Q) how to get alternate record in sql

Using ROW_NUMBER() (Standard SQL)

The ROW_NUMBER() function assigns a unique number to each row, which

can be used to filter alternate rows.

Query for Odd Rows:

sql

Copy code

SELECT *

FROM (

SELECT *, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY some_column) AS rn

FROM your_table

) subquery

WHERE rn % 2 = 1;

Query for Even Rows:

sql

Copy code

SELECT *

FROM (

SELECT *, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY some_column) AS rn

FROM your_table

) subquery

WHERE rn % 2 = 0;

 ROW_NUMBER(): Generates a sequential number for each row.

 rn % 2: Filters odd or even rows.

Q) . Write a SQL Query to find Max salary and Department name from
each department?

SELECT DepartmentName, MAX(Salary) AS MaxSalary

FROM Employees

GROUP BY DepartmentName;

Q) Query to find records in Table A not in Table B without using NOT IN.
If the structure of tableA and tableB is same then we can use ‘*’

But if structure of the table are same then we can minus operator on the
basis of ID column.

Q) What is the result of following query?

Q. Write SQL Query to find employees that have same name and
email.

Employee table:

ID NAME EMAIL

10 John jbaldwin

20 George gadams

30 John jsmith

Answer: This is a simple question with one trick. The trick here is to
use Group by on two columns Name and Email.

Query would be as follows:

SELECT name, email, COUNT(*)

FROM Employee

GROUP BY name, email

HAVING

COUNT(*) > 1
Q. Write a SQL Query to find Max salary from each department.

Given a Employee table with three columns

ID, Salary, DeptID

10, 1000, 2

20, 5000, 3

30, 3000, 2

Answer:

We can first use group by DeptID on Employee table and then get the Max
salary from each Dept group.

SELECT DeptID, MAX(salary)

FROM Employee

GROUP BY DeptID

Q. Write SQL query to get the nth highest salary among all
Employees.

Given a Employee Table with two columns

ID, Salary

10, 2000

11, 5000

12, 3000

Answer:

Option 1: Use Subquery

We can use following sub query approach for this:

SELECT *

FROM Employee emp1

WHERE (N-1) = (

SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT(emp2.salary))

FROM Employee emp2

WHERE emp2.salary > emp1.salary)

Option 2: Using Rownum in Oracle

SELECT * FROM (
 SELECT emp.*,

row_number() OVER (ORDER BY salary DESC) rnum

FROM Employee emp

WHERE rnum = n;

Q. How can you find 10 employees with Odd number as

Employee ID?

Answer:

In Oracle we can use Top to limit the number of records. We can also use
Rownum < 11 to get the only 10 or less number of records.

To find the Odd number Employee ID, we can use % function.

Sample Query with TOP:

SELECT TOP 10 ID FROM Employee WHERE ID % 2 = 1;

Sample Query with ROWNUM:

SELECT ID FROM Employee WHERE ID % 2 = 1 AND ROWNUM < 11;

Q. Write a SQL Query to get the names of employees whose date

of birth is between 01/01/1990 to 31/12/2000.

This SQL query appears a bit tricky. We can use BETWEEN clause to get all
the employees whose date of birth lies between two given dates.

Query will be as follows:

SELECT EmpName

FROM Employees

WHERE birth_date BETWEEN ‘01/01/1990’ AND ‘31/12/2000’

Remember BETWEEN is always inclusive of both the dates.

Q. Write a SQL Query to get the Quarter from date.

Answer: We can use to_char function with ‘Q’ option for quarter to get
quarter from a date.

Use TO_CHAR with option ‘Q’ for Quarter

SELECT TO_CHAR(TO_DATE('3/31/2016', 'MM/DD/YYYY'), 'Q')

AS quarter

FROM DUAL
Q. Write Query to find employees with duplicate email.

Employee table:

ID NAME EMAIL

10 John jsmith

20 George gadams

30 Jane jsmith

Answer: We can use Group by clause on the column in which we want to

find duplicate values.

Query would be as follows:

SELECT name, COUNT(email)

FROM Employee

GROUP BY email

HAVING ( COUNT(email) > 1 )

Q. Write a Query to find all Employee whose name contains the

word "Rich", regardless of case. E.g. Rich, RICH, rich.

Answer:

We can use UPPER function for comparing the both sides with uppercase.

SELECT *

FROM Employees

WHERE UPPER(emp_name) like '%RICH%'

Q. Is it safe to use ROWID to locate a record in Oracle SQL

queries?

ROWID is the physical location of a row. We can do very fast lookup based
on ROWID. In a transaction where we first search a few rows and then
update them one by one, we can use ROWID.

But ROWID of a record can change over time. If we rebuild a table a record
can get a new ROWID.

If a record is deleted, its ROWID can be given to another record.

So it is not recommended to store and use ROWID in long term. It should

be used in same transactions.
Q. What is a Pseudocolumn?

A Pseudocolumn is like a table column, but it is not stored in the same

table. We can select from a Pseudocolumn, but we can not insert, update
or delete on a Pseudocolumn.

A Pseudocolumn is like a function with no arguments.

Two most popular Pseudocolumns in Oracle are ROWID and ROWNUM.

NEXTVAL and CURRVAL are also pseudo columns.

Q. What are the reasons for de-normalizing the data?

We de-normalize data when we need better performance. Sometimes

there are many joins in a query due to highly normalized data.

In that case, for faster data retrieval it becomes essential to de-normalize

data.

Q. What is the feature in SQL for writing If/Else statements?

In SQL, we can use CASE statements to write If/Else statements.

We can also use DECODE function in Oracle SQL for writing simple If/Else
logic.

Q. What is the difference between DELETE and TRUNCATE in

SQL?

Main differences between DELETE and TRUNCATE commands are:

 DML vs. DDL: DELETE is a Data Manipulation Language (DML)

command. TRUNCATE is a Data Definition Language (DDL)
command.

 Number of Rows: We can use DELETE command to remove one or

more rows from a table. TRUNCATE command will remove all the
rows from a table.

 WHERE clause: DELETE command provides support for WHERE

clause that can be used to filter the data that we want to delete.
TRUNCATE command can only delete all the rows. There is no
WHERE clause in TRUNCATE command.

 Commit: After DELETE command we have to issue COMMIT or

ROLLBACK command to confirm our changes. After TRUNCATE
command there is no need to run COMMIT. Changes done by
TRUNCATE command can not be rolled back.

Q. What is the difference between DDL and DML commands in

SQL?
Main differences between Data Definition Language (DDL) and Data
Manipulation Language (DML) commands are:

 DDL vs. DML: DDL statements are used for creating and defining
the Database structure. DML statements are used for managing
data within Database.

 Sample Statements: DDL statements are CREATE, ALTER, DROP,

TRUNCATE, RENAME etc. DML statements are SELECT, INSERT,
DELETE, UPDATE, MERGE, CALL etc.

 Number of Rows: DDL statements work on whole table. CREATE

will a create a new table. DROP will remove the whole table.
TRUNCATE will delete all records in a table. DML statements can
work on one or more rows. INSERT can insert one or more rows.
DELETE can remove one or more rows.

 WHERE clause: DDL statements do not have a WHERE clause to

filter the data. Most of DML statements support filtering the data by
WHERE clause.

 Commit: Changes done by a DDL statement can not be rolled back.

So there is no need to issue a COMMIT or ROLLBACK command after
DDL statement. We need to run COMMIT or ROLLBACK to confirm
our changed after running a DML statement.

 Transaction: Since each DDL statement is permanent, we can not

run multiple DDL statements in a group like Transaction. DML
statements can be run in a Transaction. Then we can COMMIT or
ROLLBACK this group as a transaction. E.g. We can insert data in
two tables and commit it together in a transaction.

 Triggers: After DDL statements no triggers are fired. But after DML
statements relevant triggers can be fired.

Q. Why do we use Escape characters in SQL queries?

In SQL, there are certain special characters and words that are reserved
for special purpose. E.g. & is a reserved character.

When we want to use these special characters in the context of our data,
we have to use Escape characters to pass the message to database to
interpret these as non Special / non Reserved characters.

Q. What is the difference between Primary key and Unique key in

SQL?
Q. What is the difference between INNER join and OUTER join in
SQL?
Q. What is the difference between Primary key and Unique key
in SQL?

Main differences between Primary key and Unique key in SQL are:

I. Number: There can be only one Primary key in a table. There

can be more than one Unique key in a table.

 Null value: In some DBMS Primary key cannot be NULL. E.g. MySQL
adds NOT NULL to Primary key. A Unique key can have null values.

 Unique Identifier: Primary Key is a unique identifier of a record in

database table. Unique key can be null and we may not be able to
identify a record in a unique way by a unique key

 Changes: It is not recommended to change a Primary key. A Unique

key can be changed much easily.

 Usage: Primary Key is used to identify a row in a table. A Unique

key is used to prevent duplicate non-null values in a column.

Q. What is the difference between INNER join and OUTER join in

SQL?

Let say we have two tables X and Y.

The result of an INNER JOIN of X and Y is X intersect. It is the

INNER overlapping intersection part of a Venn diagram.

The result of an OUTER JOIN of X and Y is X union Y. It is the

OUTER parts of a Venn diagram.
E.g.

Consider following two tables, with just one column x and y:

x | y

- - -|- -

10 | 30

20 | 40

30 | 50

40 | 60

In above tables (10,20) are unique to table X, (30,40) are common, and
(50,60) are unique to table Y.

INNER JOIN

An INNER JOIN by using following query will give the intersection of the
two tables X and Y. The intersection is the common data between these
tables.

select * from X INNER JOIN Y on X.x = Y.y;

x |y

--- +--

30 | 30

40 | 40

OUTER JOIN

A full OUTER JOIN by using following query will us the union of X and Y. It
will have all the rows in X and all the rows in Y. If some row in X has not
corresponding value in Y, then Y side will be null, and vice versa.

select * from X FULL OUTER JOIN Y on X.x = Y.y;

x | y

----- + -----

10 | null

20 | null

30 | 30

40 | 40

null | 60
null | 50

Q. What is the difference between Left OUTER Join and Right

OUTER Join?

Let say we have two tables X and Y.

The result of an LEFT OUTER JOIN of X and Y is all rows of X and

common rows between X and Y.

The result of an RIGHT OUTER JOIN of X and Y is all rows of Y and

common rows between X and Y.

E.g.

Consider following two tables, with just one column x and y:

x | y

- - -|- -

10 | 30

20 | 40

30 | 50

40 | 60

In above tables (10,20) are unique to table X, (30,40) are common, and
(50,60) are unique to table Y.

LEFT OUTER JOIN

A left OUTER JOIN by using following query will give us all rows in X and
common rows in X and Y.

select * from X LEFT OUTER JOIN Y on X.x = Y.y;

x | y

-- -+-----

10 | null

20 | null

30 | 30

40 | 40

RIGHT OUTER JOIN

A right OUTER JOIN by using following query will give all rows in Y and
common rows in X and Y.
select * from X RIGHT OUTER JOIN Y on X.x = Y.y;

x | y

----- +----

30 | 30

40 | 40

null | 50

null | 60

Q. What is the datatype of ROWID?

ROWID Pseudocolumn in Oracle is of ROWID datatype. It is a string that

represents the address of a row in the database.

Q. What is the difference between where clause and having

clause?

We use where clause to filter elements based on some criteria on

individual records of a table.

E.g. We can select only employees with first name as John.

SELECT ID, Name

FROM Employee

WHERE name = ‘John’

We use having clause to filter the groups based on the values of

aggregate functions.

E.g. We can group by department and only select departments that have
more than 10 employees.

SELECT deptId, count(1)

FROM Employee

GROUP BY deptId HAVING count(*) > 10.

Q. What is cardinality in SQL?

In SQL, Cardinality is the uniqueness of data values in a column. If

cardinality is low then a column will have more duplicated values.

Database use Cardinality of a column to determine the optimal query plan

for a query.

Thinking in the database world, cardinality has to do with the counts in a

relationship, one-to-one, one-to-many, or many-to-many.
Typically Cardinality is of 3 types.

 High cardinality: High cardinality columns are the columns with

unique or very uncommon values.

 Normal cardinality: Normal cardinality columns contain somewhat

uncommon values. Typically names, last names, street addresses, or
cities etc are Normal-cardinality columns.

 Low cardinality: Low cardinality columns are the columns with few
unique values. Typically status, Boolean flags, types, gender etc. are
Low-cardinality columns.

Typically identification numbers, usernames, email addresses etc are High-

cardinality numbers.

Eg. USERNAME in GMAIL is an example of a column with high cardinality. If

there are N rows then this column has unique values from 1 to N. Each
time a new USER is created in the GMAIL, a new USERNAME has to be
created to identify them uniquely.

Eg. LAST_NAME in STUDENT table is an example of Normal-cardinality

column.

Many students have common last names. Some students have unique last
names. The values for these column are spread out evenly. Therefore it is
Normal Cardinality column.

Eg. GENDER in EMPLOYEE table is an example of a data table column with

low cardinality. We can have three distinct values: Male, Female or Prefer
not to disclose in this column.

Since there are only three possible values stored in this column, it is a Low
cardinality column.

Q. What is Merge statement in SQL?

Merge statement is a combination of INSERT and UPDATE statements. If

data is already present in a table, it can update the existing data. If data is
not present in a table, then it can insert the data.

Merge is a DML statement. So we need to run commit or rollback

command after this.

Sample syntax for MERGE is:

MERGE

INTO target_table tg_table

USING source_table src_table

 ON ( src_table.id = tg_table.id )

WHEN MATCHED

THEN

UPDATE

SET tg_table.name = src_table.name

WHEN NOT MATCHED

THEN

INSERT ( tg_table.id, tg_table.name )

VALUES ( src_table.id, src_table.name );

Q. What is the difference between UNION and UNION ALL?

Main difference between UNION and UNION ALL is that UNION removes
duplicate records, but UNION ALL does not remove duplicate records.

E.g. Consider two tables A and B

A B

10 15

20 20

UNION of A and B = 10, 20, 15

UNION ALL of A and B = 10, 20, 15, 20

Performance of UNION ALL is considered better than UNION, since UNION

ALL does not require additional work of removing duplicates.

Q. What will be the result of following query?

Consider following tables:

Employee

ID | Emp_name

1 | Jane

2 | George

3 | John

Department

ID | Dept_name | Emp_id

1 | Marketing | 1
2 | Finance | 2

3 | Technology | null

SELECT *

FROM Employee

WHERE id NOT IN (SELECT Emp_id

FROM Department)

Answer: The above query will return no records. The reason for this is
presence of null value in Emp_id column of Department table.

When we do SELECT Emp_id FROM Department, we get null value also.

Now in main query we compare NOT IN with null value, then it does not
return any result.

The correct query is:

SELECT *

FROM Employee

WHERE id NOT IN (SELECT Emp_id

FROM Department WHERE Emp_id IS NOT NULL)

Q. What is wrong with this SQL query?

SELECT Id, to_date(OrderDate,’YYYY’) AS OrderYear

FROM Order

WHERE OrderYear >= 2015;

Answer:

In the above query, OrderYear is an alias for to_date(OrderDate,’YYYY’) in

SELECT clause.

When we are using OrderYear in WHERE clause, it is not available there.

Following is correct query:

SELECT Id, YEAR(OrderDate) AS OrderYear

FROM Order

WHERE YEAR(OrderDate) >= 2015;

Q. What is wrong with this query to get the list of employees

not in Dept 1?

SELECT Name
FROM Employee

WHERE DeptID <> 1;

Employee Table:

Id Name DeptID

1 John NULL

2 George 2

3 Smith 1

4 Ray NULL

Answer:

There are 3 Employees (John, George and Ray) not in Dept 1. But Query
returns only one result: George.

Since we are just looking for employees not in Dept 1, query does not
compare DeptID with NULL. So Employees without a department are not
returned.

Correct Query is as follows:

SELECT Name

FROM Employee

WHERE DeptID IS NULL

OR DeptID <> 1;

Q. What is the use of Execution plan in SQL?

In an RDBMS, Execution plan is the set of steps that are executed in a

specific order to get the results of a query.

Execution plan is used mainly for performance improvement of queries. It

helps developers and DBAs to see the internal steps that take place during
a query execution.

Based on the steps in Execution plan, we can alter the plan to include or
exclude some steps or use some index etc. This helps in Query tuning and
Query optimization for SQL queries.

Q. How many records are returned by following query?

Table: Customer (Id, Name) has 3 records

Table: Order (Id, Order_Date) has 15 records

Select * From Customer, Order

Answer:

Above query returns 15 records. This is also known as Cartesian Product.

For a table with N records and another table with M records. Cartesian
Product has N * M number of records.

Q. Write a query for this problem?

Given a table Employee in which we have DeptId for each

employee. Write a single SQL query to move the employees from
DeptID 1 to 2 and move employees from DeptId 2 to 1.

Employee

Id Name DeptId

1 John 1

2 George 2

3 Jane 1

4 Smith 2

Answer:

We can use CASE statement here.

UPDATE Employee SET DeptId =

CASE DeptId

WHEN ‘1’ THEN ‘2’

WHEN ‘2’ THEN ‘1’

ELSE DeptId END;

Q. Write SQL Query to get Employee Name, Manager ID and

number of employees in the department?

Given Employee Table:

ID | NAME | MGR_ID | DEPTID

1 | John |3 | 10

2 | Smith |3 | 10

3 | Jane |4 | 20

Answer: We can use WITH clause and SELF JOIN to get the required data.
By WITH clause we get the count of employees in each department. Then
we use SELF JOIN to get name of Manager because manager is also an
employee.

Query will be as follows:

WITH d_count AS (

SELECT deptID, COUNT(*) AS d_count

FROM employee

GROUP BY deptno)

SELECT e.name AS Employee_name,

m.name AS Manager_name

dc.d_count AS Dept_count

FROM employee e,

d_count dc,

employee m

WHERE e.deptID = dc.deptID

AND e.mgrID = m.ID;

Q. Write SQL Query to find duplicate rows in a database?

Answer: To find duplicate rows, we have to ask the interviewer what is

the criteria for considering two rows duplicate of each other.

Let say in a given table Test_table if column_1 and column_2 of two rows
are same, then these rows are considered equal.

We can use GROUP BY clause to group the rows with columns that are
used for checking equality. Any group that have more than 1 rows will
have duplicate rows.

Query to find duplicate will be as follows:

SELECT column_1, coulmn_2, count(*)

FROM Test_table

GROUP BY column_1, coulmn_2

HAVING count(*) > 1

Q. Write SQL query to delete duplicate rows in a table?

Answer: To delete duplicate rows we need to first define the criteria for
considering two rows duplicate of each other.

Let say in a given table Test_table if column_1 and column_2 of two rows
are same, then these rows are considered equal.

In Oracle we can use rowid of two rows to find that these rows are
different.

Query to delete duplicate rows will be as follows:

DELETE FROM

Test_table a

WHERE

a.rowid >

ANY (

SELECT

b.rowid

FROM

Test_table b

WHERE

a.column_1 = b.column_1

AND

a.column_2 = b.column_2

);

Q. Why is the difference between NVL and NVL2 functions in

SQL?

We use NVL and NVL2 functions to check if a value is NULL or not. Both
these functions can be replaced with DECODE or CASE statements.

In NVL(item_to_check, alternate_value) function there are two arguments.

If item_to_check is null then alternate_value is returned. If item_to_check
is not null, then item_to_check is returned.

In NVL2(item_to_check, alternate_value1, alternate_value2) function there

are three arguments. If item_to_check is null then alternate_value2 is
returned. If item_to_check is not null, then alternate_value1 is returned. It
is a short IF then ELSE statement.
Q. What are ACID properties in a SQL transaction?

ACID properties stand for Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation and

Durability.

A Transaction is considered reliable, if it has these

characteristics.

I. Atomicity: It means all or nothing. A transaction is Atomic, if

any part of transaction fails, then whole of the transaction is rolled back. If
all the parts of transaction are successful, then only Transaction is
committed.

 Consistency: It means that each Transaction will ensure that

Database remains in a valid state. Once the Transaction is complete,
it should satisfy all the constraints, triggers, rules etc.

 Isolation: It means that each transaction can be executed in

separately. So it is possible to run a transaction in a concurrent
system. An incomplete transaction is not visible to another
transaction.

 Durability: It means that changes done by a Transaction are

permanent. Even if the Database crashes or power goes off, the
committed Transaction and its results remain stored permanently.

Q. What is the main difference between RANK and DENSE_RANK

functions in Oracle?

Both RANK and DENSE_RANK functions are used to get the ranking of an
ordered partition.

Main difference between RANK and DENSE_RANK functions is in the

handling of case when a tie happens while ranking the data.

In a tie, RANK function skips the next ranking(s) and assigns same rank to
values that tie. So there will be gaps in the rank.

In a tie, DENSE_RANK function does not skip the ranks. It assigns same
rank to values that tie. But next rank will be consecutive rank.

E.g. In set (10, 10, 20, 30, 30, 40), RANK returns (1,1,3,4,4,6)

DENSE_RANK returns (1,1,2,3,3,4)

Q. What is the use of WITH clause in SQL?

In SQL, WITH clause is used to create a Subquery or View for a set of data.

The main uses of WITH clause are:

 I. Simplify: It can simplify a SQL query by creating a subset of
data.

 Reduce Repetition: WITH clause can create a subset of data that can
be reused multiple times in the main query.

E.g. In following query we use WITH clause to get the set of employee in
Finance department. Then we use this subset fin_employee to filter based
on AGE less than 30 and Female Gender.

We have used the same set fin_employee multiple times in main query.

WITH fin_employee AS

(SELECT *

FROM Employee

WHERE dep_name = ‘Finance’)

SELECT *

FROM fin_employee

WHERE AGE < 30

UNION ALL

SELECT *

FROM fin_employee

WHERE Gender = ‘Female’;

Q. Which SQL feature can be used to view data in a table

sequentially?

In this question, we need to clarify with interviewer if it is about

SEQUENCE based on some value in data or it is just a SEQUENCE of rows
from data.

In first case, we can use ORDER BY clause in SQL to view data in a

sequential order based on a value.

In second case, we can use a CURSOR to view the whole data set in a
sequence.

Q. Write SQL Query to get Student Name and number of

Students in same grade.

Given Student Table

ID | Name | Grade
1 | George |1

2 | Smith |2

Answer: We can use WITH clause for this problem. We first get the
number students in each grade by using GROUP BY on grade. Then we use
Sub-Query returned by WITH clause in Main query.

Query will be as follows:

WITH grade_count AS (

SELECT grade, COUNT(*) AS grade_count

FROM student

GROUP BY grade)

SELECT s.name AS student_name,

gc.grade_count AS grade_count

FROM student s,

grade_count gc

WHERE e.grade = gc.grade;

Q. Write SQL Query to get the list of grades with total score
more than average score.

Consider Student and Grade tables

Student: ID, name, grade_ID, score

Grade: ID, grade_num

Answer: We can use WITH clause to get the total score in each grade. We
can also use WITH clause to get the average score among all grades. Then
we can use the two sub-queries to get the list of GRADES with Score total
more than average score.

Query will be as follows:

WITH

grade_score AS (

SELECT grade_num, SUM(s.score) grade_total

FROM student s, grade g

WHERE s.grade_ID = g.ID

GROUP BY grade_num),
 avg_score AS (

SELECT SUM(grade_total)/COUNT(*) avg

FROM grade_score)

SELECT *

FROM grade_score

WHERE grade_total > (SELECT avg FROM avg_score)

ORDER BY grade_num;

Q. What are the differences between CASE and DECODE in SQL?

Main differences between Case and Decode statements are:

I. Easier to Read: CASE is more flexible and easier to read than

DECODE.

 ANSI Compatible: CASE is an ANSI standard. But DECODE is internal

to Oracle.

 Location: DECODE is used only inside SQL statement. We can use

CASE any where in SQL, even as a parameter of a
function/procedure.

 Check: DECODE works on the basis of an equality check. CASE can

do many types of logical comparisons like < > etc.

 Decision Making: We can not use complex decision making

statements in a DECODE function. We cannot do decode( price =
100,’cheap’,10000,’expensive’,’ok’ )

 Different Types; DECODE can take different types of expressions. But

CASE has only one type of expression.

Q. Write a Query to get Unique names of products without using

DISTINCT keyword.

We can use GROUP BY for this purpose. It can print the distinct groups of
PRODUCT NAME.

SELECT prod_name

FROM product

GROUP BY prod_name

Q. Write a SQL query to maximum Zipcode from a table without

using MAX or MIN aggregate functions.
Consider Zipcode_list table with column Zipcode

ZIPCODE

7500

7525

7550

7600

7575

Answer: Point to be noted is that the Maximum zipcode is not smaller

than any Zipcode in the list.

We can use self join to find the list of Zipcodes that are smaller than at
least one other Zipcode. Once we get that list, we just use NOT IN to find
the Zipcode from Zipcode_list that does not exist in this smaller list. That
will be the maximum Zipcode with no Zipcode bigger than it.

Query will be as follows:

SELECT DISTINCT Zipcode

FROM Zipcode_list

WHERE Zipcode NOT IN (

SELECT Smaller_list.Zipcode

FROM Zipcode_list AS Larger_list

JOIN Zipcode_list AS Smaller_list

ON Smaller_list.Zipcode < Largerlist.Zipcode

Q. Given a list of student names and grade. Write a query to

print a comma separated list of student names in a grade.

Students

Grade | Name

1 | John
1 | George

1 | Jane

2 | Smith

2 | Anne

2 | Scott

3 | Larry

3 | Bill

Answer:

We can use LISTAGG function in Oracle for this purpose. It can transpose
rows to column type values. We can set the delimiter as comma in
LISTAGG function. And then we can group the students by using Grade in
GROUP BY clause.

Query will be as follows:

SELECT grade, LISTAGG(name, ',') WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY name) AS

Students

FROM student

GROUP BY grade;

Grade Students

---------- --------------------------------------------------

1 John,George,Jane

2 Smith,Anne,Scott

3 Larry,Bill

Q. What is the difference between Correlated and Un-correlated

Sub query?

When we write a subquery in such a way that inner subquery and outer
main query are interdependent, then we call it s correlated Sub query. In
this case, for executing every row of inner query, the outer query is also
executed. The inner query needs data from the outer query for its
execution.
E.g.

SELECT e.emp_name

FROM employee e

WHERE e.id = (SELECT d.emp_id

FROM dept d

WHERE d.dept_id = e.dept_id);

In a non-correlated subquery, inner subquery has no dependency on outer

query.

Q. Given an Employee table with Manager_ID as column, print

First name, Manager ID and Level of employees in Organization
Structure?

Answer: In Oracle, we can CONNECT BY clause for this.

The starting point will be the employee who does not have a manager.
Below that we can connect the employee IDs with their Manager IDs and
keep printing the records.

Oracle provides a pseudocolumn LEVEL that gives the level of each record
in hierarchy.

Query will be as follows:

SELECT f_name, emp_id, manager_id, LEVEL

FROM Employee

START WITH emp_id = 10

CONNECT BY PRIOR emp_id = manager_id;

F_NAME EMP_ID MANAGER_ID LEVEL

John 10 1

George 14 10 2

Jill 16 14 3

Bill 15 14 3

Jay 18 14 3
Q. Views

It is a virtual table, which is created according to the result set of an SQL

query.

Types of Views

1. Simple View:

o Based on a single table.

o Does not include complex operations like joins or aggregates.

Example:

sql

CREATE VIEW EmployeeNames AS

SELECT Name FROM Employees;

2. Complex View:

o Based on multiple tables.

o Includes joins, aggregations, or other complex logic.

Example:

sql

CREATE VIEW DepartmentSummary AS

SELECT Department, AVG(Salary) AS AvgSalary

FROM Employees

GROUP BY Department;

3. Materialized View (in some databases):

o Unlike a standard view, it stores the query result in the

database for faster access.

o Requires periodic refresh to stay updated.