SQL NOTES

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Link to practice SQL: https://www.w3schools.com/sql/sql_wildcards.asp#gsc.tab=0

Content
Introduction

Inserting Data into Table

Executing on Oracle Software

Select Command

Select with Operators

Update Command

Delete Command

Functions

Group by, Having and Order by Clause

Structure of Select

Sub Queries

Joins

Normalization

Dependencies

Types of Normalization

Constraints

Important Interview Questions

 SQL Introduction

Data:
Data Refers to small volume of facts and Figures.

Ex:- Name, Age, Marks, Gender of one student

Database:
Database refers to Large volume of Facts and figures.

Ex:- Name, Age, Marks, gender of all the students in a class.

Management of facts and figures:

There are 2 things in managing

→ Storing Permanently

→ Retrieving Efficiently

Note:
Managing the Facts and Figures are very important.

How data was stoned in olden days

In olden days the data was stored on Ledgers.

Ledger
The large volume of facts and figures stored on the ledger should be transfered to computers and
managed.

Then people started to demand for a software to manage the large volume of a facts and figures
(Database).

So the Database Management Software was invented .

DBMS: DataBase Management Software

These softwares are used to manage the data in the computer.

Ex:- SyBase, Informix, Oracle Database, MySQL, etc

Ledger RAM HDD

SQL:
SQL stands for Structured query Language It is a Language. It is a language which is used to
communicate with the database.

Rules to follow while storing the data in database.

1. Create a table
2. Specify the columns and its datatype
3. Insert the data
Ledger RAM HDD

Creating a table
Create table Person

(
name varchar2(10),

age number,

gender varchar2(6),

percentage number

);
Ex: Create a table for storing the following details of a patient.
Create table Patient

(
P_id number,

P_name varchar2(10),

P_gender varchar2(6),

Treatment varchar2(15),

Address varchar2(15)

);

Patient:

P_id P_name P_gender Treatment Address

 Inserting Data into Table

1. Create a table

2 Specify the columns and its datatype

3. Insert the data

RAM
 HDD

PERSON

RAM
 HDD

Executing on oracle software

❖ Go to start.
❖ Select oracle database 10g express edition.
❖ Select run SQL command line.

SQL >

SQL> conn

Enter user-name: system

Enter password: system // It will be not visible Connected.

SQL> create table Person

name varchar2(10),

age number,

gender varchar2(6),

percentage number

);

Table created.
SQL> insert into Person values('Ankit', 22; Male', 78);

1 row created.

SQL> insert into Person values ('Mohan', 26, Male', 65);

HDD
SELECT:
In SQL, the data can be retrieved using select command.

Syntax:

Select column-name from table where condition

Que1) Write a query to display the id of all the students from the student table

ans) select id from student

Output:-

5 rows returned in 0.00 seconds

Que2) Write a query to display id and name of all students from the student table.

Ans) select id, name from student

Output:

5 rows returned in 0.00 seconds

Que3) Write a query to display id, name and age of all the students from the student table.

Ans) select id, name, age from student

Output:-

5 rows returned in 0.00 seconds

Que4) Write a query to display id, name, age and gender of all the students from the student table.

Ans) select id, name, age, gender from student

Output:-

5 rows returned in 0.00 seconds

Que5) Write a query to display all the data from student table.
Ans) select id, name, age, gender, sem from student

(Or)

select * from student

Output:

5 rows returned in 0.00 seconds

Que6) Write a query to display name of students whose age is greater than 25 from the student
table.

Ans) select name from student where age >25

Output:

3 rows returned in 0.00 seconds

Que7) Write a query to display id, name, age and gender from student table whose gender is Male.

Ans) select id, name, age, gender from student where gender = ‘Male’
Output:

3 rows returned in 0.00 seconds

Que8) Write a query to display all the columns where sem is 6 from the student table.

Ans) select id, name, age, gender, sem from student where sem=6

(or)

select * from student where sem=6

Output:

2 rows returned in 0.00 seconds

Retrieving the data can be done is following two ways:

1. Projection
2. Selection

Projection:
Projection is the process of retrieving all the records from table without restriction. To perform
projection select command and from clause is used.

Selection:
Selection is the process of retrieving the specific records from the table with restriction. To
perform selection, select command, from, and where clause is used.
Select with Operators

Write query to display all the columns from Employee table.

> Select * from Employee

Write a query to display all the Columns from Employee table where salary is greater. than 41000

> select * from Employee where salary>41000

Write a query to display the id, name, email and salary from employee table by increasing the
salary of 1000 rs.

> select id, name, email, salary + 1000 from Employee.

Write a query to display the id, name, email and Salary from employee table by reducing the Salary
of 1000 rs.

> select id, name, email, salary - 1000 from Employee

Write a query to display the id, name, email and salary from employee table by giving hike of 10
percent

> select id, name, email, salary + (salary * 10/100) from Employee
Write a query to display the id, name, email and Salary from employee table by reducing the salary
by 20 percent

> select id, name, email, salary- (salary*20/100) from Employee

Write a query to display the half yearly Salary from Employee table.

> select salary*6 from Employee

Precedence of Operators:-

OPERATORS PRECEDENCE

* 1

/ 2

+ 3

- 4
 UPDATE

To update or modify the existing record or cell in a table is called as updation. I can be achieved
by using update command in SQL

Syntax :-

Update table_name set column_name = new_value

where condition;

Eg: Write a query to update the email to ‘ vivek123@g mail.com’ from customer with name Vivek
in Bank table

> update bank set email='vivek123@gmail.com' where name = 'Vivek'

Write a query to update the password to ‘pooja7777’ for the customer with name ‘pooja’ in Bank
table

> update bank set password = ‘pooja7777’ where name = ‘pooja’

Write a query to update the balance to 91000 for the customer with name ‘Darshan’ and accno
5555 in Bank table

> update bank set balance = 91000 where name =’ Darshan’ and accno=5555
 DELETE

To delete the existing records in the table, delete command is used.

Syntax of delete command :-

Delete from table_name where condition

Write a query to delete all the records from Amazon table

> delete from Amazon

5 row(s) deleted.

Write a query to delete the record of Customer whose name is 'priya' from table.

> delete from Amazon where name = ‘priya’

1 Row'(s) deleted.

4 rows returned in 0.00 seconds

Write a query to delete the record of customer where name is 'Ravi' and plan is ‘ Premium’

> delete from Amazon where name='Ravi'

and plan ‘Premium’

1 Row'(s) deleted
 FUNCTIONS
Que1) Write a query to display names in uppercase from student table.

Ans) select upper (name) from student

Output-

Que2) Write a query to display names in lowercase from student table.

ans) select lower(name) from student

Output:-
Que3) Write a query to display length of all name from student table.

Ans) select length (name) from student

Output:

Que4) Write a query to concentrate the data of name and age from student table.

Ans: select concat (name, age) from student

Output:
Que5) Write a query to the substring of name from 2nd position in student table.

Ans) Select substr(name, 2) from student

Output:

Que6) Write a query to the substring of name from 2nd position and extract 3 characters in student
table.

Ans) select substr (name, 2, 3) from student

Output:

Que7) Write a query to display the position of a the Character 'a' in all the names in student table.
Ans) select instr(name, 'a') from student

Output:-

Que8) Write a query to trim leading '2' in all age in student table.

ans) select trim (leading '2' from age) from student

Output:-

Que9) Write a query to the trim trailing 'e' in all gender in student table.
ans) select trim (tralling ‘ e’ from gender) from student

Qutput:

Que10) Write a query to display the minimum age of student table.

ans) select min(age) from student

Output:

Que11) Write a query to display the average of all the ages of student.
Ans) select avg (age) from student

Output:

Que12 ) Write a query to display the sum of all the ages of student table.

ans )select sum(age) from student

Output:

Que13) Write a query to display the maximum of age of student table.

Ans) select max(age) from student

Output:

Que14) Wnite a query to display the total number of rows of student table.
Ans)select count(*) from student

Output:-

Single Row Functions:

Single row functions are such functions which accepts single row or multiple rows as input but
produces one result per input.

Single Rows Functions examples:-

upper()

lower()

length ()

concat()

substr()

instr()

trim()

Multiple Row Functions:-

Multiple row functions are such functions accepts single row or multiple rows as input but
produces one result per group.

Multiple Row Functions examples:-

min()

max()
sum()

avg ()

count()

Group by, Having, & Order by Clause

Que1) Write a query to display the team and sum of salaries in each team from Employee table.

ans) select team, sum(salary)

from Employee

group by team

Output:-

Que 2) Write a query to display the team and maximum salary of the employees in each team from
Employee table.

Ans) select team, max(salary)

from Employee

group by team

Output:
Que3) Write a query to display the team & sum of salaries in each team from Employee table
where sum of salary is greater than 100000.

Ans) select team, sum(salary)

from Employee

group by team

having sum (salary)> 100000

Output:

Que4) Write a query to display the team and maximum Salary in each team where maximum
salary in greater than 40000 in Employee table.

Ans) Select team, max(salary)

from Employee

group by team

having max(salary) > 40000

Output:
Que5) WAQ to display the team and maximum salary in each team where maximum salary is
greater than 40000 in Employee

ans) select team, max (salary)

from employee

group by team

having max salary) >10000

order by max(salary) asc

Output:

Que6) WAQ to display the team and maximum salary in each team where maximum salary is
greater than 40000 in Employee table in descending order.

Ans) select team, max(salary)

from employee

group by team

having max(salary)>4000 .

Order by max (salary) desc

Output:
Que7) WAQ to display the team and maximum salary in each team Where age is greater than 23
and the maximum salary than 46000 from employee table in descending order.

Ans) select team, max (salary)

from Employee

where age>23

group by team

having max (salary)>46000

order by max(salary) desc

Output:-

Structure of select
Select → What data to be displayed

from→ from which table

where → to put condition on normal column

group by→ to group the data

having→ to put condition on aggregate function

order by→ to sort the result in ascending/descending order.

 Sub Queries
Subquery:-
• A subquery is a query within another SQL query and embedded with the where clause.
• A subquery is used to return the data that will be used in the main query as a condition to
further restrict the data to be retrieved.

Que1) WAQ to display the id, name and salary of the employees whose salary is greater than
Suraj’s salary from the Employee table.

Ans) select id, name, salary

from Employee

where salary>(select salary from Employee

where name ='Suraj')

Output:

Que2) Write a query to display the id, name, age and salary of the employees whose age is equal
to Kavya’s age from the Employee table.

Ans) select id, name, age, salary from Employee

Where age= (select age from Employee

Where name =’kavya’)

Output:
Que3) WAQ to display name, age and team of all the employees whose age is greater than
‘Rimjhim’ age and who is working in the same team where Naveen is working from the Employee
table.

Ans) select name, age, team

from Employee

where age> (select age from Employee

where name =’Rimjhim’)

and

team =(select team from Employee where name =’Naveen’)

Output:
 Joins:
Joins:A join clause is used to combine the records from two or more tables by comparing
them.

Types of joins:-
1. Equi join or Inner join

2. Natural join

3. Outer Join

➢ Left Outer join

➢ Right Outer join
➢ Full Outer join

4. Cross join

Equi Join: It is used to compare the tables and returns all the rows when there is atleast one
match in both tables. It is also called as Inner join

Inner Join: It is used to compare the tables and returns all the rows when there is atleast one
match in both table but it maintains only one copy of the column common

Que) Write a query to display all the rows from table 1 and table2 where table1 column B is equal
to table2 column B using inner join keyword..

ans) select *

from table1 inner join table2

on table1. B=table 2.B

Output:-
Que) Write a query to display all the rows from table1 and table2 using natural join keyword.

Ans) Select *

from table1 natural join table2

Output:

Que) Write a query to display the emp_ld, name and salary from Employee table whose dept_id
in Employee table is equal to dept_id in Department table using the equi join

ans) select emp_id, emp_name, emp_salary from Employee, Department where Employee.
dept_id= Department.dept_id

Output:
Que) Write a query to display all the rows from tables1 & table2 where table1 column column B
is equal to table2 column B using equi join.

Ans) select *

from table1, table2

where table 1.B =table 2. B

Output:-

Left Outer Join: It returns all the rows from the left table & matched rows from the right table.

Right Outer Join: It returns all the rows from the right talbe & matched rows from the left
table.

Full Outer Join: It returns all the rows(matched and unmatched) from the both the table.
Que) Waite a query to display all the rows from table1 and table2 using left outer join keyword.

Ans) select *

fram table1 left outer join table 2

on table1.B= table 2.B

Output:-

Que) Write a quely to display all the rows from table1 and table2 using right outer join keyword.
Ans) select *

from table1 right outer join table 2

on table1.B=table 2.B

Output:-

Que) Write a query to display all the rows from table1 and table2 using full outer join keyword.

Ans) select *

from table1 full outter join table2

on table1. B=table2.B

Output:

Cross Join: It returns cartesian product of the records from both the tables. It is also called as
cartesian join.
Que )Write a query to display all the rows from tablet and table 2 using cross join keyword.

Ans) Select *

from tablet1 cross join table 2

Output:

Que ) Write a query to display all the rows from employee table and Department table whose
dept_id in Employee table is equal to dept_id in Department table by uing Inner join keyword.

Ans) select * from Employee inner join Department on Employee.dept_id = Department. dept-id
Output:

Que) Write a query to display all the rows from Employee table and Department table by uing
natural join keyword.

Ans) select * from Employee natural join Department

Output:

Que) Write a query to perform the left outer join on employee table and Department table.

Ans) select *

from Employee left outer join Department

 on Employee.dept_id = Department.dept_id

Output:-

Que) Write a query to perform the right outer join on Employee table & Department table.

Ans) select *

from Employee right outer join Department

on Employee.dept_id = Department.dept_id

Output:

Que) Write a query to perform the full outer join on Employee table and Department table.

Ans) select *

from Employee full outer Join Department

 on Employee.dept_id = Department.dept_id

Output:
 NORMALIZATION

Normalization is the process of decomposing or splitting the tables to resolve the problems.

Problems like:-
1. Spurious Tuples

2. Anomalies

3. Data Redundancy

1. Spurious Tuples: Spurious Tuples are such tuples which are not present in original table but
gets generated. When table is decomposed and further joined.
2. Anomalies: The problems that occur in table while performing insertion, updation or deletion
operation.

3. Data Redundancy: The repetition of same data within the table which leads to memory
wastage is called data redundancy.
 Dependencies
1. Functional Dependency

2. Partial Dependency

3. Transitive Dependency

1. Functional Dependency: If an attribute is dependent on another attribute then it is said to

be functionally dependent. The attribute on which it is dependent is called as Determinant.
2. Partial Dependency: If an attribute is functionally dependent on a part of candidate key
then it is called as Partial Dependency.

(or)

If in a table, more than 1 determinants are present, then it will lead to partial dependency.
3. Transitive Dependency: When an indirect relation causes functional dependency then it
is called as transitive dependency.
Types of Normalization:
1. INF (First Normal Form)

2. 2NF(Second Normal Form)

3. 3NF (Third Normal Form)

4. BCNF (Boyce-Codd Normal Form)

Raw Data For Employee-Project Details:

Employee-Project

1NF (First Normal Form);

A relation or table is said to be in 1NF when

• Each attribute should have separate columns.

• Every cell should be atomic.

Employee-Project
2NF (Second Normal Form)
A relation or table is said to be in 2NF when

• The relation should be in 1NF.

• There should be no partial dependency.

Project

Employee
 Project Employee

3NF (Third Normal Form):

A relation or table is said to be in 3Nf when

• The relation should be in 2NF.

• There should be no transitive dependency.

Project
Employee

Rating

Project Employee
 BCNF-(Boyce-Codd Normal Form)
A relation or table is said to be in BCNF when

• A relation should be in 3NF.

• All determinants should be keys.

Project

Employee
Rating

Project _Employee
 Create Project table:

Project

Create table Project

PNo numbes primary Key,

PName varchar2(80)

);

Creating Rating Table:-

Rating
 Create table Rating

Rating varchar2(2) primary key,

Hourlycharges number

);

Creating Employee Table:-

Employee

Create table Employee

ENo number primary key,

EName varchar2 (20),

Rating varchar2(2),

Foreign key (Rating) references

Rating (Rating)

);
Creating Project _Employee Table:-

Project_Employee

Create table Project_Employee

PNo number,

ENo number,

Foreign Key (PNo) references Project (PNo),

Foreign Key(ENo) references Employee (Eno),

Primary Key (PNo, ENo)

);
 CONSTRAINTS
Constraints are the rules or restrictions which are applied on the columns.

There are following constraints in SQL:

1. Unique

2. Not Null

3. Primary key

4. Foreign key

5. Check

6. Default

1. Unique :- It ensures that the column of a table will have unique values that is all values will
be different.

Example :-

Create table Student(

id number Unique,

name varchar2 (10),

age number,

gender varchar2(6),

marks number,

Sem numbers);
2. Not Null :- It ensures that the column of a table will not have null values.

Example :-

Create table Student

Id number Not Null,

name varchar2(10) Not Null,

age number,

gender varchar2(6),

marks number,

Sem number

);
3. Primary Key :- It is combination of unique and not null constraints.
• It ensures that column of a table cannot have duplicate values and also cannot have null
values.
• A table can have only one primary key column.

Example :-

Create table Student

id number Primary key,

name varchar2 (10),

age number,

gender varchar2(6),

marks number,

sem number

);
4. Foreign key:- It ensures that data present in a column of a table refers to the data of
primary Key column of parent table.

• It is also called as referential integrity as constraint.

Example:-
Create table Student

id number primary key,

name varchar2 (10),

age number,

gender varchar2(6),

marks number,

sem number,

did number,

Foreign key(did) references Department(did)

);

Create table Department

did number primary key,

dname varchar2 (10),

dloc varchar2 (10),

HOD varchar2 (10)

);
5. Check-It ensures that the Column of a table will contain only such values which satisfy the
specified check condition.

Example:-

Create table Student

id number,

name varchar2(10),

age number Check (age > 18),

gender varchar2(6),

marks number

);
6. Default:- It ensures that Column of a table will have a specified default value if no value is
given by the user.

Example:-

Create table Student

id number,

name varchar2 (10),

age number,

gender varchar2(6),

marks number,

College varchar(20) Default ‘kodnest'

);
Important Interview Questions:

Practice to get perfect

Link to practice SQL: https://www.w3schools.com/sql/sql_wildcards.asp#gsc.tab=0

1. What is Database?
2. What is DBMS?
3. What are Different Types in DBMS?
4. What is RDBMS? How is it different from DBMS?
5. What is SQL?
6. What is the difference between SQL and MySQL?
7. What are Tables and Fields?
8. What are Constraints in SQL?
9. What is a Primary Key?
10. What is a UNIQUE constraint?
11. What is a Foreign Key?
12. What is a Join? List its different types.
13. What is a Self-Join?
14. What is a Cross-Join?
15. What is an Index? Explain its different types.
16. What is the difference between Clustered and Non-clusteredindex?
17. What is Data Integrity?
18. What is a Query?
19. What is a Subquery? What are its types?
20. What is the SELECT statement?
21. What are some common clauses used with SELECT query in SQL?
22. What are UNION, MINUS and INTERSECT commands?
23. What is Cursor? How to use a Cursor?
24. What are Entities and Relationships?
25. List the different types of relationships in SQL.
26. What is an Alias in SQL?
27. What is a View?
28. What is Normalization?
29. What is Denormalization?
30. What are the various forms of Normalization?
31. What are the TRUNCATE, DELETE and DROP statements?
32. What is the difference between DROP and TRUNCATE statements?
33. What is the difference between DELETE and TRUNCATE
statements?
34. What are Aggregate and Scalar functions?
35. What is User-defined function? What are its various types?
36. What is OLTP?
37. What are the differences between OLTP and OLAP?
38. What is Collation? What are the different types of Collation
Sensitivity?
39. What is a Stored Procedure?
40. What is a Recursive Stored Procedure?
41. How to create empty tables with the same structure as anothertable?
42. What is Pattern Matching in SQL?
1. What is Database?
A database is an organized collection of data, stored and retrieved digitally from a remote or local computer system. Databas es can be vast and complex,
and such databases are developed using fixed design and modeling approaches.

2. What is DBMS?
DBMS stands for Database Management System. DBMS is a system software responsible for the creation, retrieval, updation, and management of the
database. It ensures that our data is consistent, organized, and is easily accessible by serving as an inte rface between the database and its end-users or
application software.

3. What are Different Types in DBMS?

Centralized Database
It is the type of database that stores data at a centralized database system. It comforts the users to access the stored data from different locations through
several applications. These applications contain the authentication process to let users access data securely. An example of a Centralized database can be
Central Library that carries a central database of each library in a college/university.

Distributed Database
Unlike a centralized database system, in distributed systems, data is distributed among different database systems of an organization. These database systems
are connected via communication links. Such links help the end-users to access the data easily. Examples of the Distributed database are Apache Cassandra,
HBase, Ignite, etc.

Relational Database
This database is based on the relational data model, which stores data in the form of rows(tuple) and columns(attributes), and together forms a table(relation).
A relational database uses SQL for storing, manipulating, as well as maintaining the data. E.F. Codd invented the database in 1970. Each table in the database
carries a key that makes the data unique from others. Examples of Relational databases are MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, etc.

NoSQL Database
Non-SQL/Not Only SQL is a type of database that is used for storing a wide range of data sets. It is not a relational database as it stores data not only in tabular
form but in several different ways. It came into existence when the demand for building modern applications increased. Thus, NoSQL presented a wide variety
of database technologies in response to the demands. We can further divide a NoSQL database into the following four types:

Cloud Database
A type of database where data is stored in a virtual environment and executes over the cloud computing platform. It provides users with various cloud
computing services (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, etc.) for accessing the database. There are numerous cloud platforms, but the best options are:
o Amazon Web Services(AWS)
o Microsoft Azure
o Kamatera
o PhonixNAP
o ScienceSoft
o Google Cloud SQL, etc.

Object-oriented Databases
The type of database that uses the object-based data model approach for storing data in the database system. The data is represented and stored as objects
which are similar to the objects used in the object-oriented programming language.

Hierarchical Databases
It is the type of database that stores data in the form of parent-children relationship nodes.
 Network Databases
It is the database that typically follows the network data model. Here, the representation of data is in the form of nodes connected via links between them.
Unlike the hierarchical database, it allows each record to have multiple children and parent nodes to form a generalized graph structure.

Personal Database
Collecting and storing data on the user's system defines a Personal Database. This database is basically designed for a single user.

4. What is RDBMS? How is it different from DBMS?

RDBMS stands for Relational Database Management System. The key difference here, compared to DBMS, is that RDBMS stores data in the form of a
collection of tables, and relations can be defined between the common fields of these tables. Most modern database management systems like MySQL,
Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, IBM DB2, and Amazon Redshift are based on RDBMS.

5. What is SQL?
SQL stands for Structured Query Language. It is the standard language for relational database management systems. It is especially useful in handling
organized data comprised of entities (variables) and relations between different entities of the data.

6. What is the difference between SQL and MySQL?

SQL is a standard language for retrieving and manipulating structured databases. On the contrary, MySQL is a relational database management system,
like SQL Server, Oracle or IBM DB2, that is used to manage SQL databases.

7. What are Tables and Fields?

A table is an organized collection of data stored in the form of rows and columns. Columns can be categorized as vertical and rows as horizontal. The
columns in a table are called fields while the rows can be referred to as records.

8. What are Constraints in SQL?

Constraints are used to specify the rules concerning data in the table. It can be applied for single or multiple fields in an SQL table during the creation of
the table or after creating using the ALTER TABLE command. The constraints are:

• NOT NULL - Restricts NULL value from being inserted into a column.
• CHECK - Verifies that all values in a field satisfy a condition.
• DEFAULT - Automatically assigns a default value if no value has been specified for the field.
• UNIQUE - Ensures unique values to be inserted into the field.
• INDEX - Indexes a field providing faster retrieval of records.
• PRIMARY KEY - Uniquely identifies each record in a table.
• FOREIGN KEY - Ensures referential integrity for a record in another table.

9. What is a Primary Key?

The PRIMARY KEY constraint uniquely identifies each row in a table. It must contain UNIQUE values and has an implicit NOT NULL constraint.
A table in SQL is strictly restricted to have one and only one primary key, which is comprised of single or multiple fields (columns).
CREATE TABLE Students ( /* Create table with a single field as primary key
*/
ID INT NOT NULL
Name VARCHAR(255)
PRIMARY KEY (ID)
);

CREATE TABLE Students ( /* Create table with multiple fields as primary key
*/
ID INT NOT NULL
LastName VARCHAR(255)
FirstName VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
CONSTRAINT PK_Student
PRIMARY KEY (ID, FirstName)
);

ALTER TABLE Students /* Set a column as primary key */

ADD PRIMARY KEY (ID);
ALTER TABLE Students /* Set multiple columns as primary key */
ADD CONSTRAINT PK_Student /*Naming a Primary Key*/
PRIMARY KEY (ID, FirstName);

10. What is a UNIQUE constraint?

A UNIQUE constraint ensures that all values in a column are different. This provides uniqueness for the column(s) and helps identify each row uniquely.
Unlike primary key, there can be multiple unique constraints defined per table. The code syntax for UNIQUE is quite similar to that of PRIMARY KEY
and can be used interchangeably.

CREATE TABLE Students ( /* Create table with a single field as unique */

ID INT NOT NULL UNIQUE
Name VARCHAR(255)
);

CREATE TABLE Students ( /* Create table with multiple fields as unique */

ID INT NOT NULL
LastName VARCHAR(255)
FirstName VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL
CONSTRAINT PK_Student
UNIQUE (ID, FirstName)
);

ALTER TABLE Students /* Set a column as unique */

ADD UNIQUE (ID);
ALTER TABLE Students /* Set multiple columns as unique */
ADD CONSTRAINT PK_Student /* Naming a unique constraint */
UNIQUE (ID, FirstName);

11. What is a Foreign Key?

A FOREIGN KEY comprises of single or collection of fields in a table that essentially refers to the PRIMARY KEY in another table. Foreign key
constraint ensures referential integrity in the relation between two tables.
The table with the foreign key constraint is labeled as the child table, and the table containing the candidate key is labeled as the referenced or parent
table.

CREATE TABLE Students ( /* Create table with foreign key - Way 1 */

 ID INT NOT NULL
Name VARCHAR(255)
LibraryID INT
PRIMARY KEY (ID)
FOREIGN KEY (Library_ID) REFERENCES Library(LibraryID)
);

CREATE TABLE Students ( /* Create table with foreign key - Way 2 */

ID INT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY
Name VARCHAR(255)
LibraryID INT FOREIGN KEY (Library_ID) REFERENCES Library(LibraryID)
);

ALTER TABLE Students /* Add a new foreign key */

ADD FOREIGN KEY (LibraryID)
REFERENCES Library (LibraryID);

12. What is a Join? List its different types.

The SQL Join clause is used to combine records (rows) from two or more tables in a SQL database based on a related column between the two.

There are four different types of JOINs in SQL:

• (INNER) JOIN: Retrieves records that have matching values in both tables involved in the join. This is the widely used join for queries.

SELECT *
 FROM Table_A
JOIN Table_B;
SELECT *
FROM Table_A
INNER JOIN Table_B;

• LEFT (OUTER) JOIN: Retrieves all the records/rows from the left and the matched records/rows from the right table.

SELECT *
FROM Table_A A
LEFT JOIN Table_B B
ON A.col = B.col;

• RIGHT (OUTER) JOIN: Retrieves all the records/rows from the right and the matched records/rows from the left table.

SELECT *
FROM Table_A A
RIGHT JOIN Table_B B
ON A.col = B.col;

• FULL (OUTER) JOIN: Retrieves all the records where there is a match in either the left or right table.

SELECT *
FROM Table_A A
FULL JOIN Table_B B
ON A.col = B.col;

13. What is a Self-Join?

A self JOIN is a case of regular join where a table is joined to itself based on some relation between its own column(s). Self -join uses the INNER JOIN
or LEFT JOIN clause and a table alias is used to assign different names to the table within the query.

SELECT A.emp_id AS "Emp_ID",A.emp_name AS "Employee",

B.emp_id AS "Sup_ID",B.emp_name AS "Supervisor"
FROM employee A, employee B
WHERE A.emp_sup = B.emp_id;

14. What is a Cross-Join?

Cross join can be defined as a cartesian product of the two tables included in the join. The table after join contains the same number of rows as in the
cross-product of the number of rows in the two tables. If a WHERE clause is used in cross join then the query will work like an INNER JOIN.

SELECT stu.name, sub.subject

FROM students AS stu
CROSS JOIN subjects AS sub;
 15. What is an Index? Explain its different types.
A database index is a data structure that provides a quick lookup of data in a column or columns of a table. It enhances the speed of operations accessing
data from a database table at the cost of additional writes and memory to maintain the index data structure.

CREATE INDEX index_name /* Create Index */

ON table_name (column_1, column_2);
DROP INDEX index_name; /* Drop Index */

There are different types of indexes that can be created for different purposes:

• Unique and Non-Unique Index:

Unique indexes are indexes that help maintain data integrity by ensuring that no two rows of data in a table have identical key values. Once a unique
index has been defined for a table, uniqueness is enforced whenever keys are added or changed within the index.

CREATE UNIQUE INDEX myIndex

ON students (enroll_no);

Non-unique indexes, on the other hand, are not used to enforce constraints on the tables with which they are associated. Instead, non- unique indexes are
used solely to improve query performance by maintaining a sorted order of data values that are used frequently.

• Clustered and Non-Clustered Index:

Clustered indexes are indexes whose order of the rows in the database corresponds to the order of the rows in the index. This is why only one clustered
index can exist in a given table, whereas, multiple non-clustered indexes can exist in the table.

The only difference between clustered and non-clustered indexes is that the database manager attempts to keep the data in the database in the same order
as the corresponding keys appear in the clustered index.

Clustering indexes can improve the performance of most query operations because they provide a linear-access path to data stored in the database.

16. What is the difference between Clustered and Non-clusteredindex?

As explained above, the differences can be broken down into three small factors -

• Clustered index modifies the way records are stored in a database based on the indexed column. A non-clustered index creates a separate entity within
the table which references the original table.
• Clustered index is used for easy and speedy retrieval of data from the database, whereas, fetching records from the non-clustered index is relatively
slower.
• In SQL, a table can have a single clustered index whereas it can have multiple non-clustered indexes.

17. What is Data Integrity?

Data Integrity is the assurance of accuracy and consistency of data over its entire life-cycle and is a critical aspect of the design, implementation, and
usage of any system which stores, processes, or retrieves data. It also defines integrity constraints to enforce business rules on the data when it is entered
into an application or a database.

18. What is a Query?

A query is a request for data or information from a database table or combination of tables. A database query can be either a select query or an action
query.

SELECT fname, lname /* select query */

FROM myDb.students
WHERE student_id = 1;
UPDATE myDB.students /* action query */
SET fname = 'Captain', lname = 'America'
WHERE student_id = 1;

19. What is a Subquery? What are its types?

A subquery is a query within another query, also known as a nested query or inner query. It is used to restrict or enhance the data to be queried by the
main query, thus restricting or enhancing the output of the main query respectively. For example, here we fetch the contact information for students who
have enrolled for the maths subject:

SELECT name, email, mob, address

FROM myDb.contacts
WHERE roll_no IN (
SELECT roll_no
FROM myDb.students
WHERE subject = 'Maths');

There are two types of subquery - Correlated and Non-Correlated.

• A correlated subquery cannot be considered as an independent query, but it can refer to the column in a table listed in the FROM of the main query.
• A non-correlated subquery can be considered as an independent query and the output of the subquery is substituted in the main query.

20. What is the SELECT statement?

SELECT operator in SQL is used to select data from a database. The data returned is stored in a result table, called the result-set.

SELECT * FROM myDB.students;

21. What are some common clauses used with SELECT query in SQL?
Some common SQL clauses used in conjuction with a SELECT query are as follows:
• WHERE clause in SQL is used to filter records that are necessary, based on specific conditions.
• ORDER BY clause in SQL is used to sort the records based on some field(s) in ascending (ASC) or descending order (DESC).

SELECT *
FROM myDB.students
WHERE graduation_year = 2019
ORDER BY studentID DESC;

• GROUP BY clause in SQL is used to group records with identical data and can be used in conjunction with some aggregation functions to produce
summarized results from the database.
• HAVING clause in SQL is used to filter records in combination with the GROUP BY clause. It is different from WHERE, since the WHERE
clause cannot filter aggregated records.

SELECT COUNT(studentId), country

FROM myDB.students
WHERE country != "INDIA"
GROUP BY country
HAVING COUNT(studentID) > 5;

22. What are UNION, MINUS and INTERSECT commands?

The UNION operator combines and returns the result-set retrieved by two or more SELECT statements.
The MINUS operator in SQL is used to remove duplicates from the result-set obtained by the second SELECT query from the result-set obtained by the
first SELECT query and then return the filtered results from the first.
The INTERSECT clause in SQL combines the result-set fetched by the two SELECT statements where records from one match the other and then
returns this intersection of result-sets.

Certain conditions need to be met before executing either of the above statements in SQL -

• Each SELECT statement within the clause must have the same number of columns
• The columns must also have similar data types
• The columns in each SELECT statement should necessarily have the same order

SELECT name FROM Students /* Fetch the union of queries */

UNION
SELECT name FROM Contacts;
SELECT name FROM Students /* Fetch the union of queries with duplicates*/
UNION ALL
SELECT name FROM Contacts;
SELECT name FROM Students /* Fetch names from students */
MINUS /* that aren't present in contacts */
SELECT name FROM Contacts;
SELECT name FROM Students /* Fetch names from students */
INTERSECT /* that are present in contacts as well */
SELECT name FROM Contacts;

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

A database cursor is a control structure that allows for the traversal of records in a database. Cursors, in addition, facilitates processing after traversal,
such as retrieval, addition, and deletion of database records. They can be viewed as a pointer to one row in a set of rows.

Working with SQL Cursor:

1. DECLARE a cursor after any variable declaration. The cursor declaration must always be associated with a SELECT Statement.
 2. Open cursor to initialize the result set. The OPEN statement must be called before fetching rows from the result set.
3. FETCH statement to retrieve and move to the next row in the result set.
4. Call the CLOSE statement to deactivate the cursor.
5. Finally use the DEALLOCATE statement to delete the cursor definition and release the associated resources.

DECLARE @name VARCHAR(50) /* Declare All Required Variables */

DECLARE db_cursor CURSOR FOR /* Declare Cursor Name*/
SELECT name
FROM myDB.students
WHERE parent_name IN ('Sara', 'Ansh')
OPEN db_cursor /* Open cursor and Fetch data into @name */
FETCH next
FROM db_cursor
INTO @name
CLOSE db_cursor /* Close the cursor and deallocate the resources */
DEALLOCATE db_cursor

24. What are Entities and Relationships?

Entity: An entity can be a real-world object, either tangible or intangible, that can be easily identifiable. For example, in a college database, students,
professors, workers, departments, and projects can be referred to as entities. Each entity has some associated properties that provide it an identity.

Relationships: Relations or links between entities that have something to do with each other. For example - The employee's table in a company's
database can be associated with the salary table in the same database.

25. List the different types of relationships in SQL.

• One-to-One - This can be defined as the relationship between two tables where each record in one table is associated with the maximum of one record
in the other table.
• One-to-Many & Many-to-One - This is the most commonly used relationship where a record in a table is associated with multiple records in the other
table.
• Many-to-Many - This is used in cases when multiple instances on both sides are needed for defining a relationship.
• Self-Referencing Relationships - This is used when a table needs to define a relationship with itself.

26. 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.
 SELECT A.emp_name AS "Employee" /* Alias using AS keyword */
B.emp_name AS "Supervisor"
FROM employee A, employee B /* Alias without AS keyword */
WHERE A.emp_sup = B.emp_id;

27. What is a View?

A view in SQL is a virtual table based on the result-set of an SQL statement. A view contains rows and columns, just like a real table. The fields in a
view are fields from one or more real tables in the database.

28. What is Normalization?

Normalization represents the way of organizing structured data in the database efficiently. It includes the creation of tables, establishing relationships
between them, and defining rules for those relationships. Inconsistency and redundancy can be kept in check based on these rules, hence, adding
flexibility to the database.

29. What is Denormalization?

Denormalization is the inverse process of normalization, where the normalized schema is converted into a schema that 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 the query processor by an over-normalized structure.

30. What are the various forms of Normalization?

Normal Forms are used to eliminate or reduce redundancy in database tables. The different forms are as follows:

• First Normal Form:

A relation is in first normal form if every attribute in that relation is a single-valued attribute. If a relation contains a composite or multi- valued
attribute, it violates the first normal form. Let's consider the following students table. Each student in the table, has a name, his/her address, and the
books they issued from the public library -

Students Table

Student Address Books Issued Salutation

Amanora ParkTown Until the Day I Die (Emily Carpenter), Inception
Sara Ms.
94 (Christopher Nolan)
The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho), Inferno (DanBrown)
Ansh 62nd Sector A-10 Mr.
 Student Address Books Issued Salutation
24th Street Park Beautiful Bad (Annie Ward), Woman 99 (Greer
Sara Avenue Macallister) Mrs.

Windsor Street777
Ansh Dracula (Bram Stoker) Mr.

As we can observe, the Books Issued field has more than one value per record, and to convert it into 1NF, this has to be resolved into separate individual
records for each book issued. Check the following table in 1NF form -

Students Table (1st Normal Form)

Student Address Books Issued Salutation

Sara Amanora Park Town 94 Until the Day I Die (Emily Carpenter) Ms.
Sara Amanora Park Town 94 Inception (Christopher Nolan) Ms.
Ansh 62nd Sector A-10 The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho) Mr.
Ansh 62nd Sector A-10 Inferno (Dan Brown) Mr.
Sara 24th Street Park Avenue Beautiful Bad (Annie Ward) Mrs.
Sara 24th Street Park Avenue Woman 99 (Greer Macallister) Mrs.
Ansh Windsor Street 777 Dracula (Bram Stoker) Mr.

• Second Normal Form:

A relation is in second normal form if it satisfies the conditions for the first normal form and does not contain any partial dependency. A relation in 2NF
has no partial dependency, i.e., it has no non-prime attribute that depends on any proper subset of any candidate key of the table. Often, specifying a
single column Primary Key is the solution to the problem. Examples -

Example 1 - Consider the above example. As we can observe, the Students Table in the 1NF form has a candidate key in the form of [Student, Address]
that can uniquely identify all records in the table. The field Books Issued (non-prime attribute) depends partially on the Student field. Hence, the table is
not in 2NF. To convert it into the 2nd Normal Form, we will partition the tables into two while specifying a new Primary Key attribute to identify the
individual records in the Students table. The Foreign Key constraint will be set on the other table to ensure referential integrity.

Students Table (2nd Normal Form)

Student_ID Student Address Salutation

1 Sara Amanora Park Town 94 Ms.
2 Ansh 62nd Sector A-10 Mr.
3 Sara 24th Street Park Avenue Mrs.
4 Ansh Windsor Street 777 Mr.

Books Table (2nd Normal Form)

Student_ID Book Issued

 Student_ID Book Issued
1 Until the Day I Die (Emily Carpenter)
1 Inception (Christopher Nolan)
2 The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
2 Inferno (Dan Brown)
3 Beautiful Bad (Annie Ward)
3 Woman 99 (Greer Macallister)
4 Dracula (Bram Stoker)

Example 2 - Consider the following dependencies in relation to R(W,X,Y,Z)

WX -> Y [W and X together determine Y]

XY -> Z [X and Y together determine Z]

Here, WX is the only candidate key and there is no partial dependency, i.e., any proper subset of WX doesn’t determine any non-prime attribute in the
relation.

• Third Normal Form

A relation is said to be in the third normal form, if it satisfies the conditions for the second normal form and there is no transitive dependency between
the non-prime attributes, i.e., all non-prime attributes are determined only by the candidate keys of the relation and not by any other non-prime attribute.

Example 1 - Consider the Students Table in the above example. As we can observe, the Students Table in the 2NF form has a single candidate key
Student_ID (primary key) that can uniquely identify all records in the table. The field Salutation (non-prime attribute), however, depends on the Student
Field rather than the candidate key. Hence, the table is not in 3NF. To convert it into the 3rd Normal Form, we will once again partition the tables into
two while specifying a new Foreign Key constraint to identify the salutations for individual records in the Students table. The Primary Key constraint
for the same will be set on the Salutations table to identify each record uniquely.

Students Table (3rd Normal Form)

Student_ID Student Address Salutation_ID

1 Sara Amanora Park Town 94 1
2 Ansh 62nd Sector A-10 2
3 Sara 24th Street Park Avenue 3
4 Ansh Windsor Street 777 1

Books Table (3rd Normal Form)

Student_ID Book Issued

1 Until the Day I Die (Emily Carpenter)
1 Inception (Christopher Nolan)
2 The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
 Student_ID Book Issued
2 Inferno (Dan Brown)
3 Beautiful Bad (Annie Ward)
3 Woman 99 (Greer Macallister)
4 Dracula (Bram Stoker)

Salutations Table (3rd Normal Form)

Salutation_ID Salutation
1 Ms.
2 Mr.
3 Mrs.

Example 2 - Consider the following dependencies in relation to R(P,Q,R,S,T)

P -> QR [P together determine C]

RS -> T [B and C together determine D]
Q -> S
T -> P

For the above relation to exist in 3NF, all possible candidate keys in the above relation should be {P, RS, QR, T}.

• Boyce-Codd Normal Form

A relation is in Boyce-Codd Normal Form if satisfies the conditions for third normal form and for every functional dependency, Left-Hand- Side is super
key. In other words, a relation in BCNF has non-trivial functional dependencies in form X –> Y, such that X is always a super key. For example - In the
above example, Student_ID serves as the sole unique identifier for the Students Table and Salutation_ID for the Salutations Table, thus these tables exist
in BCNF. The same cannot be said for the Books Table and there can be several books with common Book Names and the same Student_ID.

31. What are the TRUNCATE, DELETE and DROP statements?

DELETE statement is used to delete rows from a table.

DELETE FROM Candidates

WHERE CandidateId > 1000;

TRUNCATE command is used to delete all the rows from the table and free the space containing the table.

TRUNCATE TABLE Candidates;

DROP command is used to remove an object from the database. If you drop a table, all the rows in the table are deleted and the table structure is
removed from the database.

DROP TABLE Candidates;

32. 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.

33. 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.

34. What are Aggregate and Scalar functions?

An aggregate function performs operations on a collection of values to return a single scalar value. Aggregate functions are often used with the GROUP
BY and HAVING clauses of the SELECT statement. Following are the widely used SQL aggregate functions:

• AVG() - Calculates the mean of a collection of values.

• COUNT() - Counts the total number of records in a specific table or view.
• MIN() - Calculates the minimum of a collection of values.
• MAX() - Calculates the maximum of a collection of values.
• SUM() - Calculates the sum of a collection of values.
• FIRST() - Fetches the first element in a collection of values.
• LAST() - Fetches the last element in a collection of values.

Note: All aggregate functions described above ignore NULL values except for the COUNT function.

A scalar function returns a single value based on the input value. Following are the widely used SQL scalar functions:

• LEN() - Calculates the total length of the given field (column).

• UCASE() - Converts a collection of string values to uppercase characters.
• LCASE() - Converts a collection of string values to lowercase characters.
• MID() - Extracts substrings from a collection of string values in a table.
• CONCAT() - Concatenates two or more strings.
• RAND() - Generates a random collection of numbers of a given length.
• ROUND() - Calculates the round-off integer value for a numeric field (or decimal point values).
• NOW() - Returns the current date & time.
• FORMAT() - Sets the format to display a collection of values.

35. What is User-defined function? What are its various types?

The user-defined functions in SQL are like functions in any other programming language that accept parameters, perform complex calculations, and
return a value. They are written to use the logic repetitively whenever required. There are two types of SQ L user-defined functions:

• Scalar Function: As explained earlier, user-defined scalar functions return a single scalar value.
• Table-Valued Functions: User-defined table-valued functions return a table as output.
o Inline: returns a table data type based on a single SELECT statement.
o Multi-statement: returns a tabular result-set but, unlike inline, multiple SELECT statements can be used inside the function body.

36. What is OLTP?

 OLTP stands for Online Transaction Processing, is a class of software applications capable of supporting transaction-oriented programs. An essential
attribute of an OLTP system is its ability to maintain concurrency. To avoid single points of failure, OLTP systems are often decentralized. These systems
are usually designed for a large number of users who conduct short transactions. Database queries are usually simple, require sub-second response times,
and return relatively few records. Here is an insight into the working of an OLTP system [ Note - The figure is not important for interviews ] -

37. What are the differences between OLTP and OLAP?

OLTP stands for Online Transaction Processing, is a class of software applications capable of supporting transaction-oriented programs. An important
attribute of an OLTP system is its ability to maintain concurrency. OLTP systems often follow a decentralized architecture to avoid single points of failure.
These systems are generally designed for a large audience of end-users who conduct short transactions.
Queries involved in such databases are generally simple, need fast response times, and return relatively few records. A number of transactions
per second acts as an effective measure for such systems.

OLAP stands for Online Analytical Processing, a class of software programs that are characterized by the relatively low frequency of online
transactions. Queries are often too complex and involve a bunch of aggregations. For OLAP systems, the effectiveness measure relies highly on response
time. Such systems are widely used for data mining or maintaining aggregated, historical data, usually in multi- dimensional schemas.

38. What is Collation? What are the different types of Collation

Sensitivity?
Collation refers to a set of rules that determine how data is sorted and compared. Rules defining the correct character sequence are used to sort the character
data. It incorporates options for specifying case sensitivity, accent marks, kana character types, and character width.
Below are the different types of collation sensitivity:

• Case sensitivity: A and a are treated differently.

• Accent sensitivity: a and á are treated differently.
• Kana sensitivity: Japanese kana characters Hiragana and Katakana are treated differently.
• Width sensitivity: Same character represented in single-byte (half-width) and double-byte (full-width) are treated differently.

39. What is a Stored Procedure?

A stored procedure is a subroutine available to applications that access a relational database management system (RDBMS). Suc h procedures are stored
in the database data dictionary. The sole disadvantage of stored procedure is that it can be executed nowhere except in the database and occupies more
memory in the database server. It also provides a sense of security and functionality as users who can't access the data directly can be granted access via
stored procedures.

DELIMITER $$
CREATE PROCEDURE FetchAllStudents()
BEGIN
SELECT * FROM myDB.students;
END $$
DELIMITER ;

40. What is a Recursive Stored Procedure?

A stored procedure that calls itself until a boundary condition is reached, is called a recursive stored procedure. This recursive function helps the
programmers to deploy the same set of code several times as and when required. Some SQL programming languages limit the recursion depth to prevent
an infinite loop of procedure calls from causing a stack overflow, which slows down the system and may lead to system crashes.

DELIMITER $$ /* Set a new delimiter => $$ */

CREATE PROCEDURE calctotal( /* Create the procedure */
IN number INT, /* Set Input and Ouput variables */
OUT total INT
) BEGIN
DECLARE score INT DEFAULT NULL; /* Set the default value => "score" */
SELECT awards FROM achievements /* Update "score" via SELECT query */
WHERE id = number INTO score;
IF score IS NULL THEN SET total = 0; /* Termination condition */
ELSE
CALL calctotal(number+1); /* Recursive call */
SET total = total + score; /* Action after recursion */
END IF;
END $$ /* End of procedure */
DELIMITER ; /* Reset the delimiter */
 41. How to create empty tables with the same structure as anothertable?
Creating empty tables with the same structure can be done smartly by fetching the records of one table into a new table using the INTO operator while
fixing a WHERE clause to be false for all records. Hence, SQL prepares the new table with a duplicate structure to accept the fetched records but since
no records get fetched due to the WHERE clause in action, nothing is inserted into the new table.

SELECT * INTO Students_copy

FROM Students WHERE 1 = 2;

42. What is Pattern Matching in SQL?

SQL pattern matching provides for pattern search in data if you have no clue as to what that word should be. This kind of SQL query uses wildcards to
match a string pattern, rather than writing the exact word. The LIKE operator is used in conjunction with SQL Wildcards to fetch the required
information.

• Using the % wildcard to perform a simple search

The % wildcard matches zero or more characters of any type and can be used to define wildcards both before and after the pattern. Search a student in
your database with first name beginning with the letter K:

SELECT *
FROM students
WHERE first_name LIKE 'K%'

• Omitting the patterns using the NOT keyword

Use the NOT keyword to select records that don't match the pattern. This query returns all students whose first name does not begin with K.

SELECT *
FROM students
WHERE first_name NOT LIKE 'K%'

• Matching a pattern anywhere using the % wildcard twice

Search for a student in the database where he/she has a K in his/her first name.

SELECT *
FROM students
WHERE first_name LIKE '%Q%'

• Using the _ wildcard to match pattern at a specific position

The _ wildcard matches exactly one character of any type. It can be used in conjunction with % wildcard. This query fetches all students with letter K at the
third position in their first name.

SELECT *
FROM students
WHERE first_name LIKE ' K%'

• Matching patterns for a specific length

The _ wildcard plays an important role as a limitation when it matches exactly one character. It limits the length and position of the matched results. For
example -

SELECT * /* Matches first names with three or more letters */

FROM students
WHERE first_name LIKE ' %'

SELECT * /* Matches first names with exactly four characters */

FROM students
WHERE first_name LIKE ' _'