

SELECT *
FROM EMP
WHERE ROWNUM <= 5;

In SQL Server,

SELECT TOP 5 * FROM EMP;

Generic solution,

I believe a generic solution can be devised for this problem if and only if there exists at least one distinct column in
the table. For example, in our EMP table ID is distinct. We can use that distinct column in the below way to come up
with a generic solution of this question that does not require database specific functions such as ROWNUM, TOP etc.

SELECT name
FROM EMPLOYEE o
WHERE (SELECT count(*) FROM EMPLOYEE i WHERE i.name < o.name) < 5

name

Inno

Anno

Darl

Meme

Bhuti
I have taken “name” column in the above example since “name” is happened to be unique in this table. I could very
well take ID column as well.

In this example, if the chosen column was not distinct, we would have got more than 5 records returned in our
output.

Do you have a better solution to this problem? If yes, post your solution in the comment.

What is the difference between ROWNUM pseudo column and

ROW_NUMBER() function?

ROWNUM is a pseudo column present in Oracle database returned result set prior to ORDER BY being evaluated. So
ORDER BY ROWNUM does not work.

ROW_NUMBER() is an analytical function which is used in conjunction to OVER() clause wherein we can specify ORDER
BY and also PARTITION BY columns.

Suppose if you want to generate the row numbers in the order of ascending employee salaries for example,
ROWNUM will not work. But you may use ROW_NUMBER() OVER() like shown below:

SELECT name, sal, row_number() over(order by sal desc) rownum_by_sal

FROM EMPLOYEE o
name Sal ROWNUM_BY_SAL

Hash 100 1

Robo 100 2

Anno 80 3

Darl 80 4

Tomiti 70 5

Pete 70 6

Bhuti 60 7

Meme 60 8

Inno 50 9

Privy 50 10

What are the differences among ROWNUM, RANK and DENSE_RANK?

ROW_NUMBER assigns contiguous, unique numbers from 1.. N to a result set.

RANK does not assign unique numbers—nor does it assign contiguous numbers. If two records tie for second place,
no record will be assigned the 3rd rank as no one came in third, according to RANK. See below:

SELECT name, sal, rank() over(order by sal desc) rank_by_sal

FROM EMPLOYEE o

name Sal RANK_BY_SAL

Hash 100 1

Robo 100 1

Anno 80 3

Darl 80 3

Tomiti 70 5

Pete 70 5
Bhuti 60 7

Meme 60 7

Inno 50 9

Privy 50 9
DENSE_RANK, like RANK, does not assign unique numbers, but it does assign contiguous numbers. Even though two
records tied for second place, there is a third-place record. See below:

SELECT name, sal, dense_rank() over(order by sal desc) dense_rank_by_sal

FROM EMPLOYEE o

name Sal DENSE_RANK_BY_SAL

Hash 100 1

Robo 100 1

Anno 80 2

Darl 80 2

Tomiti 70 3

Pete 70 3

Bhuti 60 4

Meme 60 4

Inno 50 5

Privy 50 5
This article is to be extended with more questions

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