What are the different clauses used in SQL?

“An SQL clause is defined to limit the queried results to certain

specified conditions.

GROUP BY: used in aggregation to arrange identical data into groups,

the GROUP BY clause follows the WHERE clause in a SELECT
statement and is followed by the ORDER BY clause

HAVING: used to specify a search condition in a GROUP BY clause,

HAVING can be used in the absence of a GROUP BY clause by using a
WHERE clause

ORDER BY: sorts the result set in ascending (default) or descending

(using DESC keyword) order

WHERE: used to define the condition of the records to be extracted”

What are the different types of SQL commands?

SQL commands are segregated into the following types:

 DDL – Data Definition Language

 DML – Data Manipulation Language
 DQL – Data Query Language
 DCL – Data Control Language
 TCL – Transaction Control Language
What are the different DDL commands in SQL?

DDL commands are used to define or alter the structure of the database.

 CREATE: To create databases and database objects

 ALTER: To alter existing database objects
 DROP: To drop databases and databases objects
 TRUNCATE: To remove all records from a table but not its database
structure
 RENAME: To rename database objects
What are the different DML commands in SQL?

DML commands are used for managing data present in the database.
  SELECT: To select specific data from a database
 INSERT: To insert new records into a table
 UPDATE: To update existing records
 DELETE: To delete existing records from a table
What are the different DCL commands in SQL?

DCL commands are used to create roles, grant permission, and control access to
the database objects.

GRANT: To provide user access

DENY: To deny permissions to users
REVOKE: To remove user access
What are the different TCL commands in SQL?

TCL commands are used to manage the changes made by DML statements.

 COMMIT: To write and store the changes to the database

 ROLLBACK: To restore the database since the last commit
What is a View in SQL?

A view is like a subset of a table which is stored logically in a database. A view is

a virtual table. It contains rows and columns similar to a real table. The fields in
the view are fields from one or more real tables. Views do not contain data of
their own. They are used to restrict access to the database or to hide data
complexity.

1 CREATE VIEW view_name AS SELECT column_name1, column_name2 FROM table_name WHERE CONDITION;

What are the advantages of Views?

Some of the advantages of Views are

1. Views occupy no space

2. Views are used to simply retrieve the results of complicated queries that
need to be executed often.
 3. Views are used to restrict access to the database or to hide data
complexity.

How to avoid duplicate records in a query?

The SQL SELECT DISTINCT query is used to return only unique values. It
eliminates all the duplicated values.

What is the difference between Rename and Alias?

‘Rename’ is a permanent name given to a table or column

‘Alias’ is a temporary name given to a table or column.

What is a Join?

Join is a query, which retrieves related columns or rows from multiple tables.

What are the different types of joins?

Types of Joins are as follows:

 INNER JOIN
 LEFT JOIN
 RIGHT JOIN
 OUTER JOIN

What are SQL constraints?

SQL constraints are the set of rules that enforced some restriction while
inserting, deleting or updating of data in the databases.

What are the constraints available in SQL?

Some of the constraints in SQL are – Primary Key, Foreign Key, Unique Key,
SQL Not Null, Default, Check and Index constraint.

What is a Unique constraint?

A unique constraint is used to ensure that there are no duplication values in the
field/column.

What is a Primary Key?

A PRIMARY KEY constraint uniquely identifies each record in a database table.

All columns participating in a primary key constraint must not contain NULL
values.

Can a table contain multiple PRIMARY KEY’s?

The short answer is no, a table is not allowed to contain multiple primary keys
but it allows to have one composite primary key consisting of two or more
columns.

What is a Composite PRIMARY KEY?

Composite PRIMARY KEY is a primary key created on more than one column
(combination of multiple fields) in a table.

What is a FOREIGN KEY?

A FOREIGN KEY is a key used to link two tables together. A FOREIGN KEY in a
table is linked with the PRIMARY KEY of another table.

Can a table contain multiple FOREIGN KEY’s?

A table can have many FOREIGN KEY’s.

What is the difference between UNIQUE and PRIMARY KEY constraints?

There should be only one PRIMARY KEY in a table whereas there can be any
number of UNIQUE Keys.
PRIMARY KEY doesn’t allow NULL values whereas Unique key allows NULL
values.

What is a NULL value?

A field with a NULL value is a field with no value. A NULL value is different from a
zero value or a field that contains spaces. A field with a NULL value is one that
has been left blank during record creation. Assume, there is a field in a table is
optional and it is possible to insert a record without adding a value to the optional
field then the field will be saved with a NULL value.

What is the difference between NULL value, Zero, and Blank space?

As I mentioned earlier, Null value is field with no value which is different from
zero value and blank space.
Null value is a field with no value.
Zero is a number
Blank space is the value we provide. The ASCII value of space is CHAR(32).

How to Test for NULL Values?

A field with a NULL value is a field with no value. NULL value cannot be
compared with other NULL values. Hence, It is not possible to test
for NULL values with comparison operators, such as =, <, or <>. For this, we
have to use the IS NULL and IS NOT NULL operators.

1 SELECT column_names FROM table_name WHERE column_name IS NULL;

1 SELECT column_names FROM table_name WHERE column_name IS NOT NULL;

What is SQL NOT NULL constraint?

NOT NULL constraint is used to ensure that the value in the filed cannot be a
NULL

What is a CHECK constraint?

A CHECK constraint is used to limit the value that is accepted by one or more
columns.

E.g. ‘Age’ field should contain only the value greater than 18.
 CREATE TABLE EMP_DETAILS(EmpID int NOT NULL, NAME VARCHAR (30) NOT NULL, Age INT CHECK (AGE
1
&gt; 18), PRIMARY KEY (EmpID));

What is a DEFAULT constraint?

DEFAULT constraint is used to include a default value in a column when no

value is supplied at the time of inserting a record.

What is the difference between Delete and Truncate?

The difference between the Delete, and Truncate are

DELETE TRUNCATE

Delete statement is used to delete rows from a Truncate statement is used to delete all the
table. It can be rolled back. rows from the table and free the space
containing the table. It cant be rolled back.

We can use WHERE condition in DELETE We cant use WHERE condition in TRUNCATE
statement and can delete required rows statement. So we cant delete required rows
alone

We can delete specific rows using DELETE We can only delete all the rows at a time using
TRUNCATE

Delete is a DML command Truncate is a DDL command

Delete maintains log and performance is slower Truncate maintains minimal log and
than Truncate performance wise faster

We need DELETE permission on Table to use We need at least ALTER permission on the
DELETE command table to use TRUNCATE command
What is the difference between Union and Union All command?

This is one of the tricky SQL Interview Questions. Interviewer may ask you this
question in another way as what are the advantages of Union All over Union.

Both Union and Union All concatenate the result of two tables but the way these
two queries handle duplicates are different.

Union: It omits duplicate records and returns only distinct result set of two or
more select statements.
Union All: It returns all the rows including duplicates in the result set of different
select statements.

Performance wise Union All is faster than Union, Since Union All doesn’t remove
duplicates. Union query checks the duplicate values which consumes some time
to remove the duplicate records.

Assume: Table1 has 10 records, Table2 has 10 records. Last record from both
the tables are same.

If you run Union query.

1 SELECT * FROM Table1

2 UNION

3 SELECT * FROM Table2

Output: Total 19 records

If you run Union query.

1 SELECT * FROM Table1

2 UNION ALL

3 SELECT * FROM Table2

Output: Total 20 records

Data type of all the columns in the two tables should be same.

What are aggregate functions in SQL?

SQL aggregate functions return a single value, calculated from values in a

column. Some of the aggregate functions in SQL are as follows

 AVG() – This function returns the average value

 COUNT() – This function returns the number of rows
 MAX() – This function returns the largest value
 MIN() – This function returns the smallest value
 ROUND() – This function rounds a numeric field to the number of decimals
specified
 SUM() – This function returns the sum

How to add new Employee details in an Employee_Details table with the

following details
Employee_Name: John, Salary: 5500, Age: 29?
INSERT into Employee_Details (Employee_Name, Salary, Age) VALUES (‘John’, 5500 , 29);

How to add a column ‘Salary’ to a table Employee_Details?

ALTER TABLE Employee_Details ADD (Salary);

How to change a value of the field ‘Salary’ as 7500 for an

Employee_Name ‘John’ in a table Employee_Details?
UPDATE Employee_Details set Salary = 7500 where Employee_Name = ‘John’;

Write an SQL Query to select all records from the table?

Select * from table_name;

Define SQL Delete statement.

The SQL Delete statement is used to delete records from a table.

DELETE FROM table_name WHERE some_column=some_value;

Write the command to remove all Players named Sachin from the
Players table.
DELETE from Players WHERE Player_Name = ‘Sachin’;

How to get each name only once from an employee table?

By using the DISTINCT keyword, we could get each name only once.

SELECT DISTINCT employee_name FROM employee_table;

How to rename a column in the output of SQL query?

By using SQL AS keyword

SELECT column_name AS new_name FROM table_name;

What is the order of SQL SELECT?

Order of SQL SELECT statement is as follows

SELECT, FROM, WHERE, GROUP BY, HAVING, ORDER BY.

How to display the current date in SQL?

In SQL, there is a built-in function called GetDate() which helps to return the
current date.

SELECT GetDate();

Write an SQL Query to find an Employee_Name whose Salary is equal or

greater than 5000 from the below table Employee_Details.
SELECT Employee_Name FROM Employee_Details WHERE Salary>=5000;

Write an SQL Query to find list of Employee_Name start with ‘E’ from
the below table

SELECT * FROM Employee_Details WHERE Employee_Name like 'E%';

Write SQL SELECT query that returns the FirstName and LastName
from Employee_Details table.

SELECT FirstName, LastName FROM Employee_Details;

How to select all the even number records from a table?

To select all the even number records from a table:

Select * from table where id % 2 = 0;

What are different JOINS used in SQL?

Answer:

4 major types of Joins are used while working on multiple tables in SQL databases:

INNER JOIN: It is also known as SIMPLE JOIN which returns all rows from BOTH tables
when it has at least one matching column.
Syntax:
SELECT column_name(s)
FROM table_name1&nbsp;
INNER JOIN table_name2
ON column_name1=column_name2;
For Example,
In this example, we have a table Employee with the following data:
The second table’s name is Joining.

Enter the following SQL statement:

SELECT Employee.Emp_id, Joining.Joining_Date
FROM Employee
INNER JOIN Joining
ON Employee.Emp_id = Joining.Emp_id
ORDER BY Employee.Emp_id;
There will be 4 records selected. Results are:

Employee and Orders tables have a matching customer_id value.

LEFT JOIN (LEFT OUTER JOIN): This join returns all rows from the LEFT table and its
matched rows from a RIGHT table.
Syntax:
SELECT column_name(s)
FROM table_name1
LEFT JOIN table_name2
ON column_name1=column_name2;
For Example,
In this example, we have a table Employee with the following data:

The second table’s name is Joining.

Enter the following SQL statement:
SELECT Employee.Emp_id, Joining.Joining_Date
FROM Employee
LEFT OUTER JOIN Joining
ON Employee.Emp_id = Joining.Emp_id
ORDER BY Employee.Emp_id;
There will be 4 records selected. You will see the following results:

RIGHT JOIN (RIGHT OUTER JOIN): This joins returns all rows from the RIGHT table and
its matched rows from the LEFT table.
Syntax:
SELECT column_name(s)
FROM table_name1
RIGHT JOIN table_name2
ON column_name1=column_name2;
For Example,
In this example, we have a table Employee with the following data:

The second table’s name is Joining.

Enter the following SQL statement:
SELECT Employee.Emp_id, Joining.Joining_Date FROM Employee
RIGHT JOIN Joining
ON Employee.Emp_id = Joining.Emp_id
ORDER BY Employee.Emp_id;
Output:
Emp_id Joining_Date

E0012 2016/04/18

E0013 2016/04/19

E0014 2016/05/01
FULL JOIN (FULL OUTER JOIN): This joins returns all results when there is a match
either in the RIGHT table or in the LEFT table.
Syntax:
SELECT column_name(s)
FROM table_name1
FULL OUTER JOIN table_name2
ON column_name1=column_name2;
For Example,
In this example, we have a table Employee with the following data:

The second table’s name is Joining.

Enter the following SQL statement:

SELECT Employee.Emp_id, Joining.Joining_Date
FROM Employee
FULL OUTER JOIN Joining
ON Employee.Emp_id = Joining.Emp_id
ORDER BY Employee.Emp_id;
There will be 8 records selected. These are the results that you should see.

Write an SQL query to fetch the EmpId and FullName of all the
employees working under Manager with id – ‘986’.
Ans. We can use the EmployeeDetails table to fetch the employee details
with a where clause for the manager-

SELECT EmpId, FullName

FROM EmployeeDetails

WHERE ManagerId = 986;

Write an SQL query to fetch the different projects available from the
EmployeeSalary table.

SELECT DISTINCT(Project)
FROM EmployeeSalary;

Write an SQL query to fetch the count of employees working in project

‘P1’.
Here, we would be using aggregate function count() with the
SQL where clause-
SELECT COUNT(*)

FROM EmployeeSalary

WHERE Project = 'P1';

Write an SQL query to find the maximum, minimum, and average salary
of the employees.
Ans. We can use the aggregate function of SQL to fetch the max, min, and
average values-
SELECT Max(Salary),

Min(Salary),

AVG(Salary)

FROM EmployeeSalary;

Write an SQL query to find the employee id whose salary lies in the
range of 9000 and 15000.
Ans. Here, we can use the ‘Between’ operator with a where clause.
SELECT EmpId, Salary

FROM EmployeeSalary

WHERE Salary BETWEEN 9000 AND 15000;

Write an SQL query to fetch all the employees who either live in
California or work under a manager with ManagerId – 321.
Ans. This interview question requires us to satisfy either of the conditions –
employees living in ‘California’ and working under Manager with ManagerId
‘321’. So, we will use the OR operator here-
SELECT EmpId, City, ManagerId

FROM EmployeeDetails
WHERE City='California' OR ManagerId='321';

Write an SQL query to fetch all those employees who work on Project
other than P1.
Ans. Here, we can use the NOT operator to fetch the rows which are not
satisfying the given condition.
SELECT EmpId

FROM EmployeeSalary

WHERE NOT Project='P1';

Or using the not equal to operator-

SELECT EmpId

FROM EmployeeSalary

WHERE Project <> 'P1';

Write an SQL query to fetch the EmpIds that are present in both the
tables – ‘EmployeeDetails’ and ‘EmployeeSalary.
Ans. Using sub query-
SELECT EmpId FROM

EmployeeDetails

where EmpId IN

(SELECT EmpId FROM EmployeeSalary);

Write an SQL query to fetch the EmpIds that are present in

EmployeeDetails but not in EmployeeSalary.
Ans. Using sub query-
SELECT EmpId FROM

EmployeeDetails

where EmpId Not IN

(SELECT EmpId FROM EmployeeSalary);