DB面试题集

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), Doesn’t perform automatic commit

Q:	What are the Large object types suported by Oracle?
A:	Blob and Clob.

 

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.

 

 

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.

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.