RDBMS Concepts

1. What is database?
A database is a logically coherent collection of data with some inherent meaning,
representing some aspect of real world and which is designed, built and populated
with data for a specific purpose.
2. What is DBMS?
It is a collection of programs that enables user to create and maintain a
database. In other words it is general-purpose software that provides the users with
the processes of defining, constructing and manipulating the database for various
applications.

3. What is a Database system?

The database and DBMS software together is called as Database system.

4. Advantages of DBMS?
 Redundancy is controlled.
 Unauthorized access is restricted.
 Providing multiple user interfaces.
 Enforcing integrity constraints.
 Providing backup and recovery.

5. Disadvantage in File Processing System?

 Data redundancy & inconsistency.
 Difficult in accessing data.
 Data isolation.
 Data integrity.
 Concurrent access is not possible.
 Security Problems.

6. Describe the three levels of data abstraction?

There are three levels of abstraction:
 Physical level: The lowest level of abstraction describes how data are stored.
 Logical level: The next higher level of abstraction, describes what data are stored
in database and what relationship among those data.
 View level: The highest level of abstraction describes only part of entire database.

7. Define the "integrity rules"

There are two Integrity rules.
 Entity Integrity: States that “Primary key cannot have NULL value”
 Referential Integrity: States that “Foreign Key can be either a NULL
value or should be Primary Key value of other relation.

8. What is extension and intension?

Extension -
It is the number of tuples present in a table at any instance. This is time
dependent.
Intension -
It is a constant value that gives the name, structure of table and the
constraints laid on it.

9. What is Data Independence?

Data independence means that “the application is independent of the storage
structure and access strategy of data”. In other words, the ability to modify the schema
definition in one level should not affect the schema definition in the next higher level.

Two types of Data Independence:

 Physical Data Independence: Modification in physical level should not
affect the logical level.
 Logical Data Independence: Modification in logical level should affect
the view level.
NOTE: Logical Data Independence is more difficult to achieve

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10. What is a view? How it is related to data independence?
A view may be thought of as a virtual table, that is, a table that does not really
exist in its own right but is instead derived from one or more underlying base table. In
other words, there is no stored file that direct represents the view instead a definition
of view is stored in data dictionary.
Growth and restructuring of base tables is not reflected in views. Thus the
view can insulate users from the effects of restructuring and growth in the database.
Hence accounts for logical data independence.

13. What is Data Model?

A collection of conceptual tools for describing data, data relationships data
semantics and constraints.

14. What is E-R model?

This data model is based on real world that consists of basic objects called
entities and of relationship among these objects. Entities are described in a database
by a set of attributes.

15. What is Object Oriented model?

This model is based on collection of objects. An object contains values stored
in instance variables with in the object. An object also contains bodies of code
that operate on the object. These bodies of code are called methods. Objects that
contain same types of values and the same methods are grouped together into classes.

16. What is an Entity?

It is a 'thing' in the real world with an independent existence.

17. What is an Entity type?

It is a collection (set) of entities that have same attributes.

18. What is an Entity set?

It is a collection of all entities of particular entity type in the database.

19. What is an Extension of entity type?

The collections of entities of a particular entity type are grouped together into
an entity set.

20. What is Weak Entity set?

An entity set may not have sufficient attributes to form a primary key, and its
primary key compromises of its partial key and primary key of its parent entity, then
it is said to be Weak Entity set.

21. What is an attribute?

It is a particular property, which describes the entity.

22. What is a Relation Schema and a Relation?

A relation Schema denoted by R(A1, A2, …, An) is made up of the relation
name R and the list of attributes Ai that it contains. A relation is defined as a set of
tuples. Let r be the relation which contains set tuples (t1, t2, t3, ..., tn). Each tuple is
an ordered list of n-values t=(v1,v2, ..., vn).

23. What is degree of a Relation?

It is the number of attribute of its relation schema.

24. What is Relationship?

It is an association among two or more entities.

25. What is Relationship set?

The collection (or set) of similar relationships.

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26. What is Relationship type?
Relationship type defines a set of associations or a relationship set among a
given set of entity types.

27. What is degree of Relationship type?

It is the number of entity type participating.

25. What is DDL (Data Definition Language)?

A data base schema is specifies by a set of definitions expressed by a special
language called DDL.

26. What is VDL (View Definition Language)?

It specifies user views and their mappings to the conceptual schema.

27. What is SDL (Storage Definition Language)?

This language is to specify the internal schema. This language may specify the
mapping between two schemas.

28. What is DML (Data Manipulation Language)?

This language that enable user to access or manipulate data as organised by
appropriate data model.
 Procedural DML or Low level: DML requires a user to specify what data are
needed and how to get those data.
 Non-Procedural DML or High level: DML requires a user to specify what data
are needed without specifying how to get those data.

31. What is DML Compiler?

It translates DML statements in a query language into low-level instruction
that the query evaluation engine can understand.

32. What is Query evaluation engine?

It executes low-level instruction generated by compiler.

33. What is DDL Interpreter?

It interprets DDL statements and record them in tables containing metadata.

34. What is Record-at-a-time?

The Low level or Procedural DML can specify and retrieve each record from a
set of records. This retrieve of a record is said to be Record-at-a-time.

35. What is Relational Algebra?

It is procedural query language. It consists of a set of operations that take one
or two relations as input and produce a new relation.

36. What is Relational Calculus?

It is an applied predicate calculus specifically tailored for relational databases
proposed by E.F. Codd. E.g. of languages based on it are DSL ALPHA, QUEL.

37. What is normalization?

It is a process of analysing the given relation schemas based on their
Functional Dependencies (FDs) and primary key to achieve the properties
 Minimizing redundancy
 Minimizing insertion, deletion and update anomalies.

38. What is Functional Dependency?

A Functional dependency is denoted by X Y between two sets of attributes
X and Y that are subsets of R specifies a constraint on the possible tuple that can form
a relation state r of R. The constraint is for any two tuples t1 and t2 in r if t1[X] =
t2[X] then they have t1[Y] = t2[Y]. This means the value of X component of a tuple
uniquely determines the value of component Y.

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39. When is a functional dependency F said to be minimal?
 Every dependency in F has a single attribute for its right hand side.
 We cannot replace any dependency X A in F with a dependency Y A where Y
is a proper subset of X and still have a set of dependency that is equivalent to F.
 We cannot remove any dependency from F and still have set of dependency that is
equivalent to F.

40. What is Multivalued dependency?

Multivalued dependency denoted by X Y specified on relation schema R,
where X and Y are both subsets of R, specifies the following constraint on any
relation r of R: if two tuples t1 and t2 exist in r such that t1[X] = t2[X] then t3 and t4
should also exist in r with the following properties
 t3[x] = t4[X] = t1[X] = t2[X]
 t3[Y] = t1[Y] and t4[Y] = t2[Y]
 t3[Z] = t2[Z] and t4[Z] = t1[Z]
where [Z = (R-(X U Y)) ]

41. What is 1 NF (Normal Form)?

The domain of attribute must include only atomic (simple, indivisible) values.

42. What is Fully Functional dependency?

It is based on concept of full functional dependency. A functional dependency
X Y is full functional dependency if removal of any attribute A from X means that
the dependency does not hold any more.

43. What is 2NF?

A relation schema R is in 2NF if it is in 1NF and every non-prime attribute A
in R is fully functionally dependent on primary key.

44. What is 3NF?

A relation schema R is in 3NF if it is in 2NF and for every FD X A either of
the following is true
 X is a Super-key of R.
 A is a prime attribute of R.
In other words, if every non prime attribute is non-transitively dependent on
primary key.

45. What is BCNF (Boyce-Codd Normal Form)?

A relation schema R is in BCNF if it is in 3NF and satisfies additional
constraints that for every FD X A, X must be a candidate key.

46. What is 4NF?

A relation schema R is said to be in 4NF if for every Multivalued dependency
X Y that holds over R, one of following is true
 X is subset or equal to (or) XY = R.
 X is a super key.

47. What is 5NF?

A Relation schema R is said to be 5NF if for every join dependency {R1,
R2, ..., Rn} that holds R, one the following is true
 Ri = R for some i.
 The join dependency is implied by the set of FD, over R in which the left side is
key of R.

51. What is Domain-Key Normal Form?

A relation is said to be in DKNF if all constraints and dependencies that
should hold on the the constraint can be enforced by simply enforcing the domain
constraint and key constraint on the relation.

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52. What are partial, alternate, artificial, compound and natural key?
Partial Key:
It is a set of attributes that can uniquely identify weak entities and that are
related to same owner entity. It is sometime called as Discriminator.
Alternate Key:
All Candidate Keys excluding the Primary Key are known as Alternate
Keys.
Artificial Key:
If no obvious key either stands alone or compound is available, then
the last resort is to simply create a key, by assigning a unique number to each record
or occurrence. Then this is known as developing an artificial key.
Compound Key:
If no single data element uniquely identifies occurrences within a
construct, then combining multiple elements to create a unique identifier for the
construct is known as creating a compound key.
Natural Key:
When one of the data elements stored within a construct is utilized as
the primary key, then it is called the natural key.

53. What is join dependency and inclusion dependency?

Join Dependency:
A Join dependency is generalization of Multivalued
dependency.A JD {R1, R2, ..., Rn} is said to hold over a relation R if R1, R2, R3, ...,
Rn is a lossless-join decomposition of R . There is no set of sound and complete
inference rules for JD.
Inclusion Dependency:
An Inclusion Dependency is a statement of the form that some
columns of a relation are contained in other columns. A foreign key constraint is an
example of inclusion dependency.

54. What do you mean by atomicity and aggregation?

Atomicity:
Either all actions are carried out or none are. Users should not have to
worry about the effect of incomplete transactions. DBMS ensures this by undoing the
actions of incomplete transactions.
Aggregation:
A concept which is used to model a relationship between a collection
of entities and relationships. It is used when we need to express a relationship among
relationships.

55. What is a Deadlock?

In distributed deadlock detection, the delay in propagating local information
might cause the deadlock detection algorithms to identify deadlocks that do not really
exist. Such situations are called phantom deadlocks and they lead to unnecessary
aborts.

56. What is a checkpoint and when does it occur?

A Checkpoint is like a snapshot of the DBMS state. By taking checkpoints,
the DBMS can reduce the amount of work to be done during restart in the event of
subsequent crashes.

57. What are the different phases of transaction?

Different phases are
 Analysis phase
 Redo Phase
 Undo phase

58. What do you mean by flat file database?

It is a database in which there are no programs or user access languages. It has
no cross-file capabilities but is user-friendly and provides user-interface management.

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59. Brief theory of Network, Hierarchical schemas and their properties
Network schema uses a graph data structure to organize records example for
such a database management system is CTCG while a hierarchical schema uses a tree
data structure example for such a system is IMS.

60. What is a query?

A query with respect to DBMS relates to user commands that are used to
interact with a data base. The query language can be classified into data definition
language and data manipulation language.

61. What are the unary operations in Relational Algebra?

PROJECTION and SELECTION.

62. Are the resulting relations of PRODUCT and JOIN operation the same?
No.
PRODUCT: Concatenation of every row in one relation with every row in
another.
JOIN: Concatenation of rows from one relation and related rows from another.

63. Which part of the RDBMS takes care of the data dictionary? How
Data dictionary is a set of tables and database objects that is stored in a special
area of the database and maintained exclusively by the kernel.

64. What is the job of the information stored in data-dictionary?

The information in the data dictionary validates the existence of the objects,
provides access to them, and maps the actual physical storage location.

65. Not only RDBMS takes care of locating data it also

determines an optimal access path to store or retrieve the data

66. How do you communicate with an RDBMS?

You communicate with an RDBMS using Structured Query Language (SQL)

67. Define SQL and state the differences between SQL and other conventional
programming Languages
SQL is a nonprocedural language that is designed specifically for data access
operations on normalized relational database structures. The primary difference
between SQL and other conventional programming languages is that SQL statements
specify what data operations should be performed rather than how to perform them.

68. What is database Trigger?

A database trigger is a PL/SQL block that can defined to automatically
execute for insert, update, and delete statements against a table. The trigger can e
defined to execute once for the entire statement or once for every row that is inserted,
updated, or deleted. For any one table, there are twelve events for which you can
define database triggers. A database trigger can call database procedures that are also
written in PL/SQL.

69. In mapping of ERD to DFD

a) entities in ERD should correspond to an existing entity/store in DFD
b) entity in DFD is converted to attributes of an entity in ERD
c) relations in ERD has 1 to 1 correspondence to processes in DFD
d) relationships in ERD has 1 to 1 correspondence to flows in DFD

(a) entities in ERD should correspond to an existing entity/store in DFD

70. A dominant entity is the entity

a) on the N side in a 1 : N relationship
b) on the 1 side in a 1 : N relationship

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 c) on either side in a 1 : 1 relationship
d) nothing to do with 1 : 1 or 1 : N relationship

(b) on the 1 side in a 1 : N relationship

71. What is Storage Manager?

It is a program module that provides the interface between the low-level data
stored in database, application programs and queries submitted to the system.

72. What is Buffer Manager?

It is a program module, which is responsible for fetching data from disk
storage into main memory and deciding what data to be cache in memory.

73. What is Transaction Manager?

It is a program module, which ensures that database, remains in a consistent
state despite system failures and concurrent transaction execution proceeds without
conflicting.

74. What is File Manager?

It is a program module, which manages the allocation of space on disk storage
and data structure used to represent information stored on a disk.

75. What is Authorization and Integrity manager?

It is the program module, which tests for the satisfaction of integrity constraint
and checks the authority of user to access data.

76. What are Armstrong rules? How do we say that they are complete and/or sound
The well-known inference rules for FDs
 Reflexive rule :
If Y is subset or equal to X then X Y.
 Augmentation rule:
If X Y then XZ YZ.
 Transitive rule:
If {X Y, Y Z} then X Z.
 Decomposition rule :
If X YZ then X Y.
 Union or Additive rule:
If {X Y, X Z} then X YZ.
 Pseudo Transitive rule :
If {X Y, WY Z} then WX Z.
Of these the first three are known as Armstrong Rules. They are sound
because it is enough if a set of FDs satisfy these three. They are called complete
because using these three rules we can generate the rest all inference rules.

77. What command is used to get back the privileges offered by the GRANT
command?
REVOKE

78. What is the difference between TRUNCATE and DELETE commands?

TRUNCATE is a DDL command whereas DELETE is a DML command.
Hence DELETE operation can be rolled back, but TRUNCATE operation cannot be
rolled back. WHERE clause can be used with DELETE and not with TRUNCATE.