Question 1: SQL Query to find second highest salary of Employee

Answer: There are many ways to find second highest salary of Employee in SQL, you can either
use SQL Join or Subquery to solve this problem. Here is SQL query using Subquery:

select MAX(Salary) from Employee WHERE Salary NOT IN (select MAX(Salary) from Employee );
SELECT max(salary) FROM Employee WHERE salary < (SELECT max(salary) FROM Employee);

See How to find second highest salary in SQL for more ways to solve this problem.

Question 2: SQL Query to find Max Salary from each department.

Answer :

SELECT DeptID, MAX(Salary) FROM Employee GROUP BY DeptID.

Question 3:Write SQL Query to display current date.

Ans:SQL has built in function called GetDate() which returns current timestamp.

SELECT GetDate();

Question 4:Write an SQL Query to check whether date passed to Query is date of given
format or not.

Ans: SQL has IsDate() function which is used to check passed value is date or not of specified
format ,it returns 1(true) or 0(false) accordingly.

SELECT ISDATE('1/08/13') AS "MM/DD/YY";

It will return 0 because passed date is not in correct format.

Question 5: Write a SQL Query to print the name of distinct employee whose DOB is
between 01/01/1960 to 31/12/1975.

Ans:
SELECT DISTINCT EmpName FROM Employees WHERE DOB BETWEEN 01/01/1960 AND
31/12/1975;

Question 6:Write an SQL Query find number of employees according to gender whose DOB
is between 01/01/1960 to 31/12/1975.

Answer : SELECT COUNT(*), sex from Employees WHERE DOB BETWEEN 01/01/1960 ' AND
31/12/1975 GROUP BY sex;

Question 7:Write an SQL Query to find employee whose Salary is equal or greater than
10000.

Answer : SELECT EmpName FROM Employees WHERE Salary>=10000;

Question 8:Write an SQL Query to find name of employee whose name Start with M

Ans: SELECT * FROM Employees WHERE EmpName like 'M%';

Question 9: find all Employee records containing the word "Joe", regardless of whether it
was stored as JOE, Joe, or joe.

Answer : SELECT * from Employees WHERE upper(EmpName) like upper('joe%');

Question 10: Write a SQL Query to find year from date.

Answer : SELECT YEAR(GETDATE()) as "Year";

1.

To fetch ALTERNATE records from a table. (EVEN NUMBERED)

select * from emp where rowid in (select decode(mod(rownum,2),0,rowid, null) from emp);

2.

To select ALTERNATE records from a table. (ODD NUMBERED)

select * from emp where rowid in (select decode(mod(rownum,2),0,null ,rowid) from emp);

3.

Find the 3rd MAX salary in the emp table.

select distinct sal from emp e1 where 3 = (select count(distinct sal) from emp e2 where e1.sal
<= e2.sal);

4.

Find the 3rd MIN salary in the emp table.

select distinct sal from emp e1 where 3 = (select count(distinct sal) from emp e2where e1.sal >=
e2.sal);

5.

Select FIRST n records from a table.

select * from emp where rownum <= &n;

6.

Select LAST n records from a table

select * from emp minus select * from emp where rownum <= (select count(*) - &n from emp);

7.

List dept no., Dept name for all the departments in which there are no employees in
the department.
select * from dept where deptno not in (select deptno from emp);
alternate solution: select * from dept a where not exists (select * from emp b where a.deptno =
b.deptno);
altertnate solution: select empno,ename,b.deptno,dname from emp a, dept b where a.deptno(+)
= b.deptno and empno is null;

8.

How to get 3 Max salaries ?

select distinct sal from emp a where 3 >= (select count(distinct sal) from emp b where a.sal <=
b.sal) order by a.sal desc;

9.

How to get 3 Min salaries ?

select distinct sal from emp a where 3 >= (select count(distinct sal) from emp b where a.sal >=
b.sal);

10.

How to get nth max salaries ?

select distinct hiredate from emp a where &n = (select count(distinct sal) from emp b where
a.sal >= b.sal);

11.

Select DISTINCT RECORDS from emp table.

select * from emp a where rowid = (select max(rowid) from emp b where a.empno=b.empno);

12.

How to delete duplicate rows in a table?

delete from emp a where rowid != (select max(rowid) from emp b where a.empno=b.empno);

13.

Count of number of employees in department wise.

select count(EMPNO), b.deptno, dname from emp a, dept b where a.deptno(+)=b.deptno group
by b.deptno,dname;

14.

Suppose there is annual salary information provided by emp table. How to fetch
monthly salary of each and every employee?
select ename,sal/12 as monthlysal from emp;

15.

Select all record from emp table where deptno =10 or 40.
select * from emp where deptno=30 or deptno=10;

16.

Select all record from emp table where deptno=30 and sal>1500.
select * from emp where deptno=30 and sal>1500;

17.

Select all record from emp where job not in SALESMAN or CLERK.
select * from emp where job not in ('SALESMAN','CLERK');

18.

Select all record from emp where ename in 'BLAKE','SCOTT','KING'and'FORD'.

select * from emp where ename in('JONES','BLAKE','SCOTT','KING','FORD');

19.

Select all records where ename starts with S and its lenth is 6 char.
select * from emp where ename like'S____';

20.

Select all records where ename may be any no of character but it should end with
R.
select * from emp where ename like'%R';

21.

Count MGR and their salary in emp table.

select count(MGR),count(sal) from emp;

22.

In emp table add comm+sal as total sal .

select ename,(sal+nvl(comm,0)) as totalsal from emp;

23.

Select any salary <3000 from emp table.

select * from emp where sal> any(select sal from emp where sal<3000);

24.

Select all salary <3000 from emp table.

select * from emp where sal> all(select sal from emp where sal<3000);

25.

Select all the employee group by deptno and sal in descending order.
select ename,deptno,sal from emp order by deptno,sal desc;

26.

How can I create an empty table emp1 with same structure as emp?
Create table emp1 as select * from emp where 1=2;

27.

How to retrive record where sal between 1000 to 2000?

Select * from emp where sal>=1000 And sal<2000

28.

Select all records where dept no of both emp and dept table matches.
select * from emp where exists(select * from dept where emp.deptno=dept.deptno)

29.

If there are two tables emp1 and emp2, and both have common record. How can I
fetch all the recods but common records only once?
(Select * from emp) Union (Select * from emp1)

30.

How to fetch only common records from two tables emp and emp1?
(Select * from emp) Intersect (Select * from emp1)

31.

How can I retrive all records of emp1 those should not present in emp2?
(Select * from emp) Minus (Select * from emp1)

32.

33.

Count the totalsa deptno wise where more than 2 employees exist.

SELECT deptno, sum(sal) As totalsal

FROM emp
GROUP BY deptno
HAVING COUNT(empno) > 2

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

Inner Join
Inner join is the most common type of Join which is used to combine the rows from two tables and
create a result set containing only such records that are present in both the tables based on the
joining condition (predicate).
Inner join returns rows when there is at least one match in both tables
If none of the record matches between two tables, then INNER JOIN will return a NULL set. Below is
an example of INNER JOIN and the resulting set.
SELECT dept.name DEPARTMENT, emp.name EMPLOYEE
FROM DEPT dept, EMPLOYEE emp
WHERE emp.dept_id = dept.id

Department

Employee

HR

Inno

HR

Privy

Engineering

Robo

Engineering

Hash

Engineering

Anno

Engineering

Darl

Marketing

Pete

Marketing

Meme

Sales

Tomiti

Sales

Bhuti

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

Department

Employee

HR

Inno

HR

Privy

Engineering

Robo

Engineering

Hash

Engineering

Anno

Engineering

Darl

Marketing

Pete

Marketing

Meme

Sales

Tomiti

Sales

Bhuti

Logistics

The (+) sign on the emp side of the predicate indicates that emp is the outer table here. The above
SQL can be alternatively written as below (will yield the same result as above):
SELECT dept.name DEPARTMENT, emp.name EMPLOYEE
FROM DEPT dept LEFT OUTER JOIN EMPLOYEE emp
ON dept.id = emp.dept_id
What is the difference between JOIN and UNION?

SQL JOIN allows us to lookup records on other table based on the given conditions between two
tables. For example, if we have the department ID of each employee, then we can use this
department ID of the employee table to join with the department ID of department table to lookup
department names.
UNION operation allows us to add 2 similar data sets to create resulting data set that contains all the
data from the source data sets. Union does not require any condition for joining. For example, if you
have 2 employee tables with same structure, you can UNION them to create one result set that will
contain all the employees from both of the tables.
SELECT * FROM EMP1

UNION
SELECT * FROM EMP2;
What is the difference between UNION and UNION ALL?

UNION and UNION ALL both unify for add two structurally similar data sets, but UNION operation
returns only the unique records from the resulting data set whereas UNION ALL will return all the
rows, even if one or more rows are duplicated to each other.
In the following example, I am choosing exactly the same employee from the emp table and
performing UNION and UNION ALL. Check the difference in the result.
SELECT * FROM EMPLOYEE WHERE ID = 5
UNION ALL
SELECT * FROM EMPLOYEE WHERE ID = 5

ID

MGR_ID

DEPT_ID

NAME

SAL

DOJ

5.0

2.0

2.0

Anno

80.0

01-Feb-2012

5.0

2.0

2.0

Anno

80.0

01-Feb-2012

SELECT * FROM EMPLOYEE WHERE ID = 5

UNION
SELECT * FROM EMPLOYEE WHERE ID = 5

ID

MGR_ID

DEPT_ID

NAME

SAL

DOJ

5.0

2.0

2.0

Anno

80.0

01-Feb-2012

What is the difference between WHERE clause and HAVING clause?

WHERE and HAVING both filters out records based on one or more conditions. The difference is,
WHERE clause can only be applied on a static non-aggregated column whereas we will need to use
HAVING for aggregated columns.
To understand this, consider this example.
Suppose we want to see only those departments where department ID is greater than 3. There is no
aggregation operation and the condition needs to be applied on a static field. We will use WHERE
clause here:
SELECT * FROM DEPT WHERE ID > 3

ID

NAME

Sales

Logistics

Next, suppose we want to see only those Departments where Average salary is greater than 80. Here
the condition is associated with a non-static aggregated information which is average of salary. We
will need to use HAVING clause here:
SELECT dept.name DEPARTMENT, avg(emp.sal) AVG_SAL
FROM DEPT dept, EMPLOYEE emp
WHERE dept.id = emp.dept_id (+)
GROUP BY dept.name
HAVING AVG(emp.sal) > 80

DEPARTMENT

AVG_SAL

Engineering

90

As you see above, there is only one department (Engineering) where average salary of employees is
greater than 80.
What is the difference among UNION, MINUS and INTERSECT?

UNION combines the results from 2 tables and eliminates duplicate records from the result set.
MINUS operator when used between 2 tables, gives us all the rows from the first table except the rows
which are present in the second table.
INTERSECT operator returns us only the matching or common rows between 2 result sets.
To understand these operators, lets see some examples. We will use two different queries to extract
data from our emp table and then we will perform UNION, MINUS and INTERSECT operations on these
two sets of data.
UNION
SELECT * FROM EMPLOYEE WHERE ID = 5
UNION
SELECT * FROM EMPLOYEE WHERE ID = 6

ID

MGR_ID

DEPT_ID

NAME

SAL

DOJ

2.0

Anno

80.0

01-Feb-2012

2.0

Darl

80.0

11-Feb-2012

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

ID

MGR_ID

DEPT_ID

NAME

SAL

DOJ

Hash

100.0

01-Jan-2012

Robo

100.0

01-Jan-2012

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

ID

MGR_ID

DEPT_ID

NAME

SAL

DOJ

Anno

80.0

01-Feb-2012

Robo

100.0

01-Jan-2012

What is Self Join and why is it required?

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

Self Join is often very useful to convert a hierarchical structure into a flat structure
In our employee table example above, we have kept the manager ID of each employee in the same
row as that of the employee. This is an example of how a hierarchy (in this case employee-manager
hierarchy) is stored in the RDBMS table. Now, suppose if we need to print out the names of the
manager of each employee right beside the employee, we can use self join. See the example below:
SELECT e.name EMPLOYEE, m.name MANAGER
FROM EMPLOYEE e, EMPLOYEE m
WHERE e.mgr_id = m.id (+)

EMPLOYEE

MANAGER

Pete

Hash

Darl

Hash

Inno

Hash

Robo

Hash

Tomiti

Robo

Anno

Robo

Privy

Robo

Meme

Pete

Bhuti

Tomiti

Hash

The only reason we have performed a left outer join here (instead of INNER JOIN) is we have one
employee in this table without a manager (employee ID = 1). If we perform inner join, this employee
will not show-up.
How can we transpose a table using SQL (changing rows to column or vice-versa) ?

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

How to generate row number in SQL Without ROWNUM

Generating a row number that is a running sequence of numbers for each row is not easy using plain
SQL. In fact, the method I am going to show below is not very generic either. This method only works
if there is at least one unique column in the table. This method will also work if there is no single
unique column, but collection of columns that is unique. Anyway, here is the query:
SELECT name, sal, (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM EMPLOYEE i WHERE o.name >= i.name) row_num
FROM EMPLOYEE o
order by row_num

NAME

SAL

ROW_NUM

Anno

80

Bhuti

60

Darl

80

Hash

100

Inno

50

Meme

60

Pete

70

Privy

50

Robo

100

Tomiti

70

10

The column that is used in the row number generation logic is called sort key. Here sort key is
name column. For this technique to work, the sort key needs to be unique. We have chosen the
column name because this column happened to be unique in our Employee table. If it was not
unique but some other collection of columns was, then we could have used those columns as our sort
key (by concatenating those columns to form a single sort key).
Also notice how the rows are sorted in the result set. We have done an explicit sorting on the
row_num column, which gives us all the row numbers in the sorted order. But notice that name
column is also sorted (which is probably the reason why this column is referred as sort-key). If you
want to change the order of the sorting from ascending to descending, you will need to change >=
sign to <= in the query.
As I said before, this method is not very generic. This is why many databases already implement other
methods to achieve this. For example, in Oracle database, every SQL result set contains a hidden
column called ROWNUM. We can just explicitly select ROWNUM to get sequence numbers.
How to select first 5 records from a table?

This question, often asked in many interviews, does not make any sense to me. The problem here is
how do you define which record is first and which is second. Which record is retrieved first from the
database is not deterministic. It depends on many uncontrollable factors such as how database works
at that moment of execution etc. So the question should really be how to select any 5 records from
the table? But whatever it is, here is the solution:
In Oracle,
SELECT *
FROM EMP
WHERE ROWNUM <= 5;
In SQL Server,
SELECT TOP 5 * FROM EMP;
Generic solution,
I believe a generic solution can be devised for this problem if and only if there exists at least one
distinct column in the table. For example, in our EMP table ID is distinct. We can use that distinct
column in the below way to come up with a generic solution of this question that does not require
database specific functions such as ROWNUM, TOP etc.

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

name

Inno

Anno

Darl

Meme

Bhuti

I have taken name column in the above example since name is happened to be unique in this
table. I could very well take ID column as well.
In this example, if the chosen column was not distinct, we would have got more than 5 records
returned in our output.
Do you have a better solution to this problem? If yes, post your solution in the comment.
What is the difference between ROWNUM pseudo column and ROW_NUMBER() function?

ROWNUM is a pseudo column present in Oracle database returned result set prior to ORDER BY being
evaluated. So ORDER BY ROWNUM does not work.
ROW_NUMBER() is an analytical function which is used in conjunction to OVER() clause wherein we
can specify ORDER BY and also PARTITION BY columns.
Suppose if you want to generate the row numbers in the order of ascending employee salaries for
example, ROWNUM will not work. But you may use ROW_NUMBER() OVER() like shown below:

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

FROM EMPLOYEE o

name

Sal

ROWNUM_BY_SAL

Hash

100

Robo

100

Anno

80

Darl

80

Tomiti

70

Pete

70

Bhuti

60

Meme

60

Inno

50

Privy

50

10

What are the differences among ROWNUM, RANK and DENSE_RANK?

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

RANK does not assign unique numbersnor does it assign contiguous numbers. If two records tie for
second place, no record will be assigned the 3rd rank as no one came in third, according to RANK. See
below:
SELECT name, sal, rank() over(order by sal desc) rank_by_sal
FROM EMPLOYEE o

name

Sal

RANK_BY_SAL

Hash

100

Robo

100

Anno

80

Darl

80

Tomiti

70

Pete

70

Bhuti

60

Meme

60

Inno

50

Privy

50

DENSE_RANK, like RANK, does not assign unique numbers, but it does assign contiguous numbers.
Even though two records tied for second place, there is a third-place record. See below:
SELECT name, sal, dense_rank() over(order by sal desc) dense_rank_by_sal
FROM EMPLOYEE o

name

Sal

DENSE_RANK_BY_SAL

Hash

100

Robo

100

Anno

80

Darl

80

Tomiti

70

Pete

70

Bhuti

60

Meme

60

Inno

50

Privy

50

Q. What is SQL?
A. SQL is a Structured Query Language that allows you to communicate with a database and handle
the data it contains in all kinds of ways. It consists of Data Definition Language commands, such as
Create, Alter, Truncate and Drop, and Data Manipulation Language commands, such as Select, Insert,
Update and Delete. The most common databases that use SQL as their query language are Oracle,
SQL Server, DB2, and MySQL.
Q. How is the primary key different from a unique key?
A. Both the primary and unique keys uniquely identify a record in a database table. One difference is
that you can have more than one unique key per table, but only one primary key. Also, the primary
key does not allow any null value, while the unique key allows one.
Q. What is the SQL syntax for sorting, and which is the default order?
A. The default sorting order is ascending. These two statements are identical:
select from order by
select from order by asc
For descending order, simply replace asc with desc.
Q. Explain the use of the Join keyword and its various types.
A. The join keyword is very powerful in SQL. It can be used to combine rows from multiple tables by
using common values in certain fields. The type of join decides which rows are to be selected, while
the select statement specifies which fields to include in the combination table.
Inner Join
This is the default type of join. It picks all rows that have matching fields, or in other words, that meet
the join condition.
Outer Join

A right outer join picks all rows from the table on the right, even if they do not meet the join
condition. Some fields in such rows may have null values in the resulting table.

A left outer join returns all rows of the left-side table, irrespective of their match with the
right-side table.

A full outer join returns all rows of the left- and right-side tables.
Self Join
This is a special type of join where a table joins to itself.
Cross Join
This is the Cartesian product of rows from the tables included in the join query statement. In other
words, every row from the first table is combined with every row of the second table, one at a time.
Q. Write a SQL query to find the largest element in a column. To make it a little tricky, write another
query, this time to find the nth largest element.
A. You can find the largest element using:
select max(ElementName) from TableName.
To find the nth highest element, you need to use where and in keywords as follows:
select min(ElementName) from TableName where ElementName in (select distinct top n ElementName
from TableName order by ElementName desc)

Q: What is SQL?

A: SQL stands for 'Structured Query Language'.

TOP

Q: What is SELECT statement?

A: The SELECT statement lets you select a set of values from a table in a database. The values
selected from the database table would depend on the various conditions that are specified in the
SQL query.

TOP

Q: How can you compare a part of the name rather than the entire name?

A: SELECT * FROM people WHERE empname LIKE '%ab%'

Would return a recordset with records consisting empname the sequence 'ab' in empname .

TOP

Q: What is the INSERT statement?

A: The INSERT statement lets you insert information into a database.

TOP

Q: How do you delete a record from a database?

A: Use the DELETE statement to remove records or any particular column values from a database.

TOP

Q: How could I get distinct entries from a table?

A: The SELECT statement in conjunction with DISTINCT lets you select a set of distinct values from a
table in a database. The values selected from the database table would of course depend on the
various conditions that are specified in the SQL query. Example
SELECT DISTINCT empname FROM emptable

TOP

Q: How to get the results of a Query sorted in any order?

A: You can sort the results and return the sorted results to your program by using ORDER BY keyword
thus saving you the pain of carrying out the sorting yourself. The ORDER BY keyword is used for
sorting.
SELECT empname, age, city FROM emptable ORDER BY empname

TOP

Q: How can I find the total number of records in a table?

A: You could use the COUNT keyword , example

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM emp WHERE age>40

TOP

Q: What is GROUP BY?

A: The GROUP BY keywords have been added to SQL because aggregate functions (like SUM) return
the aggregate of all column values every time they are called. Without the GROUP BY functionality,
finding the sum for each individual group of column values was not possible.

TOP

Q: What is the difference among "dropping a table", "truncating a table" and "deleting all
records" from a table.

A: Dropping : (Table structure + Data are deleted), Invalidates the dependent objects ,Drops the
indexes
Truncating: (Data alone deleted), Performs an automatic commit, Faster than delete
Delete : (Data alone deleted), Doesnt perform automatic commit

TOP

Q: What are the Large object types suported by Oracle?

A: Blob and Clob.

TOP

Q: Difference between a "where" clause and a "having" clause.

A: Having clause is used only with group functions whereas Where is not used with.

TOP

Q: What's the difference between a primary key and a unique key?

A: Both primary key and unique enforce uniqueness of the column on which they are defined. But by
default primary key creates a clustered index on the column, where are unique creates a
nonclustered index by default. Another major difference is that, primary key doesn't allow NULLs,

but unique key allows one NULL only.

TOP

Q: What are cursors? Explain different types of cursors. What are the disadvantages of
cursors? How can you avoid cursors?

A: Cursors allow row-by-row prcessing of the resultsets.

Types of cursors: Static, Dynamic, Forward-only, Keyset-driven. See books online for more
information.
Disadvantages of cursors: Each time you fetch a row from the cursor, it results in a network
roundtrip, where as a normal SELECT query makes only one rowundtrip, however large the
resultset is. Cursors are also costly because they require more resources and temporary storage
(results in more IO operations). Furthere, there are restrictions on the SELECT statements that can
be used with some types of cursors.
Most of the times, set based operations can be used instead of cursors.

TOP

Q: What are triggers? How to invoke a trigger on demand?

A: Triggers are special kind of stored procedures that get executed automatically when an INSERT,
UPDATE or DELETE operation takes place on a table.
Triggers can't be invoked on demand. They get triggered only when an associated action (INSERT,
UPDATE, DELETE) happens on the table on which they are defined.
Triggers are generally used to implement business rules, auditing. Triggers can also be used to
extend the referential integrity checks, but wherever possible, use constraints for this purpose,
instead of triggers, as constraints are much faster.

Q: What is a join and explain different types of joins.

A: Joins are used in queries to explain how different tables are related. Joins also let you select data
from a table depending upon data from another table.
Types of joins: INNER JOINs, OUTER JOINs, CROSS JOINs. OUTER JOINs are further classified as
LEFT OUTER JOINS, RIGHT OUTER JOINS and FULL OUTER JOINS.

TOP

Q: What is a self join?

A: Self join is just like any other join, except that two instances of the same table will be joined in the
query.
.