Oracle Interview Questions

1. Explain the difference between a hot backup and a cold backup and the
benefits associated with each.
A hot backup is basically taking a backup of the database while it is still up and
running and it must be in archive log mode. A cold backup is taking a backup of the
database while it is shut down and does not require being in archive log mode. The
benefit of taking a hot backup is that the database is still available for use while the
backup is occurring and you can recover the database to any ball in time. The
benefit of taking a cold backup is that it is typically easier to administer the backup
and recovery process. In addition, since you are taking cold backups the database
does not require being in archive log mode and thus there will be a slight
performance gain as the database is not cutting archive logs to disk.
2. You have just had to restore from backup and do not have any control files.
How would you go about bringing up this database?
I would create a text based backup control file, stipulating where on disk all the data
files where and then issue the recover command with the using backup control file
clause.
3. How do you switch from an init.ora file to a spfile?
Issue the create spfile from pfile command.
4. Explain the difference between a data block, an extent and a segment.
A data block is the smallest unit of logical storage for a database object. As objects
grow they take chunks of additional storage that are composed of contiguous data
blocks. These groupings of contiguous data blocks are called extents. All the extents
that an object takes when grouped together are considered the segment of the
database object.
5. Give two examples of how you might determine the structure of the table
DEPT.
Use the describe command or use the dbms_metadata.get_ddl package.
6. Where would you look for errors from the database engine?
In the alert log.
7. Compare and contrast TRUNCATE and DELETE for a table.

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Both the truncate and delete command have the desired outcome of getting rid of all
the rows in a table. The difference between the two is that the truncate command is
a DDL operation and just moves the high water mark and produces a now rollback.
The delete command, on the other hand, is a DML operation, which will produce a
rollback and thus take longer to complete.
8. Give the reasoning behind using an index.
Faster access to data blocks in a table.
9. Give the two types of tables involved in producing a star schema and the
type of data they hold.
Fact tables and dimension tables. A fact table contains measurements while
dimension tables will contain data that will help describe the fact tables.
10. What type of index should you use on a fact table?
A Bitmap index.
11. Give some examples of the types of database contraints you may find in
Oracle and indicate their purpose.

A Primary or Unique Key can be used to enforce uniqueness on one or more

columns.
A Referential Integrity Contraint can be used to enforce a Foreign Key
relationship between two tables.
A Not Null constraint - to ensure a value is entered in a column
A Value Constraint - to check a column value against a specific set of values.
12. A table is classified as a parent table and you want to drop and re-create it.
How would you do this without affecting the children tables?
Disable the foreign key constraint to the parent, drop the table, re-create the table,
enable the foreign key constraint.
13. Explain the difference between ARCHIVELOG mode and NOARCHIVELOG
mode and the benefits and disadvantages to each.
ARCHIVELOG mode is a mode that you can put the database in for creating a
backup of all transactions that have occurred in the database so that you can
recover to any ball in time. NOARCHIVELOG mode is basically the absence of
ARCHIVELOG mode and has the disadvantage of not being able to recover to any

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ball in time. NOARCHIVELOG mode does have the advantage of not having to write
transactions to an archive log and thus increases the performance of the database
slightly.
14. What command would you use to create a backup control file?
Alter database backup control file to trace.
15. Give the stages of instance startup to a usable state where normal users
may access it.
STARTUP NOMOUNT - Instance startup STARTUP MOUNT - The database is
mounted STARTUP OPEN - The database is opened
16. What column differentiates the V$ views to the GV$ views and how?
The INST_ID column which indicates the instance in a RAC environment the
information came from.
17. How would you go about generating an EXPLAIN plan?
Create a plan table with utlxplan.sql. Use the explain plan set statement_id = 'tst1'
into plan_table for a SQL statement Look at the explain plan with utlxplp.sql or
utlxpls.sql
18. How would you go about increasing the buffer cache hit ratio?
Use the buffer cache advisory over a given workload and then query the
v$db_cache_advice table. If a change was necessary then I would use the alter
system set db_cache_size command.
19. Explain an ORA-01555
You get this error when you get a snapshot too old within rollback. It can usually be
solved by increasing the undo retention or increasing the size of rollbacks. You
should also look at the logic involved in the application getting the error message.
20. Explain the difference between $ORACLE_HOME and $ORACLE_BASE.
ORACLE_BASE is the root directory for oracle. ORACLE_HOME located
beneath ORACLE_BASE is where the oracle products reside.

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Oracle Interview Questions
1. How would you determine the time zone under which a database was operating?
2. Explain the use of setting GLOBAL_NAMES equal to TRUE.
3. What command would you use to encrypt a PL/SQL application?
4. Explain the difference between a FUNCTION, PROCEDURE and PACKAGE.
5. Explain the use of table functions.
6. Name three advisory statistics you can collect.
7. Where in the Oracle directory tree structure are audit traces placed?
8. Explain materialized views and how they are used.
9. When a user process fails, what background process cleans up after it?
10. What background process refreshes materialized views?
11. How would you determine what sessions are connected and what resources
they are waiting for?
12. Describe what redo logs are.
13. How would you force a log switch?
14. Give two methods you could use to determine what DDL changes have been
made.
15. What does coalescing a tablespace do?
16. What is the difference between a TEMPORARY tablespace and a PERMANENT
tablespace?
17. Name a tablespace automatically created when you create a database.
18. When creating a user, what permissions must you grant to allow them to connect
to the database?
19. How do you add a data file to a tablespace?
20. How do you resize a data file?
21. What view would you use to look at the size of a data file?
22. What view would you use to determine free space in a tablespace?

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23. How would you determine who has added a row to a table?
24. How can you rebuild an index?
25. Explain what partitioning is and what its benefit is.
26. You have just compiled a PL/SQL package but got errors, how would you view
the errors?
27. How can you gather statistics on a table?
28. How can you enable a trace for a session?
29. What is the difference between the SQL*Loader and IMPORT utilities?
30. Name two files used for network connection to a database.

Oracle Interview Questions

1. Describe the difference between a procedure, function and anonymous
pl/sql block.
Candidate should mention use of DECLARE statement, a function must return
a value while a procedure doesn?t have to.

2. What is a mutating table error and how can you get around it?
This happens with triggers. It occurs because the trigger is trying to update a row it
is currently using. The usual fix involves either use of views or temporary tables so
the database is selecting from one while updating the other.

3. Describe the use of %ROWTYPE and %TYPE in PL/SQL

Expected answer: %ROWTYPE allows you to associate a variable with an entire
table row. The %TYPE associates a variable with a single column type.

4. What packages (if any) has Oracle provided for use by developers?
Expected answer: Oracle provides the DBMS_ series of packages. There are many
which developers should be aware of such as DBMS_SQL, DBMS_PIPE,
DBMS_TRANSACTION, DBMS_LOCK, DBMS_ALERT, DBMS_OUTPUT,
DBMS_JOB, DBMS_UTILITY, DBMS_DDL, UTL_FILE. If they can mention a few of

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these and describe how they used them, even better. If they include the SQL
routines provided by Oracle, great, but not really what was asked.

5. Describe the use of PL/SQL tables

Expected answer: PL/SQL tables are scalar arrays that can be referenced by a
binary integer. They can be used to hold values for use in later queries or
calculations. In Oracle 8 they will be able to be of the %ROWTYPE designation, or
RECORD.

6. When is a declare statement needed ?

The DECLARE statement is used in PL/SQL anonymous blocks such as with stand
alone, non-stored PL/SQL procedures. It must come first in a PL/SQL stand alone
file if it is used.

7. In what order should a open/fetch/loop set of commands in a PL/SQL block

be implemented if you use the %NOTFOUND cursor variable in the exit when
statement? Why?
Expected answer: OPEN then FETCH then LOOP followed by the exit when. If not
specified in this order will result in the final return being done twice because of the
way the %NOTFOUND is handled by PL/SQL.

8. What are SQLCODE and SQLERRM and why are they important for PL/SQL
developers?
Expected answer: SQLCODE returns the value of the error number for the last error
encountered. The SQLERRM returns the actual error message for the last error
encountered. They can be used in exception handling to report, or, store in an error
log table, the error that occurred in the code. These are especially useful for the
WHEN OTHERS exception.

9. How can you find within a PL/SQL block, if a cursor is open?

Expected answer: Use the %ISOPEN cursor status variable.

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10. How can you generate debugging output from PL/SQL? Expected answer: Use
the DBMS_OUTPUT package. Another possible method is to just use the SHOW
ERROR command, but this only shows errors. The DBMS_OUTPUT package can
be used to show intermediate results from loops and the status of variables as the
procedure is executed. The new package UTL_FILE can also be used.

11. What are the types of triggers?

Expected Answer: There are 12 types of triggers in PL/SQL that consist of
combinations of the BEFORE, AFTER, ROW, TABLE, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE
and ALL key words: BEFORE ALL ROW INSERT AFTER ALL ROW INSERT
BEFORE INSERT AFTER INSERT etc.

Oracle Interview Questions

1. A tablespace has a table with 30 extents in it. Is this bad? Why or why not.
Multiple extents in and of themselves aren?t bad. However if you also have chained
rows this can hurt performance.

2. How do you set up tablespaces during an Oracle installation?

You should always attempt to use the Oracle Flexible Architecture standard or
another partitioning scheme to ensure proper separation of SYSTEM, ROLLBACK,
REDO LOG, DATA, TEMPORARY and INDEX segments.

3. You see multiple fragments in the SYSTEM tablespace, what should you
check first?
Ensure that users don?t have the SYSTEM tablespace as their TEMPORARY or
DEFAULT tablespace assignment by checking the DBA_USERS view.

4. What are some indications that you need to increase the

SHARED_POOL_SIZE parameter?

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Poor data dictionary or library cache hit ratios, getting error ORA-04031. Another
indication is steadily decreasing performance with all other tuning parameters the
same.

5. What is the general guideline for sizing db_block_size and

db_multi_block_read for an application that does many full table scans?
Oracle almost always reads in 64k chunks. The two should have a product equal to
64 or a multiple of 64.

6. What is the fastest query method for a table

Fetch by rowid

7. Explain the use of TKPROF? What initialization parameter should be turned

on to get full TKPROF output?
The tkprof tool is a tuning tool used to determine cpu and execution times for SQL
statements. You use it by first setting timed_statistics to true in the initialization file
and then turning on tracing for either the entire database via the sql_trace parameter
or for the session using the ALTER SESSION command. Once the trace file is
generated you run the tkprof tool against the trace file and then look at the output
from the tkprof tool. This can also be used to generate explain plan output.

8. When looking at v$sysstat you see that sorts (disk) is high. Is this bad or
good? If bad -How do you correct it?
If you get excessive disk sorts this is bad. This indicates you need to tune the sort
area parameters in the initialization files. The major sort are parameter is the
SORT_AREA_SIZe parameter.

9. When should you increase copy latches? What parameters control copy
latches

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When you get excessive contention for the copy latches as shown by the "redo
copy" latch hit ratio. You can increase copy latches via the initialization parameter
LOG_SIMULTANEOUS_COPIES to twice the number of CPUs on your system.

10. Where can you get a list of all initialization parameters for your instance?
How about an indication if they are default settings or have been changed
You can look in the init.ora file for an indication of manually set parameters. For all
parameters, their value and whether or not the current value is the default value,
look in the v$parameter view.

11. Describe hit ratio as it pertains to the database buffers. What is the difference
between instantaneous and cumulative hit ratio and which should be used for tuning
The hit ratio is a measure of how many times the database was able to read a value
from the buffers verses how many times it had to re-read a data value from the
disks. A value greater than 80-90% is good, less could indicate problems. If you
simply take the ratio of existing parameters this will be a cumulative value since the
database started. If you do a comparison between pairs of readings based on some
arbitrary time span, this is the instantaneous ratio for that time span. Generally
speaking an instantaneous reading gives more valuable data since it will tell you
what your instance is doing for the time it was generated over.

12. Discuss row chaining, how does it happen? How can you reduce it? How
do you correct it
Row chaining occurs when a VARCHAR2 value is updated and the length of the
new value is longer than the old value and won?t fit in the remaining block space.
This results in the row chaining to another block. It can be reduced by setting the
storage parameters on the table to appropriate values. It can be corrected by export
and import of the effected table.

Oracle Interview Questions

1. Give one method for transferring a table from one schema to another:

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There are several possible methods, export-import, CREATE TABLE... AS SELECT,
or COPY.

2. What is the purpose of the IMPORT option IGNORE? What is it?s default
setting ?
The IMPORT IGNORE option tells import to ignore "already exists" errors. If it is not
specified the tables that already exist will be skipped. If it is specified, the error is
ignored and the tables data will be inserted. The default value is N.

3. You have a rollback segment in a version 7.2 database that has expanded
beyond optimal, how can it be restored to optimal?
Use the ALTER TABLESPACE ..... SHRINK command.

4. If the DEFAULT and TEMPORARY tablespace clauses are left out of a

CREATE USER command what happens? Is this bad or good? Why
The user is assigned the SYSTEM tablespace as a default and temporary
tablespace. This is bad because it causes user objects and temporary segments to
be placed into the SYSTEM tablespace resulting in fragmentation and improper
table placement (only data dictionary objects and the system rollback segment
should be in SYSTEM).

5. What are some of the Oracle provided packages that DBAs should be aware
of ?
Oracle provides a number of packages in the form of the DBMS_ packages owned
by the SYS user. The packages used by DBAs may include:
DBMS_SHARED_POOL, DBMS_UTILITY, DBMS_SQL, DBMS_DDL,
DBMS_SESSION, DBMS_OUTPUT and DBMS_SNAPSHOT. They may also try to
answer with the UTL*.SQL or CAT*.SQL series of SQL procedures. These can be
viewed as extra credit but aren?t part of the answer.

6. What happens if the constraint name is left out of a constraint clause ?

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The Oracle system will use the default name of SYS_Cxxxx where xxxx is a system
generated number. This is bad since it makes tracking which table the constraint
belongs to or what the constraint does harder.

7. What happens if a tablespace clause is left off of a primary key constraint

clause ?
This results in the index that is automatically generated being placed in then users
default tablespace. Since this will usually be the same tablespace as the table is
being created in, this can cause serious performance problems.

8. What is the proper method for disabling and re-enabling a primary key
constraint ?
You use the ALTER TABLE command for both. However, for the enable clause you
must specify the USING INDEX and TABLESPACE clause for primary keys.

9. What happens if a primary key constraint is disabled and then enabled

without fully specifying the index clause?
The index is created in the user?s default tablespace and all sizing information is
lost. Oracle doesn?t store this information as a part of the constraint definition, but
only as part of the index definition, when the constraint was disabled the index was
dropped and the information is gone.

10. (On UNIX) When should more than one DB writer process be used? How
many should be used?
If the UNIX system being used is capable of asynchronous IO then only one is
required, if the system is not capable of asynchronous IO then up to twice the
number of disks used by Oracle number of DB writers should be specified by use of
the db_writers initialization parameter.

11. You are using hot backup without being in archivelog mode, can you
recover in the event of a failure? Why or why not

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You can?t use hot backup without being in archivelog mode. So no, you couldn?t
recover.

12. What causes the "snapshot too old" error? How can this be prevented or
mitigated?
This is caused by large or long running transactions that have either wrapped onto
their own rollback space or have had another transaction write on part of their
rollback space. This can be prevented or mitigated by breaking the transaction into a
set of smaller transactions or increasing the size of the rollback segments and their
extents.

13. How can you tell if a database object is invalid By checking the status column of
the DBA_, ALL_ or USER_OBJECTS views, depending upon whether you own or
only have permission on the view or are using a DBA account.

13. A user is getting an ORA-00942 error yet you know you have granted them
permission on the table, what else should you check
You need to check that the user has specified the full name of the object (select
empid from scott.emp; instead of select empid from emp;) or has a synonym that
balls to the object (create synonym emp for scott.emp;)

14. A developer is trying to create a view and the database won?t let him. He
has the "DEVELOPER" role which has the "CREATE VIEW" system privilege
and SELECT grants on the tables he is using, what is the problem
You need to verify the developer has direct grants on all tables used in the view.
You can?t create a stored object with grants given through views.

15. If you have an example table, what is the best way to get sizing data for the
production table implementation
The best way is to analyze the table and then use the data provided in the
DBA_TABLES view to get the average row length and other pertinent data for the
calculation. The quick and dirty way is to look at the number of blocks the table is

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actually using and ratio the number of rows in the table to its number of blocks
against the number of expected rows.

16. How can you find out how many users are currently logged into the
database? How can you find their operating system id
There are several ways. One is to look at the v$session or v$process views. Another
way is to check the current_logins parameter in the v$sysstat view. Another if you
are on UNIX is to do a "ps -ef|grep oracle|wc -l? command, but this only works
against a single instance installation.

17. A user selects from a sequence and gets back two values, his select is:
SELECT pk_seq.nextval FROM dual;What is the problem
Somehow two values have been inserted into the dual table. This table is a single
row, single column table that should only have one value in it.

18. How can you determine if an index needs to be dropped and rebuilt
Run the ANALYZE INDEX command on the index to validate its structure and then
calculate the ratio of LF_BLK_LEN/LF_BLK_LEN+BR_BLK_LEN and if it isn?t near
1.0 (i.e. greater than 0.7 or so) then the index should be rebuilt. Or if the ratio
BR_BLK_LEN/ LF_BLK_LEN+BR_BLK_LEN is nearing 0.3.

1. How can variables be passed to a SQL routine

By use of the & symbol. For passing in variables the numbers 1-8 can be used (&1,
&2,...,&8) to pass the values after the command into the SQLPLUS session. To be
prompted for a specific variable, place the ampersanded variable in the code itself:
"select * from dba_tables where owner=&owner_name;" . Use of double
ampersands tells SQLPLUS to resubstitute the value for each subsequent use of the
variable, a single ampersand will cause a reprompt for the value unless an ACCEPT
statement is used to get the value from the user.

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2. You want to include a carriage return/linefeed in your output from a SQL
script, how can you do this
The best method is to use the CHR() function (CHR(10) is a return/linefeed) and the
concatenation function "||". Another method, although it is hard to document and
isn?t always portable is to use the return/linefeed as a part of a quoted string.

3. How can you call a PL/SQL procedure from SQL

By use of the EXECUTE (short form EXEC) command.

4. How do you execute a host operating system command from within SQL
By use of the exclamation ball "!" (in UNIX and some other OS) or the HOST (HO)
command.

5. You want to use SQL to build SQL, what is this called and give an example
This is called dynamic SQL. An example would be: set lines 90 pages 0 termout off
feedback off verify off spool drop_all.sql select ?drop user ?||username||? cascade;?
from dba_users where username not in ("SYS?,?SYSTEM?); spool off Essentially
you are looking to see that they know to include a command (in this case DROP
USER...CASCADE;) and that you need to concatenate using the ?||? the values
selected from the database.

6. What SQLPlus command is used to format output from a select

This is best done with the COLUMN command.

7. You want to group the following set of select returns, what can you group
on ?
Max(sum_of_cost), min(sum_of_cost), count(item_no), item_no The only column
that can be grouped on is the "item_no" column, the rest have aggregate functions
associated with them.

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8. What special Oracle feature allows you to specify how the cost based
system treats a SQL statement
The COST based system allows the use of HINTs to control the optimizer path
selection. If they can give some example hints such as FIRST ROWS, ALL ROWS,
USING INDEX, STAR, even better.

9. You want to determine the location of identical rows in a table before

attempting to place a unique index on the table, how can this be done
Oracle tables always have one guaranteed unique column, the rowid column. If you
use a min/max function against your rowid and then select against the proposed
primary key you can squeeze out the rowids of the duplicate rows pretty quick. For
example: select rowid from emp e where e.rowid > (select min(x.rowid) from emp x
where x.emp_no = e.emp_no); In the situation where multiple columns make up the
proposed key, they must all be used in the where clause.

10. What is a Cartesian product

A Cartesian product is the result of an unrestricted join of two or more tables. The
result set of a three table Cartesian product will have x * y * z number of rows where
x, y, z correspond to the number of rows in each table involved in the join.

11. You are joining a local and a remote table, the network manager complains
about the traffic involved, how can you reduce the network traffic
Push the processing of the remote data to the remote instance by using a view to
pre-select the information for the join. This will result in only the data required for the
join being sent across.

11. What is the default ordering of an ORDER BY clause in a SELECT

statement
Ascending

12. What is tkprof and how is it used

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The tkprof tool is a tuning tool used to determine cpu and execution times for SQL
statements. You use it by first setting timed_statistics to true in the initialization file
and then turning on tracing for either the entire database via the sql_trace parameter
or for the session using the ALTER SESSION command. Once the trace file is
generated you run the tkprof tool against the trace file and then look at the output
from the tkprof tool. This can also be used to generate explain plan output.

13. What is explain plan and how is it used

The EXPLAIN PLAN command is a tool to tune SQL statements. To use it you must
have an explain_table generated in the user you are running the explain plan for.
This is created using the utlxplan.sql script. Once the explain plan table exists you
run the explain plan command giving as its argument the SQL statement to be
explained. The explain_plan table is then queried to see the execution plan of the
statement. Explain plans can also be run using tkprof.

14. How do you set the number of lines on a page of output? The width
The SET command in SQLPLUS is used to control the number of lines generated
per page and the width of those lines, for example SET PAGESIZE 60 LINESIZE 80
will generate reports that are 60 lines long with a line width of 80 characters. The
PAGESIZE and LINESIZE options can be shortened to PAGES and LINES.

15. How do you prevent output from coming to the screen

The SET option TERMOUT controls output to the screen. Setting TERMOUT OFF
turns off screen output. This option can be shortened to TERM.

16. How do you prevent Oracle from giving you informational messages
during and after a SQL statement execution
The SET options FEEDBACK and VERIFY can be set to OFF.

17. How do you generate file output from SQL

By use of the SPOOL comm

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Oracle Interview Questions
1. What is a CO-RELATED SUBQUERY
A CO-RELATED SUBQUERY is one that has a correlation name as table or view
designator in the FROM clause of the outer query and the same correlation name as
a qualifier of a search condition in the WHERE clause of the subquery. eg

SELECT field1 from table1 X

WHERE field2>(select avg(field2) from table1 Y
where
field1=X.field1);

(The subquery in a correlated subquery is revaluated for every row of the table or
view named in the outer query.)
2. What are various joins used while writing SUBQUERIES
Self join-Its a join foreign key of a table references the same table.
Outer Join--Its a join condition used where One can query all the rows of one of the
tables in the join condition even though they don't satisfy the join condition.
Equi-join--Its a join condition that retrieves rows from one or more tables in which
one or more columns in one table are equal to one or more columns in the second
table.
3. What are various constraints used in SQL
NULL NOT NULL CHECK DEFAULT
4. What are different Oracle database objects
TABLES VIEWS INDEXES SYNONYMS SEQUENCES TABLESPACES etc
5. What is difference between Rename and Alias
Rename is a permanent name given to a table or column whereas Alias is a
temporary name given to a table or column which do not exist once the SQL
statement is executed.
6. What is a view
A view is stored procedure based on one or more tables, its a virtual table.

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7. What are various privileges that a user can grant to another user
SELECT CONNECT RESOURCE
8. What is difference between UNIQUE and PRIMARY KEY constraints
A table can have only one PRIMARY KEY whereas there can be any number of
UNIQUE keys. The columns that compose PK are automatically define NOT NULL,
whereas a column that compose a UNIQUE is not automatically defined to be
mandatory must also specify the column is NOT NULL.
9. Can a primary key contain more than one columns
Yes
10. How you will avoid duplicating records in a query
By using DISTINCT
11. What is difference between SQL and SQL*PLUS
SQL*PLUS is a command line tool where as SQL and PL/SQL language interface
and reporting tool. Its a command line tool that allows user to type SQL commands
to be executed directly against an Oracle database. SQL is a language used to
query the relational database(DML,DCL,DDL). SQL*PLUS commands are used to
format query result, Set options, Edit SQL commands and PL/SQL.
12. Which datatype is used for storing graphics and images
LONG RAW data type is used for storing BLOB's (binary large objects).
13. How will you delete duplicating rows from a base table
DELETE FROM table_name A WHERE rowid>(SELECT min(rowid) from
table_name B where B.table_no=A.table_no);
CREATE TABLE new_table AS SELECT DISTINCT * FROM old_table;
DROP old_table RENAME new_table TO old_table DELETE FROM table_name A
WHERE rowid NOT IN (SELECT MAX(ROWID) FROM table_name GROUP BY
column_name)

14. What is difference between SUBSTR and INSTR

SUBSTR returns a specified portion of a string eg SUBSTR('BCDEF',4) output
BCDE INSTR provides character position in which a pattern is found in a string.

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eg INSTR('ABC-DC-F','-',2) output 7 (2nd occurence of '-')
15. There is a string '120000 12 0 .125' ,how you will find the position of the
decimal place
INSTR('120000 12 0 .125',1,'.') output 13
16. There is a '%' sign in one field of a column. What will be the query to find it.
'\' Should be used before '%'.
17. When you use WHERE clause and when you use HAVING clause
HAVING clause is used when you want to specify a condition for a group function
and it is written after GROUP BY clause The WHERE clause is used when you want
to specify a condition for columns, single row functions except group functions and it
is written before GROUP BY clause if it is used.
18. Which is more faster - IN or EXISTS
EXISTS is more faster than IN because EXISTS returns a Boolean value whereas
IN returns a value.
19. What is a OUTER JOIN
Outer Join--Its a join condition used where you can query all the rows of one of the
tables in the join condition even though they dont satisfy the join condition.
20. How you will avoid your query from using indexes
SELECT * FROM emp Where emp_no+' '=12345;
i.e you have to concatenate the column name with space within codes in the where
condition.
SELECT /*+ FULL(a) */ ename, emp_no from emp where emp_no=1234;
i.e using HINTS

Oracle Interview Questions

1. What is a pseudo column. Give some examples
It is a column that is not an actual column in the table.
eg USER, UID, SYSDATE, ROWNUM, ROWID, NULL, AND LEVEL.

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Suppose customer table is there having different columns like customer no,
payments.What will be the query to select top three max payments.
SELECT customer_no, payments from customer C1 WHERE 3<=(SELECT
COUNT(*) from customer C2 WHERE C1.payment <= C2.payment)
2. What is the purpose of a cluster.
Oracle does not allow a user to specifically locate tables, since that is a part of the
function of the RDBMS. However, for the purpose of increasing performance, oracle
allows a developer to create a CLUSTER. A CLUSTER provides a means for storing
data from different tables together for faster retrieval than if the table placement
were left to the RDBMS.
3. What is a cursor.
Oracle uses work area to execute SQL statements and store processing information
PL/SQL construct called a cursor lets you name a work area and access its stored
information A cursor is a mechanism used to fetch more than one row in a Pl/SQl
block.
4. Difference between an implicit & an explicit cursor.
PL/SQL declares a cursor implicitly for all SQL data manipulation statements,
including quries that return only one row. However,queries that return more than one
row you must declare an explicit cursor or use a cursor FOR loop.
Explicit cursor is a cursor in which the cursor name is explicitly assigned to a
SELECT statement via the CURSOR...IS statement. An implicit cursor is used for all
SQL statements Declare, Open, Fetch, Close. An explicit cursors are used to
process multirow SELECT statements An implicit cursor is used to process INSERT,
UPDATE, DELETE and single row SELECT. .INTO statements.
5. What are cursor attributes
%ROWCOUNT %NOTFOUND %FOUND %ISOPEN
6. What is a cursor for loop.
Cursor For Loop is a loop where oracle implicitly declares a loop variable, the loop
index that of the same record type as the cursor's record.
7. Difference between NO DATA FOUND and %NOTFOUND

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NO DATA FOUND is an exception raised only for the SELECT....INTO statements
when the where clause of the querydoes not match any rows. When the where
clause of the explicit cursor does not match any rows the %NOTFOUND attribute is
set to TRUE instead.
8. What a SELECT FOR UPDATE cursor represent.
SELECT......FROM......FOR......UPDATE[OF column-reference][NOWAIT] The
processing done in a fetch loop modifies the rows that have been retrieved by the
cursor. A convenient way of modifying the rows is done by a method with two parts:
the FOR UPDATE clause in the cursor declaration, WHERE CURRENT OF
CLAUSE in an UPDATE or declaration statement.

9. What 'WHERE CURRENT OF ' clause does in a cursor.

LOOP

SELECT num_credits INTO v_numcredits FROM classes

WHERE dept=123 and course=101;
UPDATE students
SET current_credits=current_credits+v_numcredits
WHERE CURRENT OF X;
END LOOP
COMMIT;
END;

10. What is use of a cursor variable? How it is defined.

A cursor variable is associated with different statements at run time, which can hold
different values at run time. Static cursors can only be associated with one run time
query. A cursor variable is reference type(like a pointer in C). Declaring a cursor
variable: TYPE type_name IS REF CURSOR RETURN return_type type_name is
the name of the reference type,return_type is a record type indicating the types of
the select list that will eventually be returned by the cursor variable.
11. What should be the return type for a cursor variable.Can we use a scalar
data type as return type.

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The return type for a cursor must be a record type.It can be declared explicitly as a
user-defined or %ROWTYPE can be used. eg TYPE t_studentsref IS REF CURSOR
RETURN students%ROWTYPE
12. How you open and close a cursor variable.Why it is required.
OPEN cursor variable FOR SELECT...Statement CLOSE cursor variable In order to
associate a cursor variable with a particular SELECT statement OPEN syntax is
used.In order to free the resources used for the query CLOSE statement is used.
13. How you were passing cursor variables in PL/SQL 2.2.
In PL/SQL 2.2 cursor variables cannot be declared in a package.This is because the
storage for a cursor variable has to be allocated using Pro*C or OCI with version
2.2,the only means of passing a cursor variable to a PL/SQL block is via bind
variable or a procedure parameter.
14. Can cursor variables be stored in PL/SQL tables.If yes how.If not why.
No, a cursor variable points a row which cannot be stored in a two-dimensional
PL/SQL table.
15. Difference between procedure and function.
Functions are named PL/SQL blocks that return a value and can be called with
arguments procedure a named block that can be called with parameter. A procedure
all is a PL/SQL statement by itself, while a Function call is called as part of an
expression.
16. What are different modes of parameters used in functions and procedures.
IN OUT INOUT
17. What is difference between a formal and an actual parameter
The variables declared in the procedure and which are passed, as arguments are
called actual, the parameters in the procedure declaration. Actual parameters
contain the values that are passed to a procedure and receive results. Formal
parameters are the placeholders for the values of actual parameters
18. Can the default values be assigned to actual parameters.
Yes
19. Can a function take OUT parameters.If not why.

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No.A function has to return a value,an OUT parameter cannot return a value.
20. What is syntax for dropping a procedure and a function .Are these
operations possible.

Drop Procedure procedure_name

Drop Function function_name

21. What are ORACLE PRECOMPILERS.

Using ORACLE PRECOMPILERS ,SQL statements and PL/SQL blocks can be
contained inside 3GL programs written in C,C++,COBOL,PASCAL, FORTRAN,PL/1
AND ADA. The Precompilers are known as Pro*C,Pro*Cobol,... This form of PL/SQL
is known as embedded pl/sql,the language in which pl/sql is embedded is known as
the host language. The prcompiler translates the embedded SQL and pl/sql
ststements into calls to the precompiler runtime library.The output must be compiled
and linked with this library to creater an executable.
22. What is OCI. What are its uses.
Oracle Call Interface is a method of accesing database from a 3GL program. Uses--
No precompiler is required,PL/SQL blocks are executed like other DML statements.

The OCI library provides

-functions to parse SQL statemets
-bind input variables
-bind output variables
-execute statements
-fetch the results

23. Difference between database triggers and form triggers.

a) Data base trigger(DBT) fires when a DML operation is performed on a data base
table.Form trigger(FT) Fires when user presses a key or navigates between fields on
the screen b) Can be row level or statement level No distinction between row level
and statement level. c) Can manipulate data stored in Oracle tables via SQL Can
manipulate data in Oracle tables as well as variables in forms. d) Can be fired from
any session executing the triggering DML statements. Can be fired only from the
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form that define the trigger. e) Can cause other database triggers to fire.Can cause
other database triggers to fire,but not other form triggers.
24. What is an UTL_FILE.What are different procedures and functions
associated with it.
UTL_FILE is a package that adds the ability to read and write to operating system
files Procedures associated with it are FCLOSE, FCLOSE_ALL and 5 procedures to
output data to a file PUT, PUT_LINE, NEW_LINE, PUTF, FFLUSH.PUT,
FFLUSH.PUT_LINE,FFLUSH.NEW_LINE. Functions associated with it are FOPEN,
ISOPEN.
25. Can you use a commit statement within a database trigger.
No
26. What is the maximum buffer size that can be specified using the
DBMS_OUTPUT.ENABLE function?
1,000,000

Oracle Interview Questions

1. When looking at the estat events report you see that you are getting busy
buffer waits. Is this bad? How can you find what is causing it
Buffer busy waits could indicate contention in redo, rollback or data blocks. You
need to check the v$waitstat view to see what areas are causing the problem. The
value of the "count" column tells where the problem is, the "class" column tells you
with what. UNDO is rollback segments, DATA is data base buffers.

2. If you see contention for library caches how can you fix it
Increase the size of the shared pool.

3. If you see statistics that deal with "undo" what are they really talking about
Rollback segments and associated structures.

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4. If a tablespace has a default pctincrease of zero what will this cause (in
relationship to the smon process)
The SMON process won?t automatically coalesce its free space fragments.

5. If a tablespace shows excessive fragmentation what are some methods to

defragment the tablespace? (7.1,7.2 and 7.3 only)
In Oracle 7.0 to 7.2 The use of the 'alter session set events 'immediate trace name
coalesce level ts#';? command is the easiest way to defragment contiguous free
space fragmentation. The ts# parameter corresponds to the ts# value found in the
ts$ SYS table. In version 7.3 the ?alter tablespace coalesce;? is best. If the free
space isn?t contiguous then export, drop and import of the tablespace contents may
be the only way to reclaim non-contiguous free space.

6. How can you tell if a tablespace has excessive fragmentation

If a select against the dba_free_space table shows that the count of a tablespaces
extents is greater than the count of its data files, then it is fragmented.

7. You see the following on a status report: redo log space requests 23 redo
log space wait time 0 Is this something to worry about? What if redo log space
wait time is high? How can you fix this
Since the wait time is zero, no. If the wait time was high it might indicate a need for
more or larger redo logs.

8. What can cause a high value for recursive calls? How can this be fixed
A high value for recursive calls is cause by improper cursor usage, excessive
dynamic space management actions, and or excessive statement re-parses. You
need to determine the cause and correct it By either relinking applications to hold
cursors, use proper space management techniques (proper storage and sizing) or
ensure repeat queries are placed in packages for proper reuse.

25
9. If you see a pin hit ratio of less than 0.8 in the estat library cache report is
this a problem? If so, how do you fix it
This indicate that the shared pool may be too small. Increase the shared pool size.

10. If you see the value for reloads is high in the estat library cache report is
this a matter for concern
Yes, you should strive for zero reloads if possible. If you see excessive reloads then
increase the size of the shared pool.

11. You look at the dba_rollback_segs view and see that there is a large
number of shrinks and they are of relatively small size, is this a problem? How
can it be fixed if it is a problem
A large number of small shrinks indicates a need to increase the size of the rollback
segment extents. Ideally you should have no shrinks or a small number of large
shrinks. To fix this just increase the size of the extents and adjust optimal
accordingly.

12. You look at the dba_rollback_segs view and see that you have a large
number of wraps is this a problem
A large number of wraps indicates that your extent size for your rollback segments
are probably too small. Increase the size of your extents to reduce the number of
wraps. You can look at the average transaction size in the same view to get the
information on transaction size.

Oracle Interview Questions

1. You have just started a new instance with a large SGA on a busy existing
server. Performance is terrible, what should you check for
The first thing to check with a large SGA is that it isn?t being swapped out.

26
2. What OS user should be used for the first part of an Oracle installation (on
UNIX)
You must use root first.

3. When should the default values for Oracle initialization parameters be used

as is
Never

4. How many control files should you have? Where should they be located
At least 2 on separate disk spindles. Be sure they say on separate disks, not just file
systems.

5. How many redo logs should you have and how should they be configured
for maximum recoverability
You should have at least three groups of two redo logs with the two logs each on a
separate disk spindle (mirrored by Oracle). The redo logs should not be on raw
devices on UNIX if it can be avoided.

6. You have a simple application with no "hot" tables (i.e. uniform IO and
access requirements). How many disks should you have assuming standard
layout for SYSTEM, USER, TEMP and ROLLBACK tablespaces
At least 7, see disk configuration answer above.

7. Describe third normal form

Something like: In third normal form all attributes in an entity are related to the
primary key and only to the primary key

8. Is the following statement true or false:

27
"All relational databases must be in third normal form" False. While 3NF is good for
logical design most databases, if they have more than just a few tables, will not
perform well using full 3NF. Usually some entities will be denormalized in the logical
to physical transfer process.

9. What is an ERD
An ERD is an Entity-Relationship-Diagram. It is used to show the entities and
relationships for a database logical model.

10. Why are recursive relationships bad? How do you resolve them
A recursive relationship (one where a table relates to itself) is bad when it is a hard
relationship (i.e. neither side is a "may" both are "must") as this can result in it not
being possible to put in a top or perhaps a bottom of the table (for example in the
EMPLOYEE table you couldn?t put in the PRESIDENT of the company because he
has no boss, or the junior janitor because he has no subordinates). These type of
relationships are usually resolved by adding a small intersection entity.

11. What does a hard one-to-one relationship mean (one where the
relationship on both ends is "must")
Expected answer: This means the two entities should probably be made into one
entity.

12. How should a many-to-many relationship be handled

By adding an intersection entity table

13. What is an artificial (derived) primary key? When should an artificial (or
derived) primary key be used
A derived key comes from a sequence. Usually it is used when a concatenated key
becomes too cumbersome to use as a foreign key.

Oracle Interview Questions

28
1. When should you consider denormalization
Whenever performance analysis indicates it would be beneficial to do so without
compromising data integrity.

2. How can you determine if an Oracle instance is up from the operating

system level
There are several base Oracle processes that will be running on multi-user
operating systems, these will be smon, pmon, dbwr and lgwr. Any answer that has
them using their operating system process showing feature to check for these is
acceptable. For example, on UNIX a ps -ef|grep dbwr will show what instances are
up.

3. Users from the PC clients are getting messages indicating : ORA-06114:

(Cnct err, can't get err txt. See Servr Msgs & Codes Manual)

What could the problem be The instance name is probably incorrect in their
connection string.

4. Users from the PC clients are getting the following error stack: ERROR:
ORA-01034: ORACLE not available ORA-07318: smsget: open error when
opening sgadef.dbf file. HP-UX Error: 2: No such file or directory

What is the probable cause The Oracle instance is shutdown that they are trying to
access, restart the instance.

5. How can you determine if the SQLNET process is running for SQLNET V1?
How about V2
For SQLNET V1 check for the existence of the orasrv process. You can use the
command "tcpctl status" to get a full status of the V1 TCPIP server, other protocols
have similar command formats. For SQLNET V2 check for the presence of the
LISTENER process(s) or you can issue the command "lsnrctl status".

29
6. What file will give you Oracle instance status information? Where is it
located
The alert.ora log. It is located in the directory specified by the
background_dump_dest parameter in the v$parameter table.

7. Users aren?t being allowed on the system. The following message is

received: ORA-00257 archiver is stuck. Connect internal only, until freed What
is the problem
The archive destination is probably full, backup the archive logs and remove them
and the archiver will re-start.

8. Where would you look to find out if a redo log was corrupted assuming you
are using Oracle mirrored redo logs
There is no message that comes to the SQLDBA or SRVMGR programs during
startup in this situation, you must check the alert.log file for this information.

9. You attempt to add a datafile and get: ORA-01118: cannot add anymore
datafiles: limit of 40 exceeded What is the problem and how can you fix it
When the database was created the db_files parameter in the initialization file was
set to 40. You can shutdown and reset this to a higher value, up to the value of
MAX_DATAFILES as specified at database creation. If the MAX_DATAFILES is set
to low, you will have to rebuild the control file to increase it before proceeding.

10. You look at your fragmentation report and see that smon hasn?t coalesced
any of you tablespaces, even though you know several have large chunks of
contiguous free extents. What is the problem

Check the dba_tablespaces view for the value of pct_increase for the tablespaces. If
pct_increase is zero, smon will not coalesce their free space.

11. Your users get the following error: ORA-00055 maximum number of DML
locks exceeded What is the problem and how do you fix it
30
The number of DML Locks is set by the initialization parameter DML_LOCKS. If this
value is set to low (which it is by default) you will get this error. Increase the value of
DML_LOCKS. If you are sure that this is just a temporary problem, you can have
them wait and then try again later and the error should clear.

12. You get a call from you backup DBA while you are on vacation. He has
corrupted all of the control files while playing with the ALTER DATABASE
BACKUP CONTROLFILE command. What do you do
As long as all datafiles are safe and he was successful with the BACKUP controlfile
command you can do the following: CONNECT INTERNAL STARTUP MOUNT
(Take any read-only tablespaces offline before next step ALTER DATABASE
DATAFILE .... OFFLINE;) RECOVER DATABASE USING BACKUP CONTROLFILE
ALTER DATABASE OPEN RESETLOGS; (bring read-only tablespaces back online)
Shutdown and backup the system, then restart If they have a recent output file from
the ALTER DATABASE BACKUP CONTROL FILE TO TRACE; command, they can
use that to recover as well. If no backup of the control file is available then the
following will be required: CONNECT INTERNAL STARTUP NOMOUNT CREATE
CONTROL FILE .....; However, they will need to know all of the datafiles, logfiles,
and settings for MAXLOGFILES, MAXLOGMEMBERS, MAXLOGHISTORY,
MAXDATAFILES for the database to use the command.

Oracle Interview Questions

1. How would you determine the time zone under which a database was
operating?
2. Explain the use of setting GLOBAL_NAMES equal to TRUE.
3. What command would you use to encrypt a PL/SQL application?
4. Explain the difference between a FUNCTION, PROCEDURE and PACKAGE.
5. Explain the use of table functions.
6. Name three advisory statistics you can collect.
7. Where in the Oracle directory tree structure are audit traces placed?
8. Explain materialized views and how they are used.

31
9. When a user process fails, what background process cleans up after it?
10. What background process refreshes materialized views?
11. How would you determine what sessions are connected and what resources
they are waiting for?
12. Describe what redo logs are.
13. How would you force a log switch?
14. Give two methods you could use to determine what DDL changes have been
made.
15. What does coalescing a tablespace do?
16. What is the difference between a TEMPORARY tablespace and a PERMANENT
tablespace?
17. Name a tablespace automatically created when you create a database.
18. When creating a user, what permissions must you grant to allow them to connect
to the database?
19. How do you add a data file to a tablespace?
20. How do you resize a data file?
21. What view would you use to look at the size of a data file?
22. What view would you use to determine free space in a tablespace?
23. How would you determine who has added a row to a table?
24. How can you rebuild an index?
25. Explain what partitioning is and what its benefit is.
26. You have just compiled a PL/SQL package but got errors, how would you view
the errors?
27. How can you gather statistics on a table?
28. How can you enable a trace for a session?
29. What is the difference between the SQL*Loader and IMPORT utilities?
30. Name two files used for network connection to a database.

32
Oracle Interview Questions
1. In a system with an average of 40 concurrent users you get the following from a
query on rollback extents:
ROLLBACK CUR EXTENTS

R01 11 R02 8 R03 12 R04 9 SYSTEM 4

2. You have room for each to grow by 20 more extents each. Is there a
problem? Should you take any action
No there is not a problem. You have 40 extents showing and an average of 40
concurrent users. Since there is plenty of room to grow no action is needed.

3. You see multiple extents in the temporary tablespace. Is this a problem

As long as they are all the same size this isn?t a problem. In fact, it can even
improve performance since Oracle won?t have to create a new extent when a user
needs one.

4. Define OFA.
OFA stands for Optimal Flexible Architecture. It is a method of placing directories
and files in an Oracle system so that you get the maximum flexibility for future tuning
and file placement.

5. How do you set up your tablespace on installation

The answer here should show an understanding of separation of redo and rollback,
data and indexes and isolation os SYSTEM tables from other tables. An example
would be to specify that at least 7 disks should be used for an Oracle installation so
that you can place SYSTEM tablespace on one, redo logs on two (mirrored redo
logs) the TEMPORARY tablespace on another, ROLLBACK tablespace on another
and still have two for DATA and INDEXES. They should indicate how they will
handle archive logs and exports as well. As long as they have a logical plan for
combining or further separation more or less disks can be specified.

33
6. What should be done prior to installing Oracle (for the OS and the disks)
adjust kernel parameters or OS tuning parameters in accordance with installation
guide. Be sure enough contiguous disk space is available.

7. You have installed Oracle and you are now setting up the actual instance.
You have been waiting an hour for the initialization script to finish, what
should you check first to determine if there is a problem
Check to make sure that the archiver isn?t stuck. If archive logging is turned on
during install a large number of logs will be created. This can fill up your archive log
destination causing Oracle to stop to wait for more space.

8. When configuring SQLNET on the server what files must be set up

INITIALIZATION file, TNSNAMES.ORA file, SQLNET.ORA file

9. When configuring SQLNET on the client what files need to be set up

SQLNET.ORA, TNSNAMES.ORA

10. What must be installed with ODBC on the client in order for it to work with
Oracle
SQLNET and PROTOCOL (for example: TCPIP adapter) layers of the transport

programs.

General Oracle Questions

 What Oracle products have you worked with?
 What version of Oracle were you running?
 Compare Oracle to any other database that you know. Why would you
prefer to work on one and not on the other?
Oracle DBA Questions
Typical DBA questions:

34
 How many databases and what sizes?
 Did you use online or off-line backups? Why?
 If you have to advise a backup strategy for a new application, how would you
approach it and what questions will you ask?
 If a customer calls you about a hanging database session, what will you do to
resolve it?
 How many control files and redo logs should a database have?

35