More Oracle Interview Questions : SQL and PL/SQL

I can say Oracle database is a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get. The more I learn about it, the more there is to learn. It's getting so much better with each new release too. See what Oracle 10g has to give us.. recycle bin, flashback queries, regular expressions ... to name a few. It's intriguing and interesting. Many people found my previous hub on PL/SQL very useful. This hub additionally has questions in SQL along with PL/SQL. Some of these are job interview questions while some others are just interesting information ( which of course could be asked in interviews too ), if you want to be an Oracle developer. The answers that I provided are only for reference and are open to correction.

What does Opening a cursor do ?

- It executes the query and identifies the Result set

What does Fetching a cursor do ?

- It reads the Result Set row by row.

What does Closing a cursor do ?

- It clears the private SQL area and de-allocates the memory.

What are Cursor Variables ?

- Also called REF CURSORS.

- They are not tied to a single SQL. They point to any SQL area dynamically.

- Advantage is : You can declare variables at Client side and open them Server side. You can thus centralize data retrieval.

Why use Cursor Variables?

- You can pass cursor RESULT SETS between PL/SQL stored programs and clients.

What are SQLCODE and SQLERRM ?

- Oracle Error code and detailed error message

- They are actually functions with no arguments, that can be used only in procedural statements ( not SQL)

What are Pseudocolumns ?

- They are not actual columns. They are like Functions without arguments.

- They typically give a different value for each row.

- Examples: ROWNUM, NEXTVAL, ROWID, VERSION_STARTTIME

Why use Truncate over Delete while deleting all rows ?

- Truncate is efficient. Triggers are not fired.

- It deallocates space (Unless REUSE STORAGE is given).

What is a ROWID composed of ?

- It's a hexadecimal string representing the address of a row. Prior to Oracle 8, it's a restricted rowid comprising block.row.file. Extended rowid ( the default on higher releases) comprises data object number as well ( comprising the segment number ).

What is the use of a ROWID ?

- Retrieve data faster with ROWID.

- Shows you the physical arrangement of rows in the table.

- Also unique identifier for each row.

Can rows from two different tables have the same ROWID?

- Possible, if they are in a Cluster

What is ROWNUM and ROW_NUMBER ?

- ROWNUM is a pseudocolumn which is the number assigned to each row retrieved.

- ROW_NUMBER is an analytic function which does something similar, but has all the capabilities of PARTITION BY and ORDER BY clauses..

What is an inline view?

- It's not a schema object

- It's a subquery in the FROM clause with an alias that can be used as a view within the SQL statement.

What are Nested and Correlated subqueries ?

- The subquery used in WHERE clause is a nested subquery.

- If this subquery refers to any column in the parent statement, it becomes a correlated subquery.

How do you retrieve a dropped table in 10g?

- FLASHBACK table <tabname> to BEFORE DROP

What are PSPs?

- PL/SQL Server Pages. Web pages developed in PL/SQL

What is an index-organized table?

- The physical arrangement of rows of this table changes with the indexed column.

- It's. in-short, a table stored like an index itself.

What is an implicit cursor?

- Oracle opens an implicit cursor to process each SQL statement not associated with an explicit cursor.

Name a few implicit cursor attributes.

- %FOUND, %ROWCOUNT, %NOTFOUND, %ISOPEN, %BULK_ROWCOUNT, %BULK_EXCEPTIONS

That's from me now.

COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS ARE WELCOME !