Oracle interview questions /Answer Set-2

What is object data type in oracle?

New/User defined objects can be created from any database built in types or by their combinations. It makes it easier to work with complex data like images, media (audio/video). An object types is just an abstraction of the real world entities. An object has:
• Name
• Attributes
• Methods
Example:
Create type MyName as object (first varchar2(20), second varchar2(20));

Now you can use this datatype while defining a table below:

Create table Emp (empno number(5),Name MyName);
One can access the Atributes as Emp.Name.First and Emp.Name.Second



What is composite data type?

Composite data types are also known as Collections .i.e RECORD, TABLE, NESTED TABLE, VARRAY.
Composite data types are of 2 types:
PL/SQL RECORDS
PL/SQL Collections- Table, Varray, Nested Table


Differences between CHAR and NCHAR in Oracle

NCHAR allow storing of Unicode data in the database. One can store Unicode characters regardless of the setting of the database characterset


Differences between CHAR and VARCHAR2 in Oracle

CHAR is used to store fixed length character strings where as Varchar2 can store variable length character strings. However, for performance sake Char is quit faster than Varchar2.
If we have char name[10] and store “abcde”, then 5 bytes will be filled with null values, whereas in case of varchar2 name[10] 5 bytes will be used and other 5 bytes will be freed.


Differences between DATE and TIMESTAMP in Oracle

Date is used to store date and time values including month, day, year, century, hours, minutes and seconds. It fails to provide granularity and order of execution when finding difference between 2 instances (events) having a difference of less than a second between them.
TimeStamp datatype stores everything that Date stores and additionally stores fractional seconds.
Date: 16:05:14
Timestamp: 16:05:14:000

Define CLOB and NCLOB datatypes.

CLOB: Character large object. It is 4GB in length.
NCLOB: National Character large object. It is CLOB datatype for multiple character sets , upto 4GB in length.


What is the BFILE datatypes?

It refers to an external binary file and its size is limited by the operating system.


What is Varrays?

Varrays are one-dimensional, arrays. The maximum length is defined in the declaration itself. These can be only used when you know in advance about the maximum number of items to be stored.
For example: One person can have multiple phone numbers. If we are storing this data in the tables, then we can store multiple phone numbers corresponding to single Name. If we know the maximum number of phone numbers, then we can use Varrays, else we use nested tables.


What is a cursor? What are its types?

Cursor is used to access the access the result set present in the memory. This result set contains the records returned on execution of a query.
They are of 2 types:
1. Explicit
2. Implicit

Oracle interview questions /Answer

Explain the difference between trigger and stored procedure.

Trigger in act which is performed automatically before or after a event occur

Stored procedure is a set of functionality which is executed when it is explicitly invoked.

Explain Row level and statement level trigger.

Row-level: - They get fired once for each row in a table affected by the statements.

Statement: - They get fired once for each triggering statement.

Advantage of a stored procedure over a database trigger

Firing of a stored procedure can be controlled whereas on the other hand trigger will get fired whenever any modification takes place on the table.

What are cascading triggers?

A Trigger that contains statements which cause invoking of other Triggers are known as cascading triggers. Here’s the order of execution of statements in case of cascading triggers:

·         Execute all BEFORE statement triggers that apply to the current statement.

·         Loop for each row affected statement.

·         Execute all BEFORE row triggers that apply to the current statement in the loop.

·         Lock and change row, perform integrity constraints check; release lock.

·         Execute all AFTER row triggers that apply to the current statement.

·         Execute all AFTER statement triggers that apply to the current statement.

What is a JOIN? Explain types of JOIN in oracle.

A JOIN is used to match/equate different fields from 2 or more tables using primary/foreign keys. Output is based on type of Join and what is to be queries i.e. common data between 2 tables, unique data, total data, or mutually exclusive data.

Types of JOINS:

JOIN Type	Example	Description
Simple JOIN	SELECT p.last_name, t.deptName FROM person p, dept t WHERE p.id = t.id;	Find name and department name of students who have been allotted a department
Inner/Equi/Natural JOIN	SELECT * from Emp INNER JOIN Dept WHERE Emp.empid=Dept.empid	Extracts data that meets the JOIN conditions only. A JOIN is by default INNER unless OUTER keyword is specified for an OUTER JOIN.
Outer Join	SELECT distinct * from Emp LEFT OUTER JOIN Dept Where Emp.empid=Dept.empid	It includes non matching rows also unlike Inner Join.
Self JOIN	SELECT a.name,b.name from emp a, emp b WHERE a.id=b.rollNumber	Joining a Table to itself.

Linux interview questions/Answer 2

What is Bash Shell?

Bash is a free shell for UNIX. It is the default shell for most UNIX systems. It has a combination of the C and Korn shell features.  Bash shell is not portable. any Bash-specific feature will not function on a system using the Bourne shell or one of its replacements, unless bash is installed as a secondary shell and the script begins with #!/bin/bash. It supports regular and expressions. When bash script starts, it executes commands of different scripts.

Explain Some Network-Monitoring Tools in Linux: ping, traceroute, tcpdump, ntop

Network monitoring tools are used to monitor the network, systems present on the network, traffic etc.

Ping: Ping command is used to check if the system is in the network or not. To check if the host is operating.

e.g. ping ip_address

When the command is executed, it returns a detailed summary of the host. Packets   sent, received, lost by estimating the round trip time.

Traceroute : the command is used to trace the path taken by the packet across a network. Tracing the path here means finding out the hosts visited by the packet to reach its destination. This information is useful in debugging. Roundtrip time in ms is shown for every visit to a host.

Tcpdump: commonly used to monitor network traffic. Tcdump captures and displays packet headers and matching them against criteria or all. It interprets Boolean operators and accepts host names, ip address, network names as arguments.

Ntop : Network top shows the network usage. It displays summary of network usage by machines on the network in a format as of UNIX top utility. It can also be run in web mode, which allows the display to be browsed with a web browser. It can display network traffic statistics, identify host etc. Interfaces are available to view such information.

Explain file system of linux. The root "/" filesystem, /usr filesystem, /var filesystem, /home filesystem, /proc filesystem.

Root "/" file system: The kernel needs a root file system to mount at start up. The root file system is generally small and should not be changed often as it may interrupt in booting. The root directory usually does not have the critical files. Instead sub directories are created. E.g. /bin (commands needed during bootup), /etc (config files) , /lib(shared libraries).

/usr filesystem : this file system is generally large as it contains the executable files to be shared amongst different machines. Files are usually the ones installed while installing Linux. This makes it possible to update the system from a new version of the distribution, or even a completely new distribution, without having to install all programs again. Sub directories include /bin, /include, /lib, /local (for local executables)

/var filesystem : this file system is specific to local systems. It is called as var because the data keeps changing. The sub directories include /cache/man (A cache for man pages), /games (any variable data belong to games), /lib (files that change), /log (log from different programs), /tmp (for temporary files)

/home filesystem: - this file system differs from host to host. User specific configuration files for applications are stored in the user's home directory in a file. UNIX creates directories for all users directory. E.g /home/my_name. Once the user is logged in ; he is placed in his home directory.

/proc filesystem :  this file system does  not exist on the hard disk.

 It is created by the kernel in its memory to provide information about the system. 

This information is usually about the processes. Contains a hierarchy of special files which

 represent the current state of the kernel .Few of the Directories include /1

 (directory with information about process num 1, where 1 is the identification number),

 /cpuinfo (information about cpu), /devices (information about devices installed), 

/filesystem (file systems configured), /net (information about network protocols),

 /mem (memory usage)

What are the process states in Linux?

Process states in Linux:

Running: Process is either running or ready to run

Interruptible: a Blocked state of a process and waiting for an event or signal from another process

Uninterruptible:-  a blocked state. Process waits for a hardware condition and cannot handle any signal

Stopped: Process is stopped or halted and can be restarted by some other process

Zombie: process terminated, but information is still there in the process table.

What is a zombie? 

Zombie is a process state when the child dies before the parent process. In this case the structural information of the process is still in the process table. Since this process is not alive, it cannot react to signals. Zombie state can finish when the parent dies. All resources of the zombie state process are cleared by the kernel

Explain each system calls used for process management in linux.

System calls used for Process management:

Fork () :- Used to create a new process

Exec() :- Execute a new program

Wait():- wait until the process finishes execution

Exit():- Exit from the process

Getpid():- get the unique process id of the process

Getppid():- get the parent process unique id

Nice():- to bias the existing property of process

Linux interview questions/Answer

What is Kernel? Explain the task it performs. 

Kernel is used in UNIX like systems and is considered to be the heart of the operating system. It is responsible for communication between hardware and software components. It is primarily used for managing the systems resources as well.

Kernel Activities:

The Kernel task manager allows tasks to run concurrently.

Managing the computer resources: Kernel allows the other programs to run and use the resources

Resources include i/o devices, CPU, memory.

Kernel is responsible for Process management. It allows multiple processes to run simultaneously allowing user to multitask.

Kernel has an access to the systems memory and allows the processes to access the memory when required.

Processes may also need to access the devices attached to the system. Kernel assists the processes in doing so.

For the processes to access and make use of these services, system calls are used.

What is Linux Shell? What is Shell Script?

Linux shell is a user interface used for executing the commands. Shell is a program the user uses for executing the commands. In UNIX, any program can be the users shell. Shell categories in Linux are:

Bourne shell compatible, C shell compatible, nontraditional, and historical

A shell script, as the name suggests, is a script written for the shell. Script here means a programming language used to control the application. The shell script allows different commands entered in the shell to be executed. Shell script is easy to debug, quicker as compared to writing big programs. However the execution speed is slow because it launches a new process for every shell command executed. Examples of commands are cp, cn, cd.

What are Pipes? Explain uses of pipes.

A pipe is a chain of processes so that output of one process (stdout) is fed an input (stdin) to another. UNIX shell has a special syntax for creation of pipelines. The commands are written in sequence separated by |. Different filters are used for Pipes like AWK, GREP.

e.g. sort file | lpr ( sort the file and send it to printer)

Uses of Pipe

Several powerful functions can be in a single statement

Streams of processes can be redirected to user specified locations using >

Explain trap command; shift Command, getopts command of linux.

Trap command: controls the action to be taken by the shell when a signal is received.

Trap [OPTIONS] [ [arg] signspec..]

Arg is the action to be taken or executed on receiving a signal specified in signspec.

e.g. trap “rm $FILE; exit” // exit (signal) and remove file (action)

Shift Command:  Using shift command, command line arguments can be accessed. The command causes the positional parameters shift to the left. Shift [n] where n defaults to 1. It is useful when several parameters need to be tested.

Getopts command: this command is used to parse arguments passed. It examines the next command line argument and determines whether it is a valid option

Getopts {optstring} {variable1}. Here, optsring contains letters to be recognized if a letter is followed by a colon, an argument should be specified. E.g (whether the argument begins with a minus sign and is followed by any single letter contained inside options ) If not, diagnostic messages are shown. It is usually executed inside a loop.

What Stateless Linux server? What feature it offers?

A stateless Linux server is a centralized server in which no state exists on the single workstations. There may be scenarios when a state of a partilcuar system is meaningful (A snap shot is taken then) and the user wants all the other machines to be in that state. This is where the stateless Linux server comes into picture.

Features:

It stores the prototypes of every machine

It stores snapshots taken for those systems

It stores home directories for those systems

Uses LDAP containing information of all systems to assist in finding out which snapshot (of state) should be running on which system.

What does nslookup do? Explain its two modes.

Nslookup is used to find details related to a Domain name server. Details like IP addresses of a machine, MX records, servers etc. It sends a domain name query packet to the corresponding DNS.

Nslookup has two modes. Interactive and non interactive. Interactive mode allows the user to interact by querying information about different hosts and domains.

Non interactive mode is used to fetch information about the specified host or domain.

Interactive mode:

Nslookup [options] [server]