Points to remember Interview question

• One of the first questions asked during interview is “Can you say something about yourself ”?
• Can you describe about your self and what you have achieved till now?
• Why do you want to leave the current company?
• Where do you see yourself after three years?
• What are your positive and negative points?
• How much do you rate yourself in the technology you are appearing for the interview in one out of ten?
• Are you looking for onsite opportunities? (Be careful do not show your desperation of abroad journeys)
• Why have you changed so many jobs? (Prepare a decent answer do not blame companies and individuals for your frequent change).
• Never talk for more than 1 minute straight during interview.
• Have you worked with previous version of SQL Server?
• Would you be interested in a full time Database administrator job?
• Do not mention client names in resume. If asked say that it’s confidential which brings ahead qualities like honesty
• When you make your resume keep your recent projects at the top.
• Find out what the employer is looking for by asking him questions at the start of interview and best is before going to interview. Example if a company has projects on server products employer will be looking for BizTalk, CS CMS experts.
• Can you give brief about your family background?
• As you are fresher do you think you can really do this job?
• Have you heard about our company ? Say five points about our company? Just read at least once what company you are going for?
• Can you describe your best project you have worked with?
• Do you work on Saturday and Sunday?
• Which is the biggest team size you have worked with?
• Can you describe your current project you have worked with?
• How much time will you need to join our organization? What’s notice period for your current company?
• What certifications have you cleared?
• Do you have pass port size photos, last year mark sheet, previous companies employment letter, last months salary slip, pass port and other necessary documents.
• What is the most important thing that motivates you?
• Why you want to leave the previous organization?
• Which type of job gives you greatest satisfaction?
• What is the type of environment you are looking for?
• Do you have experience in project management?
• Do you like to work as a team or as individual?
• Describe your best project manager you have worked with?
• Why should I hire you?
• Have you been ever fired or forced to resign?
• Can you explain some important points that you have learnt from your past project experiences ?
• Have you gone through some unsuccessful projects, if yes can you explain why did the project fail?
• Will you be comfortable with location shift? If you have personal problems say no right at the first stage.... or else within two months you have to read my book again.
• Do you work late nights? Best answer if there is project deadline yes. Do not show that it’s your culture to work during nights.
• Any special achievements in your life till now...tell your best project which you have done best in your career.
• Any plans of opening your own software company...Beware do not start pouring your bill gate’s dream to him.....can create a wrong impression.

Database Interview question

What is RDBMS?

Relational Data Base Management Systems (RDBMS) are database management systems that maintain data records and indices in tables. Relationships may be created and maintained across and among the data and tables. In a relational database, relationships between data items are expressed by means of tables. Interdependencies among these tables are expressed by data values rather than by pointers.
This allows a high degree of data independence. An RDBMS has the capability to recombine the data items from different files, providing powerful tools for data usage.

What is normalization?

Database normalization is a data design and organization process applied to data structures based on rules that help build relational databases. In relational database design, the process of organizing data to minimize redundancy. Normalization usually involves dividing a database into two or more tables and defining relationships between the tables. The objective is to isolate data so that additions, deletions, and modifications of a field can be made in just one table and then propagated through the rest of the database via the defined relationships.

What are different normalization forms?
1NF: Eliminate Repeating Groups
Make a separate table for each set of related attributes, and give each table a primary key. Each field contains at most one value from its attribute domain.
2NF: Eliminate Redundant Data
If an attribute depends on only part of a multi-valued key, remove it to a separate table.
3NF: Eliminate Columns Not Dependent On Key
If attributes do not contribute to a description of the key, remove them to a separate table. All attributes must be directly dependent on the primary key
BCNF: Boyce-Codd Normal Form
If there are non-trivial dependencies between candidate key attributes, separate them out into distinct tables.
4NF: Isolate Independent Multiple Relationships
No table may contain two or more 1:n or n:m relationships that are not directly related.
5NF: Isolate Semantically Related Multiple Relationships
There may be practical constrains on information that justify separating logically related many-to-many relationships.
ONF: Optimal Normal Form
A model limited to only simple (elemental) facts, as expressed in Object Role Model notation.
DKNF: Domain-Key Normal Form A model free from all modification anomalies.
Remember, these normalization guidelines are cumulative. For a database to be in 3NF, it must first fulfill all the criteria of a 2NF and 1NF database.
What is Stored Procedure?
A stored procedure is a named group of SQL statements that have been previously created and stored in the server database. Stored procedures accept input parameters so that a single procedure can be used over the network by several clients using different input data. And when the procedure is
modified, all clients automatically get the new version. Stored procedures reduce network traffic and improve performance. Stored procedures can be used to help ensure the integrity of the database.
e.g. sp_helpdb, sp_renamedb, sp_depends etc.

What is Trigger?
A trigger is a SQL procedure that initiates an action when an event (INSERT, DELETE or UPDATE) occurs. Triggers are stored in and managed by the DBMS.Triggers are used to maintain the referential integrity of data by changing the data in a systematic fashion. A trigger cannot be called or executed;
the DBMS automatically fires the trigger as a result of a data modification to the associated table.
Triggers can be viewed as similar to stored procedures in that both consist of procedural logic that is stored at the database level. Stored procedures, however, are not event-drive and are not attached to a
specific table as triggers are. Stored procedures are explicitly executed by invoking a CALL to the procedure while triggers are implicitly executed. In addition, triggers can also execute stored procedures.
Nested Trigger: A trigger can also contain INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE logic within itself, so when the trigger is fired because of data modification it can also cause another data modification, thereby firing another trigger. A trigger that contains data modification logic within itself is called a nested trigger.

What is View?
A simple view can be thought of as a subset of a table. It can be used for retrieving data, as well as updating or deleting rows. Rows updated or deleted in the view are updated or deleted in the table the view was created with. It should also be noted that as data in the original table changes, so does data in the view, as views are the way to look at part of the original table. The results of using a view are not permanently stored in the database. The data accessed through a view is actually constructed using standard T-SQL select command and can come from one to many different base tables or even other views.

What is Index?
An index is a physical structure containing pointers to the data. Indices are created in an existing table to locate rows more quickly and efficiently. It is possible to create an index on one or more columns of a table, and each index is given a name. The users cannot see the indexes, they are just used to speed up queries. Effective indexes are one of the best ways to improve performance in a database application. A table scan happens when there is no index available to help a query. In a table scan SQL Server examines every row in the table to satisfy the query results. Table scans are sometimes unavoidable, but on large tables, scans have a terrific impact on performance.
Clustered indexes define the physical sorting of a database table’s rows in the storage media. For this reason, each database table may have only one clustered index.
Non-clustered indexes are created outside of the database table and contain a sorted list of references to the table itself.

What is the difference between clustered and a non-clustered index?
A clustered index is a special type of index that reorders the way records in the table are physically stored. Therefore table can have only one clustered index. The leaf nodes of a clustered index contain the data pages.
A nonclustered index is a special type of index in which the logical order of the index does not match the physical stored order of the rows on disk. The leaf node of a nonclustered index does not consist of the data pages. Instead, the leaf nodes contain index rows.

What are the different index configurations a table can have?
A table can have one of the following index configurations:
No indexes
A clustered index
A clustered index and many nonclustered indexes
A nonclustered index
Many nonclustered indexes

What is cursors?
Cursor is a database object used by applications to manipulate data in a set on a row-by-row basis,
instead of the typical SQL commands that operate on all the rows in the set at one time.
In order to work with a cursor we need to perform some steps in the following order:
Declare cursor
Open cursor
Fetch row from the cursor
Process fetched row
Close cursor
Deallocate cursor

What is the use of DBCC commands?
DBCC stands for database consistency checker. We use these commands to check the consistency of the databases, i.e., maintenance, validation task and status checks. E.g. DBCC CHECKDB - Ensures that tables in the db and the indexes are correctly linked.
DBCC CHECKALLOC - To check that all pages in a db are correctly allocated.
DBCC CHECKFILEGROUP - Checks all tables file group for any damage.

What is a Linked Server?
Linked Servers is a concept in SQL Server by which we can add other SQL Server to a Group and query both the SQL Server dbs using T-SQL Statements. With a linked server, you can create very clean, easy to follow, SQL statements that allow remote data to be retrieved, joined and combined with local data.
Storped Procedure sp_addlinkedserver, sp_addlinkedsrvlogin will be used add new Linked Server.

What is Collation?
Collation refers to a set of rules that determine how data is sorted and compared. Character data is sorted using rules that define the correct character sequence, with options for specifying casesensitivity, accent marks, kana character types and character width.

What are different type of Collation Sensitivity?
Case sensitivity
A and a, B and b, etc.
Accent sensitivity
a and á, o and ó, etc.
Kana Sensitivity
When Japanese kana characters Hiragana and Katakana are treated differently, it is called Kana sensitive.
Width sensitivity
When a single-byte character (half-width) and the same character when represented as a double-byte character (full-width) are treated differently then it is width sensitive.

What's the difference between a primary key and a unique key?
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.

How to implement one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-many relationships while designing tables?
One-to-One relationship can be implemented as a single table and rarely as two tables with primary and foreign key relationships.
One-to-Many relationships are implemented by splitting the data into two tables with primary key and foreign key relationships.
Many-to-Many relationships are implemented using a junction table with the keys from both the tables forming the composite primary key of the junction table.

What is a NOLOCK?
Using the NOLOCK query optimizer hint is generally considered good practice in order to improve concurrency on a busy system. When the NOLOCK hint is included in a SELECT statement, no locks are taken when data is read. The result is a Dirty Read, which means that another process could be updating the data at the exact time you are reading it. There are no guarantees that your query will retrieve the most recent data. The advantage to performance is that your reading of data will not block updates from taking place, and updates will not block your reading of data. SELECT statements take Shared (Read) locks. This means that multiple SELECT statements are allowed simultaneous access, but other processes are blocked from modifying the data. The updates will queue until all the reads have completed, and reads requested after the update will wait for the updates to complete. The result to
your system is delay(blocking).

What is difference between DELETE & TRUNCATE commands?
Delete command removes the rows from a table based on the condition that we provide with a WHERE clause. Truncate will actually remove all the rows from a table and there will be no data in the table after we run the truncate command.

TRUNCATE
TRUNCATE is faster and uses fewer system and transaction log resources than DELETE.
TRUNCATE removes the data by deallocating the data pages used to store the table’s data, and only the page deallocations are recorded in the transaction log.
TRUNCATE removes all rows from a table, but the table structure and its columns, constraints, indexes
and so on remain. The counter used by an identity for new rows is reset to the seed for the column.
You cannot use TRUNCATE TABLE on a table referenced by a FOREIGN KEY constraint.
Because TRUNCATE TABLE is not logged, it cannot activate a trigger.
TRUNCATE can not be Rolled back.
TRUNCATE is DDL Command.
TRUNCATE Resets identity of the table.
DELETE
DELETE removes rows one at a time and records an entry in the transaction log for each deleted row.
If you want to retain the identity counter, use DELETE instead. If you want to remove table definition
and its data, use the DROP TABLE statement.
DELETE Can be used with or without a WHERE clause
DELETE Activates Triggers.
DELETE Can be Rolled back.
DELETE is DML Command.
DELETE does not reset identity of the table.
Difference between Function and Stored Procedure?
UDF can be used in the SQL statements anywhere in the WHERE/HAVING/SELECT section where as Stored procedures cannot be.
UDFs that return tables can be treated as another rowset. This can be used in JOINs with other tables.
Inline UDF's can be though of as views that take parameters and can be used in JOINs and other Rowset operations.
When is the use of UPDATE_STATISTICS command?
This command is basically used when a large processing of data has occurred. If a large amount of deletions any modification or Bulk Copy into the tables has occurred, it has to update the indexes to take these changes into account. UPDATE_STATISTICS updates the indexes on these tables
accordingly.
What types of Joins are possible with Sql Server?
Joins are used in queries to explain how different tables are related. Joins also let you select data from a table depending upon data from another table.
Types of joins: INNER JOINs, OUTER JOINs, CROSS JOINs. OUTER JOINs are further classified as LEFT OUTER JOINS, RIGHT OUTER JOINS and FULL OUTER JOINS.

What is the difference between a HAVING CLAUSE and a WHERE CLAUSE?
Specifies a search condition for a group or an aggregate. HAVING can be used only with the SELECT statement. HAVING is typically used in a GROUP BY clause. When GROUP BY is not used, HAVING behaves like a WHERE clause. Having Clause is basically used only with the GROUP BY function in a query. WHERE Clause is applied to each row before they are part of the GROUP BY function in a query.

What is sub-query? Explain properties of sub-query.
Sub-queries are often referred to as sub-selects, as they allow a SELECT statement to be executed arbitrarily within the body of another SQL statement. A sub-query is executed by enclosing it in a set of parentheses. Sub-queries are generally used to return a single row as an atomic value, though they may be used to compare values against multiple rows with the IN keyword.
A subquery is a SELECT statement that is nested within another T-SQL statement. A subquery SELECT statement if executed independently of the T-SQL statement, in which it is nested, will return a result set. Meaning a subquery SELECT statement can standalone and is not depended on the statement in which it is nested. A subquery SELECT statement can return any number of values, and can be found in, the column list of a SELECT statement, a FROM, GROUP BY, HAVING, and/or ORDER BY clauses of a T-SQL statement. A Subquery can also be used as a parameter to a function call. Basically a subquery can be used anywhere an expression can be used.

Properties of Sub-Query
A subquery must be enclosed in the parenthesis.
A subquery must be put in the right hand of the comparison operator, and
A subquery cannot contain a ORDER-BY clause.
A query can contain more than one sub-queries.
What are types of sub-queries?
Single-row subquery, where the subquery returns only one row.
Multiple-row subquery, where the subquery returns multiple rows,.and
Multiple column subquery, where the subquery returns multiple columns.

What is SQL Profiler?
SQL Profiler is a graphical tool that allows system administrators to monitor events in an instance of Microsoft SQL Server. You can capture and save data about each event to a file or SQL Server table to analyze later. For example, you can monitor a production environment to see which stored procedures are hampering performance by executing too slowly.
Use SQL Profiler to monitor only the events in which you are interested. If traces are becoming too large, you can filter them based on the information you want, so that only a subset of the event data is collected. Monitoring too many events adds overhead to the server and the monitoring process and can cause the trace file or trace table to grow very large, especially when the monitoring process takes place over a long period of time.

What is User Defined Functions?
User-Defined Functions allow to define its own T-SQL functions that can accept 0 or more parameters and return a single scalar data value or a table data type.
What kind of User-Defined Functions can be created?
There are three types of User-Defined functions in SQL Server 2000 and they are Scalar, Inline Table-
Valued and Multi-statement Table-valued.
Scalar User-Defined Function
A Scalar user-defined function returns one of the scalar data types. Text, ntext, image and timestamp data types are not supported. These are the type of user-defined functions that most developers are used to in other programming languages. You pass in 0 to many parameters and you get a return value.
Inline Table-Value User-Defined Function
An Inline Table-Value user-defined function returns a table data type and is an exceptional alternative to a view as the user-defined function can pass parameters into a T-SQL select command and in essence provide us with a parameterized, non-updateable view of the underlying tables.
Multi-statement Table-Value User-Defined Function
A Multi-Statement Table-Value user-defined function returns a table and is also an exceptional alternative to a view as the function can support multiple T-SQL statements to build the final result where the view is limited to a single SELECT statement. Also, the ability to pass parameters into a TSQL select command or a group of them gives us the capability to in essence create a parameterized,
non-updateable view of the data in the underlying tables. Within the create function command you must define the table structure that is being returned. After creating this type of user-defined function,
It can be used in the FROM clause of a T-SQL command unlike the behavior found when using a stored procedure which can also return record sets.
Which TCP/IP port does SQL Server run on? How can it be changed?
SQL Server runs on port 1433. It can be changed from the Network Utility TCP/IP properties –> Port number. both on client and the server.
What are the authentication modes in SQL Server? How can it be changed?
Windows mode and mixed mode (SQL & Windows).
To change authentication mode in SQL Server click Start, Programs, Microsoft SQL Server and click SQL Enterprise Manager to run SQL Enterprise Manager from the Microsoft SQL Server program group.
Select the server then from the Tools menu select SQL Server Configuration Properties, and choose the Security page.

Where are SQL server users names and passwords are stored in sql server?
They get stored in master db in the sysxlogins table.

Which command using Query Analyzer will give you the version of SQL server and operating system?

SELECT SERVERPROPERTY('productversion'), SERVERPROPERTY ('productlevel'), SERVERPROPERTY('edition')

What is SQL server agent?
SQL Server agent plays an important role in the day-to-day tasks of a database administrator (DBA). It is often overlooked as one of the main tools for SQL Server management. Its purpose is to ease the implementation of tasks for the DBA, with its full-function scheduling engine, which allows you to schedule your own jobs and scripts.

Can a stored procedure call itself or recursive stored procedure? How many level SP nesting possible?
Yes. Because Transact-SQL supports recursion, you can write stored procedures that call themselves. Recursion can be defined as a method of problem solving wherein the solution is arrived at by repetitively applying it to subsets of the problem. A common application of recursive logic is to perform numeric computations that lend themselves to repetitive evaluation by the same processing steps.
Stored procedures are nested when one stored procedure calls another or executes managed code by referencing a CLR routine, type, or aggregate. You can nest stored procedures and managed code references up to 32 levels.

What is @@ERROR?
The @@ERROR automatic variable returns the error code of the last Transact-SQL statement. If there was no error, @@ERROR returns zero. Because @@ERROR is reset after each Transact-SQL statement,it must be saved to a variable if it is needed to process it further after checking it.

What is Raiseerror?
Stored procedures report errors to client applications via the RAISERROR command. RAISERROR doesn't change the flow of a procedure; it merely displays an error message, sets the @@ERROR automatic variable, and optionally writes the message to the SQL Server error log and the NT application event log.

What is log shipping?
Log shipping is the process of automating the backup of database and transaction log files on a production SQL server, and then restoring them onto a standby server. Enterprise Editions only supports log shipping. In log shipping the transactional log file from one server is automatically updated into the backup database on the other server. If one server fails, the other server will have the same db can be used this as the Disaster Recovery plan. The key feature of log shipping is that is will automatically backup transaction logs throughout the day and automatically restores them on the standby server at defined interval.

What is the difference between a local and a global variable?
A local temporary table exists only for the duration of a connection or, if defined inside a compound statement, for the duration of the compound statement.
A global temporary table remains in the database permanently, but the rows exist only within a given connection. When connection is closed, the data in the global temporary table disappears. However, the table definition remains with the database for access when database is opened next time.

What command do we use to rename a db?
sp_renamedb ‘oldname’ , ‘newname’
If someone is using db it will not accept sp_renmaedb. In that case first bring db to single user using sp_dboptions. Use sp_renamedb to rename database. Use sp_dboptions to bring database to multi user mode.

What is sp_configure commands and set commands?
Use sp_configure to display or change server-level settings. To change database-level settings, use ALTER DATABASE. To change settings that affect only the current user session, use the SET statement.

What are the different types of replication? Explain.
The SQL Server 2000-supported replication types are as follows:
Transactional
Snapshot
Merge
Snapshot replication distributes data exactly as it appears at a specific moment in time and does not monitor for updates to the data. Snapshot replication is best used as a method for replicating data that changes infrequently or where the most up-to-date values (low latency) are not a requirement. When synchronization occurs, the entire snapshot is generated and sent to Subscribers.
Transactional replication, an initial snapshot of data is applied at Subscribers, and then when data modifications are made at the Publisher, the individual transactions are captured and propagated to Subscribers.
Merge replication is the process of distributing data from Publisher to Subscribers, allowing the Publisher and Subscribers to make updates while connected or disconnected, and then merging the updates between sites when they are connected.

What are the OS services that the SQL Server installation adds?
MS SQL SERVER SERVICE, SQL AGENT SERVICE, DTC (Distribution transac co-ordinator)

What are three SQL keywords used to change or set someone’s permissions?
GRANT, DENY, and REVOKE.
What does it mean to have quoted_identifier on? What are the implications of having it off?
When SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER is ON, identifiers can be delimited by double quotation marks, and literals must be delimited by single quotation marks. When SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER is OFF, identifiers cannot be quoted and must follow all Transact-SQL rules for identifiers.

What is the STUFF function and how does it differ from the REPLACE function?
STUFF function to overwrite existing characters. Using this syntax, STUFF(string_expression, start, length, replacement_characters), string_expression is the string that will have characters substituted, start is the starting position, length is the number of characters in the string that are substituted, and replacement_characters are the new characters interjected into the string.

REPLACE function to replace existing characters of all occurance. Using this syntax
REPLACE(string_expression, search_string, replacement_string), where every incidence of search_string found in the string_expression will be replaced with replacement_string.

Using query analyzer, name 3 ways to get an accurate count of the number of records in a table?
SELECT * FROM table1
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM table1
SELECT rows FROM sysindexes WHERE id = OBJECT_ID(table1) AND indid < 2

How to rebuild Master Database?
Shutdown Microsoft SQL Server 2000, and then run Rebuildm.exe. This is located in the Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\80\Tools\Binn directory.
In the Rebuild Master dialog box, click Browse.
In the Browse for Folder dialog box, select the \Data folder on the SQL Server 2000 compact disc or in the shared network directory from which SQL Server 2000 was installed, and then click OK.
Click Settings. In the Collation Settings dialog box, verify or change settings used for the master database and all other databases.
Initially, the default collation settings are shown, but these may not match the collation selected during setup. You can select the same settings used during setup or select new collation settings. When done,
click OK.
In the Rebuild Master dialog box, click Rebuild to start the process.
The Rebuild Master utility reinstalls the master database.
To continue, you may need to stop a server that is running.
Source: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa197950(SQL.80).aspx
What is the basic functions for master, msdb, model, tempdb databases?
The Master database holds information for all databases located on the SQL Server instance and is the glue that holds the engine together. Because SQL Server cannot start without a functioning master database, you must administer this database with care.
The msdb database stores information regarding database backups, SQL Agent information, DTS packages, SQL Server jobs, and some replication information such as for log shipping.
The tempdb holds temporary objects such as global and local temporary tables and stored procedures.
The model is essentially a template database used in the creation of any new user database created in the instance.

What are primary keys and foreign keys?
Primary keys are the unique identifiers for each row. They must contain unique values and cannot be null. Due to their importance in relational databases, Primary keys are the most fundamental of all keys and constraints. A table can have only one Primary key.
Foreign keys are both a method of ensuring data integrity and a manifestation of the relationship between tables.

What is data integrity? Explain constraints?
Data integrity is an important feature in SQL Server. When used properly, it ensures that data is accurate, correct, and valid. It also acts as a trap for otherwise undetectable bugs within applications.
A PRIMARY KEY constraint is a unique identifier for a row within a database table. Every table should have a primary key constraint to uniquely identify each row and only one primary key constraint can be created for each table. The primary key constraints are used to enforce entity integrity.
A UNIQUE constraint enforces the uniqueness of the values in a set of columns, so no duplicate values are entered. The unique key constraints are used to enforce entity integrity as the primary key constraints.
A FOREIGN KEY constraint prevents any actions that would destroy links between tables with the corresponding data values. A foreign key in one table points to a primary key in another table. Foreign keys prevent actions that would leave rows with foreign key values when there are no primary keys with that value. The foreign key constraints are used to enforce referential integrity.
A CHECK constraint is used to limit the values that can be placed in a column. The check constraints are used to enforce domain integrity.
A NOT NULL constraint enforces that the column will not accept null values. The not null constraints are used to enforce domain integrity, as the check constraints.
What are the properties of the Relational tables?
Relational tables have six properties:
Values are atomic.
Column values are of the same kind.
Each row is unique.
The sequence of columns is insignificant.
The sequence of rows is insignificant.
Each column must have a unique name.
What is De-normalization?
De-normalization is the process of attempting to optimize the performance of a database by adding redundant data. It is sometimes necessary because current DBMSs implement the relational model poorly. A true relational DBMS would allow for a fully normalized database at the logical level, while providing physical storage of data that is tuned for high performance. De-normalization is a technique to move from higher to lower normal forms of database modeling in order to speed up database access.
How to get @@error and @@rowcount at the same time?
If @@Rowcount is checked after Error checking statement then it will have 0 as the value of @@Recordcount as it would have been reset.
And if @@Recordcount is checked before the error-checking statement then @@Error would get reset.
To get @@error and @@rowcount at the same time do both in same statement and store them in local variable. SELECT @RC = @@ROWCOUNT, @ER = @@ERROR

What is Identity?
Identity (or AutoNumber) is a column that automatically generates numeric values. A start and increment value can be set, but most DBA leave these at 1. A GUID column also generates numbers, the value of this cannot be controled. Identity/GUID columns do not need to be indexed.

What is a Scheduled Jobs or What is a Scheduled Tasks?
Scheduled tasks let user automate processes that run on regular or predictable cycles. User can schedule administrative tasks, such as cube processing, to run during times of slow business activity.
User can also determine the order in which tasks run by creating job steps within a SQL Server Agent job. E.g. Back up database, Update Stats of Tables. Job steps give user control over flow of execution.
If one job fails, user can configure SQL Server Agent to continue to run the remaining tasks or to stop execution.

What is a table called, if it does not have neither Cluster nor Non-cluster Index? What is it used for?
Unindexed table or Heap. Microsoft Press Books and Book On Line (BOL) refers it as Heap.
A heap is a table that does not have a clustered index and, therefore, the pages are not linked by pointers. The IAM pages are the only structures that link the pages in a table together.
Unindexed tables are good for fast storing of data. Many times it is better to drop all indexes from table and than do bulk of inserts and to restore those indexes after that.

What is BCP? When does it used?
BulkCopy is a tool used to copy huge amount of data from tables and views. BCP does not copy the structures same as source to destination.
How do you load large data to the SQL server database?
BulkCopy is a tool used to copy huge amount of data from tables. BULK INSERT command helps to Imports a data file into a database table or view in a user-specified format.

Can we rewrite subqueries into simple select statements or with joins?
Subqueries can often be re-written to use a standard outer join, resulting in faster performance. As we may know, an outer join uses the plus sign (+) operator to tell the database to return all non-matching rows with NULL values. Hence we combine the outer join with a NULL test in the WHERE clause to reproduce the result set without using a sub-query.

Can SQL Servers linked to other servers like Oracle?
SQL Server can be lined to any server provided it has OLE-DB provider from Microsoft to allow a link.
E.g. Oracle has a OLE-DB provider for oracle that Microsoft provides to add it as linked server to SQL Server group.




How to know which index a table is using?
SELECT table_name,index_name FROM user_constraints
How to copy the tables, schema and views from one SQL server to another?
Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Data Transformation Services (DTS) is a set of graphical tools and programmable objects that lets user extract, transform, and consolidate data from disparate sources into single or multiple destinations.

What is Self Join?
This is a particular case when one table joins to itself, with one or two aliases to avoid confusion. A self join can be of any type, as long as the joined tables are the same. A self join is rather unique in that it involves a relationship with only one table. The common example is when company have a hierarchal reporting structure whereby one member of staff reports to another.

What is Cross Join?
A cross join that does not have a WHERE clause produces the Cartesian product of the tables involved in the join. The size of a Cartesian product result set is the number of rows in the first table multiplied by the number of rows in the second table. The common example is when company wants to combine
each product with a pricing table to analyze each product at each price.

Which virtual table does a trigger use?
Inserted and Deleted.

List few advantages of Stored Procedure.
Stored procedure can reduced network traffic and latency, boosting application performance.
Stored procedure execution plans can be reused, staying cached in SQL Server's memory,reducing server overhead.
Stored procedures help promote code reuse.
Stored procedures can encapsulate logic. You can change stored procedure code without affecting clients.
Stored procedures provide better security to your data.
What is DataWarehousing?
Subject-oriented, meaning that the data in the database is organized so that all the data elements relating to the same real-world event or object are linked together;
Time-variant, meaning that the changes to the data in the database are tracked and recorded so that reports can be produced showing changes over time;
Non-volatile, meaning that data in the database is never over-written or deleted, once committed, the data is static, read-only, but retained for future reporting;
Integrated, meaning that the database contains data from most or all of an organization's operational applications, and that this data is made consistent.
What is OLTP(OnLine Transaction Processing)?
In OLTP - online transaction processing systems relational database design use the discipline of data modeling and generally follow the Codd rules of data normalization in order to ensure absolute data integrity. Using these rules complex information is broken down into its most simple structures (a table) where all of the individual atomic level elements relate to each other and satisfy the normalization rules.
How do SQL server 2000 and XML linked? Can XML be used to access data?
FOR XML (ROW, AUTO, EXPLICIT)
You can execute SQL queries against existing relational databases to return results as XML rather than standard rowsets. These queries can be executed directly or from within stored procedures. To retrieve XML results, use the FOR XML clause of the SELECT statement and specify an XML mode of RAW, AUTO, or EXPLICIT.
OPENXML
OPENXML is a Transact-SQL keyword that provides a relational/rowset view over an in-memory XML document. OPENXML is a rowset provider similar to a table or a view. OPENXML provides a way to access XML data within the Transact-SQL context by transferring data from an XML document into the relational tables. Thus, OPENXML allows you to manage an XML document and its interaction with the
relational environment.

What is an execution plan? When would you use it? How would you view the execution plan?
An execution plan is basically a road map that graphically or textually shows the data retrieval methods chosen by the SQL Server query optimizer for a stored procedure or ad-hoc query and is a very useful tool for a developer to understand the performance characteristics of a query or stored procedure since the plan is the one that SQL Server will place in its cache and use to execute the stored procedure or
query. From within Query Analyzer is an option called "Show Execution Plan" (located on the Query drop-down menu). If this option is turned on it will display query execution plan in separate window when query is ran again.

JAVA Interview Questions

OOPS and CORE JAVA
What is JVM (Java Virtual Machine)?
What is JIT (Just-in-Time) Compilation?
What is Object Oriented Programming?
What’s a Class?
What’s an Object?
What’s the relation between Classes and Objects?
What are different properties provided by Object-oriented systems?
How do you implement inheritance in Java?
How can we implement polymorphism in Java?
What’s an interface and how will you go about implementing an interface?
What is an Abstract class?
What are Abstract methods?
What’s the difference between “Abstract” classes and “Interfaces”?
What’s difference between Static and Non-Static fields of a class?
What are inner classes and what’s the practical implementation of inner classes?
What are packages?
What is a constructor in class?
Can constructors be parameterized?
Can you explain transient and volatile modifiers?
What is the use if “instanceof ” keyword?
What are Native methods in Java?
Explain in depth Garbage collector?
How does the garbage collector determine that the object has to be marked for deletion?
Can you explain “finalize()” method?
How can we force the garbage collector to run?
What’s the main difference between “Switch” and “If ” comparison?
What’s the use of JAVAP tool?
What are applets?
In which package is the applet class located?
What are native interfaces in Java?
what are Class loader’s?
what is Bootstrap, Extension and System Class loader?
Can you explain the flow between bootstrap, extension and system class loader?
Can you explain how can you practically do dynamic loading?
How can you copy one array in to a different array?
Can you explain the core collection interfaces?
Can you explain in brief the collection classes which implement the collection interfaces?
What’s the difference between standard JAVA array and ArrayList class?
What’s the use of “ensureCapacity” in ArrayList class?
How can we obtain an array from an ArrayList class?
What is “LinkedList” class for?
Can you explain HashSet class in collections?
what is LinkedHashSet class?
what is a TreeSet class?
what’s the use of Comparator Interface?
How can we access elements of a collection?
What is Map and SortedMap Interface?
Have you used any collection algorithm?
Why do we use collections when we had traditional ways for collection?
Can you name the legacy classes and interface for collections?
What is Enumeration Interface?
what’s the main difference between ArrayList / HashMap and Vector / Hashtable?
Are String object Immutable, Can you explain the concept?
what is a StringBuffer class and how does it differs from String class?
what is the difference between StringBuilder and StringBuffer class?
What is Pass by Value and Pass by reference? How does JAVA handle the same?
What are access modifiers?
what is Assertion?
Can you explain the fundamentals of deep and shallow Cloning?
How do we implement Shallow cloning?
How do we implement deep cloning?
What’s the impact of private constructor?
What are the situations you will need a constructor to be private?
Can you explain final modifier?
What are static Initializers?
If we have multiple static initializer blocks how is the sequence handled?
Define casting? What are the different types of Casting?
Can you explain Widening conversion and Narrowing conversion?
Can we assign parent object to child objects?
Define exceptions?
Can you explain in short how JAVA exception handling works?
Can you explain different exception types?
Can you explain checked and unchecked exceptions?
Can we create our own exception class?
What are chained exceptions?
What is serialization?
How do we implement serialization actually?
What’s the use of Externalizable Interface?
Threading
What’s difference between thread and process?
What is thread safety and synchronization?
What is semaphore?
What are monitors?
What’s the importance of synchronized blocks?
How do we create threads?
what’s the difference in using runnable and extends in threads?
Can you explain Thread.sleep?
How to stop a thread?
What is wait() and notify() ?
Can you explain how Scheduling and Priority works in threads?
Can you explain Yielding in threading?
what are daemon threads?
JDBC
How does JAVA interact with databases?
Can we interact with non-relational sources using JDBC?
Can you explain in depth the different sections in JDBC?
Can you explain in short how you go about using JDBC API in code?
How do you handle SQL exceptions?
If there is more than one exception in SQLException” class how to go about displaying
it?
Explain Type1, Type2, Type3 and Type4 drivers in JDBC?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using JDBC-ODBC bridge driver?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using Native-API/ Partially Java Driver?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using Net-Protocol/ All-Java driver?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using Native-protocol/ All-Java driver?
Define meta-data?
What is DatabaseMetaData?
Can you explain “ConnectionFactory” class?
I want to display tables of a database how do I do it?
Define “ResultSetMetaData”?
What is the difference between “ResultSet” and “RowSet”?
Can “ResultSet” objects be serialized?
Can you explain “ResultSet”, “RowSet”, “CachedRowset”, “JdbcRowset” and
“WebRowSet” relation ship?
what are the different types of resultset?
Explain the concept of “PreparedStatement “statement interface?
What’s the difference between “Statement” and “PreparedStatement”?
How can we call stored procedure using JDBC?
Can you explain “CallableStatement” interface in detail?
How do you get a resultset object from stored procedure?
How can we do batch updates using “CallableStatement” Interface?
Define transactions?
What is ACID in transaction?
What are the four essential properties of a transaction?
Explain concurrency and locking?
What are different types of locks?
What are the different types of levels of resource on which locks can be placed?
Define lock escalation?
What is Table level and Row level locking?
What are the problems that can occur if you do not implement locking properly?
What are different transaction levels?
Twist: - what are different types of locks?
What is difference between optimistic and pessimistic locking?
What are deadlocks?
How can we set transaction level through JDBC API?
Can you explain transaction control in JDBC?
What are Savepoints in a transaction?
Servlets and JSP
What are Servlets?
What are advantages of servlets over CGI?
Can you explain Servlet life cycle?
What are the two important API’s in for Servlets?
Can you explain in detail “javax.servlet” package?
What’s the use of ServletContext?
How do we define an application level scope for servlet?
What's the difference between GenericServlet and HttpServlet?
Can you explain in detail javax.servlet.http package?
What’s the architecture of a Servlet package?
Why is HTTP protocol called as a stateless protocol?
What are the different ways we can maintain state between requests?
What is URL rewriting?
What are cookies?
What are sessions in Servlets?
What’s the difference between getSession(true) and getSession(false) ?
What’s the difference between “doPost” and “doGet” methods?
Which are the different ways you can communicate between servlets?
What is functionality of “RequestDispatcher” object?
How do we share data using “getServletContext ()”?
Explain the concept of SSI?
What are filters in JAVA?
Can you explain in short how do you go about implementing filters using Apache Tomcat?
Twist: - Explain step by step of how to implement filters?
what’s the difference between Authentication and authorization?
Explain in brief the directory structure of a web application?
Can you explain JSP page life cycle?
What is EL?
how does EL search for an attribute?
What are the implicit EL objects in JSP?
How can we disable EL?
what is JSTL?
Can you explain in short what the different types of JSTL tags are?
How can we use beans in JSP?
What is tag for ?
What are JSP directives?
what are Page directives?
what are include directives?
Can you explain taglib directives?
How does JSP engines instantiate tag handler classes instances?
what’s the difference between JavaBeans and taglib directives?
what are the different scopes an object can have in a JSP page?
what are different implicit objects of JSP?
what are different Authentication Options available in servlets?
Can you explain how do we practically implement security on a resource?
How do we practically implement form based authentication?
How do we authenticate using JDBC?
Can you explain JDBCRealm?
Can you explain how do you configure JNDIRealm?
How did you implement caching in JSP?
EJB
What is EJB?
what are the different kind of EJB’s?
you are designing architecture for a project how do you decide whether you should use
session, entity or message driven bean?
Can you explain “EJBHome” and “EJBObject” in EJB?
Can client directly create object of session or entity beans?
Can you explain the concept of local interfaces?
What are the limitations of using Local object?
Which application server have you used for EJB ?
Can you explain step by step practically developing and deploying EJB component?
what is Passivation and Activation in EJB?
Can beans who are involved in transaction have “Passivation” process?
How does the server decide which beans to passivate and activate?
In what format is the conversational data written to the disk?
Can you explain in brief Life cycle for Stateless and Stateful beans?
Struts
What’s MVC pattern?
Define struts?
Can you explain the directory structure for a struts folder in brief ?
Can you give an overview of how a struts application flows?
Twist: - What are action and action form classes in Struts?
XML and WebServices
What is XML?
What is the version information in XML?
What is ROOT element in XML?
If XML does not have closing tag will it work?
Is XML case sensitive?
What is the difference between XML and HTML?
Is XML meant to replace HTML?
Can you explain why your project needed XML?
What is DTD (Document Type definition)?
What is well formed XML?
What is a valid XML?
What is CDATA section in XML?
What is CSS?
What is XSL?
What is element and attributes in XML?
What are the standard ways of parsing XML document?
In What scenarios will you use a DOM parser and SAX parser?
What is XSLT?
Define XPATH?
What is the concept of XPOINTER?
What is a Web Service ?
What is DISCO ?
What is SOAP ?
What is WSDL ?
Can you explain UDDI ?
Can you explain JAXP ?
What is a XML registry?
What is JAXR?
What is JAXM?
Can you explain how JAXM messaging model works?
Can you explain JAX-RPC?
Internationalization
Can you explain i18n and l10n?
Can you explain internationalization and localization?
What is Locale?
How do we display numbers, currency and Dates according to proper Locale format?
what are resource bundles?
How do we load a resource bundle file?
How can we do inheritance in resource bundles?
JNI
What is Native Interface in JAVA?
Can you say in brief steps required to implement Native interfaces in Java?
Can JNI be used for VB6, C# or VB.NET directly?
What are JNI functions and pointers?
How does the garbage collector know JNI objects are no more used?
Twist: - What are the different types of references JNI supports?
Twist: - How to do you delete global objects?
how does the native language C or C++ understand data types in JAVA?
Can you explain exception handling in JNI?
What are limitations for “JNIEnv” pointer in multi-threading scenarios?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using “JNI”?
Architecture
What are design patterns ?
What is the difference between Factory and Abstract Factory Patterns?
What is MVC pattern?
Twist: - How can you implement MVC pattern in Servlets and JSP?
How can we implement singleton pattern in JAVA?
How do you implement prototype pattern in JAVA?
Twist: - How to implement cloning in JAVA? What is shallow copy and deep copy ?
Can you give a practical implementation of FAÇADE patterns?
How can we implement observer pattern in JAVA?
What is three tier architecture?
What is Service Oriented architecture?
What is aspect oriented programming?
Project Management
What is project management?
Is spending in IT projects constant through out the project?
Who is a stakeholder ?
Can you explain project life cycle ?
Twist :- How many phases are there in software project ?
Are risk constant through out the project ?
Can you explain different software development life cycles ?
What is triple constraint triangle in project management ?
What is a project baselines ?
What is effort variance?
How is normally a project management plan document organized ?
How do you estimate a project?
What is CAR (Causal Analysis and Resolution)?
What is DAR (Decision Analysis and Resolution) ?
What is a fish bone diagram ?
Twist:- What is Ishikawa diagram ?
What is pareto principle ?
Twist :- What is 80/20 principle ?
How do you handle change request?
What is internal change request?
What is difference between SITP and UTP in testing ?
What is the software you have used for project management?
What are the metrics followed in project management?
Twist: - What metrics will you look at in order to see the project is moving successfully?
You have people in your team who do not meet there deadlines or do not perform what
are the actions you will take ?
Twist :- Two of your resources have conflicts between them how would you sort it out ?
What is black box testing and White box testing?
What’s the difference between Unit testing, Assembly testing and Regression testing?
What is V model in testing?
How do you start a project?
How did you do resource allocations?
How will you do code reviews ?
What is CMMI?
What are the five levels in CMMI?
What is continuous and staged representation?
Can you explain the process areas?
What is SIX sigma?
What is DMAIC and DMADV ?
What are the various roles in Six Sigma implementation?
What are function points?
Twist: - Define Elementary process in FPA?
What are the different types of elementary process in FPA?
What are the different elements in Functions points?
Can you explain in GSC and VAF in function points?
What are unadjusted function points and how is it calculated?
Can you explain steps in function points?
What is the FP per day in your current company?
Twist :- What is your company’s productivity factor ?
Do you know Use Case points?
What is COCOMO I, COCOMOII and COCOMOIII?
What is SMC approach of estimation?
How do you estimate maintenance project and change requests?
UML
What is UML?
How many types of diagrams are there in UML ?
Twist :- Explain in short all types of diagrams in UML ?
What are advantages of using UML?
Twist: - What is Modeling and why UML ?
What is the sequence of UML diagrams in project?
Twist: - How did you implement UML in your project?
Just a small Twist: - Do I need all UML diagrams in a project?
Give a small brief explanation of all Elements in activity diagrams?
Explain Different elements of a collaboration diagram ?
Explain Component diagrams ?
Explain all parts of a deployment diagram?
Describe the various components in sequence diagrams?
What are the element in State Chart diagrams ?
Describe different elements in Static Chart diagrams ?
Explain the different elements of a Use Case ?
Twist: - What is the difference between Activity and sequence diagrams?(I leave this to
the readers)

C++ Interview Questions

What is encapsulation??
Containing and hiding information about an object, such as internal data structures and
code. Encapsulation isolates the internal complexity of an object's operation from the rest
of the application. For example, a client component asking for net revenue from a business
object need not know the data's origin.

What is inheritance?
Inheritance allows one class to reuse the state and behavior of another class. The derived
class inherits the properties and method implementations of the base class and extends it by
overriding methods and adding additional properties and methods.

What is Polymorphism??
Polymorphism allows a client to treat different objects in the same way even if they were
created from different classes and exhibit different behaviors. You can use implementation
inheritance to achieve polymorphism in languages such as C++ and Java. Base class object's
pointer can invoke methods in derived class objects. You can also achieve polymorphism in
C++ by function overloading and operator overloading.


What is constructor or ctor?
Constructor creates an object and initializes it. It also creates vtable for virtual
functions. It is different from other methods in a class.

What is destructor?
Destructor usually deletes any extra resources allocated by the object.

What is default constructor?
Constructor with no arguments or all the arguments has default values.

What is copy constructor?
Constructor which initializes the it's object member variables ( by shallow copying) with
another object of the same class. If you don't implement one in your class then compiler
implements one for you.
for example:
Boo Obj1(10); // calling Boo constructor
Boo Obj2(Obj1); // calling boo copy constructor
Boo Obj2 = Obj1;// calling boo copy constructor


When are copy constructors called?
Copy constructors are called in following cases:
a) when a function returns an object of that class by value
b) when the object of that class is passed by value as an argument to a function
c) when you construct an object based on another object of the same class
d) When compiler generates a temporary object

What is assignment operator?
Default assignment operator handles assigning one object to another of the same class.
Member to member copy (shallow copy)

What are all the implicit member functions of the class? Or what are all the functions which
compiler implements for us if we don't define one.??
default ctor
copy ctor
assignment operator
default destructor
address operator

What is conversion constructor?
constructor with a single argument makes that constructor as conversion ctor and it can be
used for type conversion.
for example:
class Boo
{
public:
Boo( int i );
};
Boo BooObject = 10 ; // assigning int 10 Boo object

What is conversion operator??
class can have a public method for specific data type conversions.
for example:
class Boo
{
double value;
public:
Boo(int i )
operator double()
{
return value;
}
};
Boo BooObject;
double i = BooObject; // assigning object to variable i of type double. now conversion
operator gets called to assign the value.

What is diff between malloc()/free() and new/delete?
malloc allocates memory for object in heap but doesn't invoke object's constructor to
initiallize the object.
new allocates memory and also invokes constructor to initialize the object.
malloc() and free() do not support object semantics
Does not construct and destruct objects
string * ptr = (string *)(malloc (sizeof(string)))
Are not safe
Does not calculate the size of the objects that it construct
Returns a pointer to void
int *p = (int *) (malloc(sizeof(int)));
int *p = new int;
Are not extensible
new and delete can be overloaded in a class
"delete" first calls the object's termination routine (i.e. its destructor) and then
releases the space the object occupied on the heap memory. If an array of objects was
created using new, then delete must be told that it is dealing with an array by preceding
the name with an empty []:-
Int_t *my_ints = new Int_t[10];
...
delete []my_ints;

What is the diff between "new" and "operator new" ?
"operator new" works like malloc.

What is difference between template and macro??
There is no way for the compiler to verify that the macro parameters are of compatible
types. The macro is expanded without any special type checking.
If macro parameter has a postincremented variable ( like c++ ), the increment is performed
two times.
Because macros are expanded by the preprocessor, compiler error messages will refer to the
expanded macro, rather than the macro definition itself. Also, the macro will show up in
expanded form during debugging.
for example:
Macro:
#define min(i, j) (i < t="">
T min (T i, T j)
{
return i < mystruct =" {" salaray =" 2000" b =" a;" temp =" x;" x =" y;" y =" x;" a="2," b="3;" num =" num" temp =" 2.0;" value =" cuberoot" temp =" 3L;" value =" cuberoot" parent_object_ptr =" new">show() // calls parent->show() i
now we goto virtual world...
class parent
{
virtual void Show()
{
cout << "i'm parent" << parent_object_ptr =" new">show() // calls child->show()
What is pure virtual function? or what is abstract class?
When you define only function prototype in a base class without and do the complete
implementation in derived class. This base class is called abstract class and client won't
able to instantiate an object using this base class.
You can make a pure virtual function or abstract class this way..
class Boo
{
void foo() = 0;
}
Boo MyBoo; // compilation error

What is Memory alignment??
The term alignment primarily means the tendency of an address pointer value to be a multiple
of some power of two. So a pointer with two byte alignment has a zero in the least
significant bit. And a pointer with four byte alignment has a zero in both the two least
significant bits. And so on. More alignment means a longer sequence of zero bits in the
lowest bits of a pointer.

What problem does the namespace feature solve?
Multiple providers of libraries might use common global identifiers causing a name collision
when an application tries to link with two or more such libraries. The namespace feature
surrounds a library's external declarations with a unique namespace that eliminates the
potential for those collisions.
namespace [identifier] { namespace-body }
A namespace declaration identifies and assigns a name to a declarative region.
The identifier in a namespace declaration must be unique in the declarative region in which
it is used. The identifier is the name of the namespace and is used to reference its
members.

What is the use of 'using' declaration?
A using declaration makes it possible to use a name from a namespace without the scope
operator.

What is an Iterator class?
A class that is used to traverse through the objects maintained by a container class. There
are five categories of iterators: input iterators, output iterators, forward iterators,
bidirectional iterators, random access. An iterator is an entity that gives access to the
contents of a container object without violating encapsulation constraints. Access to the
contents is granted on a one-at-a-time basis in order. The order can be storage order (as in
lists and queues) or some arbitrary order (as in array indices) or according to some
ordering relation (as in an ordered binary tree). The iterator is a construct, which
provides an interface that, when called, yields either the next element in the container, or
some value denoting the fact that there are no more elements to examine. Iterators hide the
details of access to and update of the elements of a container class. Something like a
pointer.

What is a dangling pointer?
A dangling pointer arises when you use the address of an object after its lifetime is over.
This may occur in situations like returning addresses of the automatic variables from a
function or using the address of the memory block after it is freed.
What do you mean by Stack unwinding?
It is a process during exception handling when the destructor is called for all local
objects in the stack between the place where the exception was thrown and where it is
caught.

Name the operators that cannot be overloaded??
sizeof, ., .*, .->, ::, ?:

What is a container class? What are the types of container classes?
A container class is a class that is used to hold objects in memory or external storage. A
container class acts as a generic holder. A container class has a predefined behavior and a
well-known interface. A container class is a supporting class whose purpose is to hide the
topology used for maintaining the list of objects in memory. When a container class contains
a group of mixed objects, the container is called a heterogeneous container; when the
container is holding a group of objects that are all the same, the container is called a
homogeneous container.

What is inline function??
The __inline keyword tells the compiler to substitute the code within the function
definition for every instance of a function call. However, substitution occurs only at the
compiler's discretion. For example, the compiler does not inline a function if its address
is taken or if it is too large to inline.

What is overloading??
With the C++ language, you can overload functions and operators. Overloading is the practice
of supplying more than one definition for a given function name in the same scope.
- Any two functions in a set of overloaded functions must have different argument lists.
- Overloading functions with argument lists of the same types, based on return type alone,
is an error.

What is Overriding?
To override a method, a subclass of the class that originally declared the method must
declare a method with the same name, return type (or a subclass of that return type), and
same parameter list.
The definition of the method overriding is:
• Must have same method name.
• Must have same data type.
• Must have same argument list.
Overriding a method means that replacing a method functionality in child class. To imply
overriding functionality we need parent and child classes. In the child class you define the
same method signature as one defined in the parent class.

What is "this" pointer?
The this pointer is a pointer accessible only within the member functions of a class,
struct, or union type. It points to the object for which the member function is called.
Static member functions do not have a this pointer.
When a nonstatic member function is called for an object, the address of the object is
passed as a hidden argument to the function. For example, the following function call
myDate.setMonth( 3 );
can be interpreted this way:
setMonth( &myDate, 3 );
The object's address is available from within the member function as the this pointer. It is
legal, though unnecessary, to use the this pointer when referring to members of the class.

What happens when you make call "delete this;" ??
The code has two built-in pitfalls. First, if it executes in a member function for an
extern, static, or automatic object, the program will probably crash as soon as the delete
statement executes. There is no portable way for an object to tell that it was instantiated
on the heap, so the class cannot assert that its object is properly instantiated. Second,
when an object commits suicide this way, the using program might not know about its demise.
As far as the instantiating program is concerned, the object remains in scope and continues
to exist even though the object did itself in. Subsequent dereferencing of the pointer can
and usually does lead to disaster.
You should never do this. Since compiler does not know whether the object was allocated on
the stack or on the heap, "delete this" could cause a disaster.

How virtual functions are implemented C++?
Virtual functions are implemented using a table of function pointers, called the vtable.
There is one entry in the table per virtual function in the class. This table is created by
the constructor of the class. When a derived class is constructed, its base class is
constructed first which creates the vtable. If the derived class overrides any of the base
classes virtual functions, those entries in the vtable are overwritten by the derived class
constructor. This is why you should never call virtual functions from a constructor: because
the vtable entries for the object may not have been set up by the derived class constructor
yet, so you might end up calling base class implementations of those virtual functions

What is name mangling in C++??
The process of encoding the parameter types with the function/method name into a unique name
is called name mangling. The inverse process is called demangling.
For example Foo::bar(int, long) const is mangled as `bar__C3Fooil'.
For a constructor, the method name is left out. That is Foo::Foo(int, long) const is mangled
as `__C3Fooil'.

What is the difference between a pointer and a reference?
A reference must always refer to some object and, therefore, must always be initialized;
pointers do not have such restrictions. A pointer can be reassigned to point to different
objects while a reference always refers to an object with which it was initialized.
How are prefix and postfix versions of operator++() differentiated?
The postfix version of operator++() has a dummy parameter of type int. The prefix version
does not have dummy parameter.

What is the difference between const char *myPointer and char *const myPointer?
Const char *myPointer is a non constant pointer to constant data; while char *const
myPointer is a constant pointer to non constant data.

How can I handle a constructor that fails?
throw an exception. Constructors don't have a return type, so it's not possible to use
return codes. The best way to signal constructor failure is therefore to throw an exception.

How can I handle a destructor that fails?
Write a message to a log-file. But do not throw an exception.
The C++ rule is that you must never throw an exception from a destructor that is being
called during the "stack unwinding" process of another exception. For example, if someone
says throw Foo(), the stack will be unwound so all the stack frames between the throw Foo()
and the } catch (Foo e) { will get popped. This is called stack unwinding.
During stack unwinding, all the local objects in all those stack frames are destructed. If
one of those destructors throws an exception (say it throws a Bar object), the C++ runtime
system is in a no-win situation: should it ignore the Bar and end up in the } catch (Foo e)
{ where it was originally headed? Should it ignore the Foo and look for a } catch (Bar e) {
handler? There is no good answer -- either choice loses information.
So the C++ language guarantees that it will call terminate() at this point, and terminate()
kills the process. Bang you're dead.

What is Virtual Destructor?
Using virtual destructors, you can destroy objects without knowing their type - the correct
destructor for the object is invoked using the virtual function mechanism. Note that
destructors can also be declared as pure virtual functions for abstract classes.
if someone will derive from your class, and if someone will say "new Derived", where
"Derived" is derived from your class, and if someone will say delete p, where the actual
object's type is "Derived" but the pointer p's type is your class.

Can you think of a situation where your program would crash without reaching the breakpoint
which you set at the beginning of main()?

C++ allows for dynamic initialization of global variables before main() is invoked. It is
possible that initialization of global will invoke some function. If this function crashes
the crash will occur before main() is entered.
Name two cases where you MUST use initialization list as opposed to assignment in
constructors.
Both non-static const data members and reference data members cannot be assigned values;
instead, you should use initialization list to initialize them.
Can you overload a function based only on whether a parameter is a value or a reference?
No. Passing by value and by reference looks identical to the caller.

What are the differences between a C++ struct and C++ class?
The default member and base class access specifiers are different.
The C++ struct has all the features of the class. The only differences are that a struct
defaults to public member access and public base class inheritance, and a class defaults to
the private access specifier and private base class inheritance.

What does extern "C" int func(int *, Foo) accomplish?
It will turn off "name mangling" for func so that one can link to code compiled by a C
compiler.

How do you access the static member of a class?
::

What is multiple inheritance(virtual inheritance)? What are its advantages and
disadvantages?
Multiple Inheritance is the process whereby a child can be derived from more than one parent
class. The advantage of multiple inheritance is that it allows a class to inherit the
functionality of more than one base class thus allowing for modeling of complex
relationships. The disadvantage of multiple inheritance is that it can lead to a lot of
confusion(ambiguity) when two base classes implement a method with the same name.
What are the access privileges in C++? What is the default access level?
The access privileges in C++ are private, public and protected. The default access level
assigned to members of a class is private. Private members of a class are accessible only
within the class and by friends of the class. Protected members are accessible by the class
itself and it's sub-classes. Public members of a class can be accessed by anyone.

What is a nested class? Why can it be useful?
A nested class is a class enclosed within the scope of another class. For example:
// Example 1: Nested class
//
class OuterClass
{
class NestedClass
{
// ...
};
// ...
};
Nested classes are useful for organizing code and controlling access and dependencies.
Nested classes obey access rules just like other parts of a class do; so, in Example 1, if
NestedClass is public then any code can name it as OuterClass::NestedClass. Often nested
classes contain private implementation details, and are therefore made private; in Example
1, if NestedClass is private, then only OuterClass's members and friends can use
NestedClass.
When you instantiate as outer class, it won't instantiate inside class.
What is a local class? Why can it be useful?
local class is a class defined within the scope of a function -- any function, whether a
member function or a free function. For example:
// Example 2: Local class
//
int f()
{
class LocalClass
{
// ...
};
// ...
};
Like nested classes, local classes can be a useful tool for managing code dependencies.

Can a copy constructor accept an object of the same class as parameter, instead of reference
of the object?
No. It is specified in the definition of the copy constructor itself. It should generate an
error if a programmer specifies a copy constructor with a first argument that is an object
and not a reference.

Assume I have a linked list contains all of the alphabets from ‘A’ to ‘Z’.
I want to find the letter ‘Q’ in the list, how does you perform the search to find the ‘Q’?How do you write a function that can reverse a linked-list?
void reverselist(void)
{
if(head==0)
return;
if(head->next==0)
return;
if(head->next==tail)
{
head->next = 0;
tail->next = head;
}
else
{
node* pre = head;
node* cur = head->next;
node* curnext = cur->next;
head->next = 0;
cur->next = head;
for(; curnext!=0; )
{
cur->next = pre;
pre = cur;
cur = curnext;
curnext = curnext->next;
}
curnext->next = cur;
}
}

How do you find out if a linked-list has an end? (i.e. the list is not a cycle)
You can find out by using 2 pointers. One of them goes 2 nodes each time. The second one
goes at 1 nodes each time. If there is a cycle, the one that goes 2 nodes each time will
eventually meet the one that goes slower. If that is the case, then you will know the
linked-list is a cycle.

How can you tell what shell you are running on UNIX system?
You can do the Echo $RANDOM. It will return a undefined variable if you are from the
C-Shell, just a return prompt if you are from the Bourne shell, and a 5 digit random numbers
if you are from the Korn shell. You could also do a ps -l and look for the shell with the
highest PID.

What is Boyce Codd Normal form?
A relation schema R is in BCNF with respect to a set F of functional dependencies if for all
functional dependencies in F+ of the form a->b, where a and b is a subset of R, at least one
of the following holds:
• a->b is a trivial functional dependency (b is a subset of a)
• a is a superkey for schema R
Could you tell something about the Unix System Kernel?
The kernel is the heart of the UNIX openrating system, it’s reponsible for controlling the
computer’s resouces and scheduling user jobs so that each one gets its fair share of
resources.

What is a Make file?
Make file is a utility in Unix to help compile large programs. It helps by only compiling
the portion of the program that has been changed

How do you link a C++ program to C functions?
By using the extern "C" linkage specification around the C function declarations.
Explain the scope resolution operator.
Design and implement a String class that satisfies the following:
Supports embedded nulls
Provide the following methods (at least)
Constructor
Destructor
Copy constructor
Assignment operator
Addition operator (concatenation)
Return character at location
Return substring at location
Find substring
Provide versions of methods for String and for char* arguments
Suppose that data is an array of 1000 integers. Write a single function call that will sort
the 100 elements data [222] through data [321].
Answer: quicksort ((data + 222), 100);

What is a modifier?
What is an accessor?

Differentiate between a template class and class template.

When does a name clash occur?

Define namespace.

What is the use of ‘using’ declaration.

What is an Iterator class?

List out some of the OODBMS available.

List out some of the object-oriented methodologies.

What is an incomplete type?

What is a dangling pointer?

Differentiate between the message and method.

What is an adaptor class or Wrapper class?

What is a Null object?

What is class invariant?
What do you mean by Stack unwinding?
Define precondition and post-condition to a member function.

What are the conditions that have to be met for a condition to be an invariant of the class?

What are proxy objects?

Name some pure object oriented languages.

Name the operators that cannot be overloaded.

What is a node class?

What is an orthogonal base class?

What is a container class? What are the types of container classes?

What is a protocol class?

What is a mixin class?

What is a concrete class?

What is the handle class?

What is an action class?

When can you tell that a memory leak will occur?
What is a parameterized type?
Differentiate between a deep copy and a shallow copy?
What is an opaque pointer?
What is a smart pointer?
What is reflexive association?
What is slicing?
What is name mangling?
What are proxy objects?
What is cloning?
Describe the main characteristics of static functions.
Will the inline function be compiled as the inline function always? Justify.
Define a way other than using the keyword inline to make a function inline.
How can a '::' operator be used as unary operator?
What is placement new?
What do you mean by analysis and design?
What are the steps involved in designing?

What are the main underlying concepts of object orientation?


What do u meant by "SBI" of an object?


Differentiate persistent & non-persistent objects?


What do you meant by active and passive objects?


What is meant by software development method?


What do you meant by static and dynamic modeling?


How to represent the interaction between the modeling elements?


Why generalization is very strong?


Differentiate Aggregation and containment?
Can link and Association applied interchangeably?


What is meant by "method-wars"?


Whether unified method and unified modeling language are same or different?


Who were the three famous amigos and what was their contribution to the object community?


Differentiate the class representation of Booch, Rumbaugh and UML?


What is an USECASE? Why it is needed?


Who is an Actor?


What is guard condition?


Differentiate the following notations?


USECASE is an implementation independent notation. How will the designer give the
implementation details of a particular USECASE to the programmer?


Suppose a class acts an Actor in the problem domain, how to represent it in the static
model?


Why does the function arguments are called as "signatures"?

SAP-ABAP interview questions

SAP TERMINOLOGY

Master data is a collection of information about a person or an object, e.g. a cost object, vendor, or G/L account. For example, a vendor master record contains not only general information such as the vendor's name and address, but also specific information, such as payment terms and delivery instructions. Generally for end users, master data is reference data that you will look up and use, but not create or change.

Transactional data is data related to a single business event such as a purchase requisition or a request for payment. When you create a requisition, for example, SAP creates an electronic document for that particular transaction. SAP gives the transaction a document number and adds the document to the transaction data that is already in the system. Whenever you complete a transaction in SAP, that is, when you create, change, or print a document in SAP, this document number appears at the bottom of the screen.

Workflow A routing tool in SAP that forwards documents for review or approval. For example, a requisition that needs to be approved is sent to the appropriate approver's inbox.Workflow is also used to route journal vouchers, credit card charges, and other documents in SAP.

Cost Object: A Cost Object collects expenses and revenues for a particular purpose, such as a research project. In SAP there are three types of cost objects: Cost Center, Internal Order, and WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) Element (see below for definition).

Cost Center: General or operating Cost Objects are known in SAP as Cost Centers. Cost Centers are budgeted on the fiscal year.

Internal Order: A non-sponsored Cost Object (for example, funding from the MIT Provost) used to track costs over periods other than fiscal years. Internal Orders are often created to track gifts or endowments at MIT.

WBS Element: WBS Elements are funded by outside sponsors and are used to track costs of a particular research project over the entire span of its activity. They may also be created to track other sponsored activities, such as gifts.

G/L Account: G/L accounts are also called Cost Elements in SAP. They are a classification by expense or revenue type. In the CO (Controlling) module of SAP, the term Cost Element is used. In the FI
(Financial) module, the term G/L Account is used. These terms are used interchangeably for reporting, requisitions, and journal vouchers.
Database tables and open SQL Add a single record to a database table insert into values Inserting all lines from an internal table into a database table: insert from table Delete all records Select * from zmellemtab. delete zmellemtab. endselect. Deleting records using records from an internal table delete employees from table itab.

Q & A BASIS LAYER

What are the central interfaces of the R/3 system ?
- Presentation interface
Database interface
Operating system interface

Which interface controls what is shown on the p.c. ?
- Presentation interface

Which interface converts SQL requirements in the SAP development system to those of the database ?
- Database interface

What is SAP dispatcher ?
- SAP dispatcher is the control agent which manages the resources for the R/3 applications.

What are the functions of dispatcher ?
- Equal distribution of transaction load to the work processes
Management of buffer areas in main memory Integration of the presentation levels
Organization of communication activies

What is a work process ?
- A work process is where individual dialog steps are actually processed and the work is done. Each work process handles one type of request.

Name various work processes of R/3 system ?
1) Dialog or Online ( processes only one request at a time )
2) Background ( started at a specified time ) 3) Update ( primary or secondary ) 4) Enque( lock mechanism ) 5) Spool ( generated online or during back ground processing For printing )

What are the types of Update requests ?
- An update request can be divided into one primary (V1) and several Secondary update components (V2). Time-critical operations are placed in V1 component and those whose timing are less critical are placed in V2 components. If a V1 update fails, V2 components will not be processed.

What are the roll and page areas ?
- Roll and page areas are SAP R/3 buffers used to store user contexts ( process requests ) . The SAP dispatcher assigns process requests to work processes as they are received. If the work process is unavailable the process requests are queued in the roll and page areas. Paging area holds data from the application programs. Roll area holds data from previous dialog steps and data that characterizes user.

What is a Spool request ?
- Spool requests are generated during dialog or background processing and placed in the spool database with information about the printer and print format. The actual data is placed in the Tem Se (Temporary Sequential objects).

What are the different database integrities ?
- Semantic integrity
- Relational integrity
- Primary key integrity
- Value set integrity
- Foreign key integrity and
- Operational integrity.

DATA DICTIONARY .

Type of a table or structure
The table type determines how the logical table description defined in the ABAP/4 Dictionary is reproduced on the database. There are the following table types:

1. transparent table
2. structure
3. append structure
   

For internal purposes, such as storing control data or update texts, there are in addition the following table types:

1. pooled table
2. cluster table
3. generated view structure

Transparent table There is a physical table on the database for each transparent table. The names of the physical tables and the logical table definition in the ABAP/4 Dictionary correspond. All business data and application data are stored in transparent tables.

Structure No data records exist in the database for a structure. Structures are used for the interface definition between programs or between screens and programs.

Append structure An append structure defines a set of fields which belong to another table or structure but which are treated in the correction administration as its own object. Append structures are used to support modifications.

Pooled table Pooled tables can be used to store control data (e.g. screen sequences, program parameters or temporary data). Several pooled tables can be combined to form a table pool. The table pool corresponds to a physical table on the database in which all the records of the allocated pooled tables are stored.

Cluster table Cluster tables contain continuous text, for example, documentation. Several cluster tables can be combined to form a table cluster. Several logical lines of different tables are combined to form a physical record in this table type. This permits object-by-object storage or object-by-object access. In order to combine tables in clusters, at least parts of the keys must agree. Several cluster tables are stored in one corresponding table on the database.

Generated view structure In activation a structure is generated for a view. This structure serves as interface for the runtime environment. It does not generally appear in the ABAP/4 Dictionary.

What is a Data Class?

The Data class determines in which tablespace the table is stored when it is created in the database. What is a Size Category? The Size category describes the probable space requirement of the table in the database. How Many types of size categories and data classes are there? There are five size categories (0-4) and 11 data classes, only three of which are appropriate for application tables:
- APPL0 - Master data (data frequently accessed but rarely updated)
- APPL1 - Transaction data (data that is changed frequnetly)
- APPL2 - Organisational data (customizing data that is entered when system is
configured and then rarely changed)

What are control tables?

The values specified for the size category and data class are mapped to database-specific values via control tables.

What is the function of the transport system and workbench organiser?

The function of the transport system and the Workbench Organizer is to manage any changes made to objects of the ABAP/4 Development Workbench and to transport these changes between different SAP systems.

What is a table pool?
A table pool (or pool) is used to combine several logical tables in the ABAP/4 Dictionary. The definition of a pool consists of at least two key fields and a long argument field (VARDATA).

What are pooled tables? These are logical tables which must be assigned to a table pool when they are defined. Pooled tables can be used to store control data (such as screen sequences or program parameters).

What is a table cluster?
A table cluster combines several logical tables in the ABAP/4 Dictionary. Several logical rows from different cluster tables are brought together in a single physical record. The records from the cluster tables assigned to a cluster are thus stored in a single common table in the database.

Which objects are independent transport objects?
Domains, Data elements, Tables, Technical settings for tables, Secondary indexes for transparent tables,
Structures, Views,
Matchcode objects, Matchcode IDs, Lock objects.

What are the Data types of the external layer?
ACCP, CHAR, CLNT, CUKY,CURR, DATS, DEC, FLTP, INT1,INT2, INT4, LANG, LCHR,LRAW, NUMC, PREC, QUAN,RAW ,TIMS, UNIT, VARC.

What are the Data types of the ABAP/4 layer?

Possible ABAP/4 data types: C: Character. D: Date, format YYYYMMDD. F: Floating-point number in DOUBLE PRECISION (8 bytes). I: Integer. N: Numerical character string of arbitrary length. P: Amount or counter field (packed; implementation depends on hardware platform). S: Time stamp YYYYMMDDHHMMSS. T: Time of day HHMMSS. V: Character string of variable length, length is given in the first two bytes. X: Hexadecimal (binary) storage.

How can we set the tablespaces and extent sizes ?
You can specify the extent sizes and the tablespace (physical storage
area in the database) in which a transparent table is to be stored by setting the size category and data class.

What is a data dictionary ?
Data dictionary is a central source of data in a data management system. Its main function is to support the .It has details about

- What data is contained ?
- What are the attributes of the data ?
- What is the relationship existing between the various data elements ?

What functions does a data dictionary perform ?
In a data management system, the principal functions performed by the data dictionary are
- Management of data definitions
- Provision of information for evaluation
- Support for software development
- Support form documentation
- Ensuring that the data definitions are flexible and up-to-date.

A field containing currency amounts (data type CURR) must be assigned to a reference table and a reference field. Explain.

As a reference table, a system table containing all the valid currencies is assigned or any other table which contains a field with the currency key format. This field is called as reference field. The assignment of the field containing currency amounts to the reference field is made at runtime. The value in the reference field determines the currency of the amount.

What is the significance of Technical settings (specified while creating a table in the data dictionary) ?

By specifying technical settings we can control how database tables are created in the database. The technical settings allows us to - optimize storage space requiremnets
- table access behaviour
- buffering required
- changes to entries logged

What is the significance of Delivery Class ?
- The delivery class controls the degree to which the SAP or the customer is responsible for table maintenance
- whether SAP provides the table with or without contents.
- determines the table type. - determines how the table behaves when it is first installed, at upgrade, when it is transported, and when a client copy is performed.

What is the maximum number of structures that can be included in a table or structure
- Nine.

What are the two methods of modifying Sap standard tables ?
- Append Structures and
- Customizing Includes.


What is the difference between a Substructure and an Append Structure ?
- In case of a substructure, the reference originates in the table itself, in the forma of a statement .include... . - In case of an append structure, the table itself remains unchanged and the refrence originates in the append structure.
What are the two ways for restricting the value range for a domain ? - By specifying fixed values.
- By stipulating a value table.

What is a Match Code ?

Match Code is a tool to help us to search for data records in the system. Match codes are an efficient and user-friendly search aid where key of a record is unknown. What are the two levels in defining a Match Code ?
- Match Code object
- Match Code Id.

What is the maximum number of match code Id's that can be defined for one Match code object ?
- 36. A match code Id is a one character ID which can be a letter or a number.

Can we define our own Match Code ID's for SAP Matchcodes ?
Yes, the numbers 0 to 9 are reserved for us to create our own Match Code IDs for a SAP defined Matchcode object.

What is an Update type with reference to a Match code ID?
If the data in one of the base tables of a matchcode ID changes, the matchcode data has to be updated. The update type stipulates when the matchcode is to be updated and how it is to be done. The update type also specifies which method is to be used for Building matchcodes . You must specify the update type when you define a matchcode ID.

What are conversion routines ?
- Non standard conversions from display format to sap internal format and vice-versa are implemented with so called conversion routines.
Aggregated Objects Views, matchcodes, and lock objects are also called aggregate objects because they are formed from several related tables.

What is a View ?
- A view is a logical view on one or more tables. A view on one or more tables i.e, the data from a view is not actually physically stored instead being derived from one or more tables. A view can be used to summarize data which is distributed among several tables

How many types of Views are there ? - Database View (SE11)
Database views are implement an inner join, that is, only records of the primary table (selected via the join operation) for which the corresponding records of the secondary tables also exist are fetched. Inconsistencies between primary and secondary table could, therefore, lead to a reduced selection set. In database views, the join conditions can be formulated using equality relationships between any base fields. In the other types of view, they must be taken from existing foreign keys. That is, tables can only be collected in a maintenance or help view if they are linked to one another via foreign keys.

- Help View ( SE54)
Help views are used to output additional information when the online help system is called. When the F4 button is pressed for a screen field, a check is first made on whether a matchcode is defined for this field. If this is not the case, the help view is displayed in which the check table of the field is the primary table. Thus, for each table no more than one help view can be created, that is, a table can only be primary table in at most one help view.

- Projection View

Projection views are used to suppress or mask certain fields in a table (projection), thus minimizing the number of interfaces. This means that only the data that is actually required is exchanged when the database is accessed. A projection view can draw upon only one table. Selection conditions cannot be specified for projection views.

- Maintenance View ( SE54 )

Maintenance views enable a business-oriented approach to looking at data, while at the same time, making it possible to maintain the data involved. Data from several tables can be summarized in a maintenance view and maintained collectively via this view. That is, the data is entered via the view and then distributed to the underlying tables by the system.


What is Locking ?
- When two users simultaneously attempt to access the same data record, this is synchronised by a lock mechanism.
When dialog transactions are programmed, locks are set and released by calling certain function modules. These function modules are generated automatically from the definition of so-called lock objects in the ABAP/4 Dictionary. To synchronize the access to a table by setting and removing locks, a Lock object has to be defined in the ABAP/4 Dictionary. Activating the lock object automatically creates #function modules for setting and removing locks. These function modules must be included when programming interactive transactions.

Lock Mechanism : To set locks, a lock object must be defined in the ABAP/4 Dictionary. In this lock object, those tables in which data records are to be locked by calling a lock are determined. All tables included in a lock object must be connected to each other via foreign keys. The key fields of the tables in a lock object form the Lock arguments for the tables. The lock arguments are the basis for formulating the logical condition for identifying the records to be locked. When activating this lock object, two function modulesB with the names ENQUEUE_ and DEQUEUE_ are generated.

Example :
Problem : You wish to prevent a user from being able to change the name of a course or the name of the professor with responsibility for the course at a time when another user is editing the course description (which contains this information).

Solution : The problem described above can be solved by defining a lock object E_UKURS. This is done by defining primary and secondary tables in the lock object. Table UKURS is check table of table UKRSB, so UKURS should be selected as primary table and UKRSB as secondary table of the lock object. The Lock argument in this case is the field combination FABNR, KRSNR, and SPRAS (i.e Primary Key Combination). The Lock mode Shared is to be selected here. This allows several users to access the data simultaneously in display mode. The lock mode in the generated function modules for setting (ENQUEUE_E_UKURS) and releasing (DEQUEUE_E_UKURS) locks is therefore set to shared as default, but can be overridden by calling the function modules. If the function module ENQUEUE_E_UKURS is called with FABNR = '1' and KRSNR = '3', the record for course 3 in faculty 1 is locked in table UKURS. Furthermore, all the course descriptions for this course are locked in table UKRSB since field SPRAS was not specified when the function module was called. In such cases, the lock is made generically for a field which is not defined. If the function module DEQUEUE_E_UKURS is now called with FABNR = '1', KRSNR = '3' and SPRAS = 'D', the German course description is unlocked. All other course descriptions remain locked.

What is database utility ?
-
Database utility is the interface between the ABAP/4 Dictionary and the underlying the SAP system.
The database utility is the interface between the ABAP/4 Dictionary and the relational database underlying the SAP system. You can call the database utility from the initial screen of the ABAP/4 Dictionary with Utilities ® Database utility. The database utility allows you to create, delete and convert objects from the ABAP/4 Dictionary in the database. MODULARIZATION What is Modularization and its benefits? If the program contains the same or similar blocks of statements or it is required to process the same function several times, we can avoid redundancy by using modularization techniques. By modularizing the ABAP/4 programs we make them easy to read and improve their structure. Modularized programs are also easier to maintain and to update.

How can we create callable modules of program code within one ABAP/4 Program?
A. By defining macros. B. By creating include programs in the library.

What are subroutines?
Subroutines are program modules which can be called from other ABAP/4 programs or within the same program.

What are the types of Subroutines?
A. Internal Subroutines: The source code of the internal subroutines will be in the
same ABAP/4 program as the calling procedure (internal call).
B. External Subroutines: The source code of the external subroutines will be in an
ABAP/4 program other than the calling procedure.

What are the different types of parameters?
Formal parameters: Parameters which are defined during the definition of subroutine with the FORM statement. Actual parameters: Parameters which are specified during the call of a subroutine with the PERFORM statement.

How can one distinguish between different kinds of parameters?
A. Input parameters are used to pass data to subroutines. B. Output parameters are used to pass data from subroutines.

What are the different methods of passing data?
A. Calling by reference: During a subroutine call, only the address of the actual
parameter is transferred to the formal parameters. The formal parameter has no memory of its own, and we work with the field of the calling program within the subroutine. If we change the formal parameter, the field contents in the calling program also change.
B. Calling by value: During a subroutine call, the formal parameters are created as
copies of the actual parameters. The formal parameters have memory of their own. Changes to the formal parameters have no effect on the actual parameters.
C. Calling by value and result: During a subroutine call, the formal parameters are
created as copies of the actual parameters. The formal parameters have their own memory space. Changes to the formal parameters are copied to the actual parameters at the end of the subroutine.
The method by which internal tables are passed is By Reference.

What is the difference between the function module and a normal ABAP/4 subroutine?

In contrast to normal subroutines function modules have uniquely defined interface. Sub routines do not return values.
Sub routines do not return exceptions. Sub routines cannot be tested independently. Declaring data as common parts is not possible for function modules. Function modules are stored in a central library. What is a function group? A function group is a collection of logically related modules that share global data with each other. All the modules in the group are included in the same main program. When an ABAP/4 program contains a CALL FUNCTION statement, the system loads the entire function group in with the program code at runtime. Every function module belongs to a function group.

What is the difference between internal tables and extract datasets?

A. The lines of an internal table always have the same structure. By using extract
datasets, you can handle groups of data with different structure and get statistical figures from the grouped data.
B. You have to define the structure of the internal table at the begining. You need
not define the structure of the extract dataset.
C. In contrast to internal tables, the system partly compresses extract datasets
when storing them. This reduces the storage space required.
D. Internal tables require special work area for interface whereas extract datasets
do not need a special work area for interface.

LOGICAL DATABASE.
What are logical databases?
What are the advantages/disadvantages of logical databases? Ans :- A Logical Database is a hierarchical structure of tables. Use the GET statement to process Logical Databases. - LDB consists of logically related tables grouped together ­ used for reading and processing data.
- Advantages = 1. No need of programming for retrieval , meaning for data selection
- 2. Easy to use standard user interface, have check completeness of user input.
Disadvantages = 1. Fast in case of lesser no. of tables But if the table is in the lowest level of hierarchy, all upper level tables should be read so performance is slower.

Preparation of the data records by the L.D.B and reading of the data records in the actual report are accomplished with the command pair.
- Put and Get.

The three main elements of LDB are - Structure, Selections, Database Program.

What sort of tables one can use in designing the hierarchy of a LDB ?
- Tables which are having Foreign key relations.

The structure of Logical Databases relfects the ________________ dependencies of hierarchical tables in the SAP System.
- Foreign key

If you want to improve the response time ( time to access data ) Logical DataBases permits you to achieve this using ______________
- VIEWS.

What are the advantages of Logical DataBases ?
- It offers an easy-to-use selection screen.
You can modify the pre-generated selection screen to your needs. It offers check functions to check whether user input is complete, correct, and plausible.
It offers reasonable data selections.
It contains central authorization checks for database accesses.
Enhancements such as improved performance immediately apply to all report programs that use the logical database.
Report FORMATTING In order to suppress the leading zeros of a number field the keywords used are : NO-ZERO. The Command that allows for vertical alignment of fields one below the other. UNDER. In order to concatenate strings only for output purposes the command _________ can be used in conjunction with the 'Write' statement. NO-GAP. Data can be moved from one field to another using a 'Write:' Statement and stored in the desired format. TRUE. Write : Date_1 to Date_2 format DD/MM/YY. In order to have boldfaced text as output the command used is Write : INTENSIFIED. Background and foreground colors can be interchanged using the command Format inverse. Which datatype cannot be used to define parameters. Type F. For each new event, the system resets all formatting options to their default values. TRUE.
The processing block following END-OF-PAGE is processed only if you reserve lines for the footer in the LINE-COUNT option of the REPORT statement.
To execute a page break under the condition that less than a certain number of lines is left on a page is acheived by ________________________. RESERVE n lines. What is the limit for the length of a page if the page length is not specified in the report statement. 60,000 Lines. How can Symbols or R/3 icons be output on the screen? WRITE AS SYMBOL. WRITE AS ICON.
REPORTING - GENERAL What are reports? and how do you set up reports? A report program reads and analyzes data from one or more database tables without modifying the database. Usually, the result of such a report program is in the form of a list which is output to the screen or sent to a printer. What are the different types of programs? I
Include Program
M
Module Pool
F
Function Modules
S
External Subroutines
1
Online program

Events in Reporting ? Explain ?
The following events occur at runtime of a typical report program which uses logical databases: Event keyword
Event

-- INITIALIZATION
Point before the selection screen
is displayed
When you start a program in which a selection screen is defined (either in the program itself or in the linked logical database program), the system normally processes this selection screen first. If you want to execute a processing block before the selection screen is processed, you can assign it to the event keyword INITIALIZATION.

AT SELECTION-SCREEN
Point after processing user input on the selection screen while the selection screen is still active
The event keyword AT SELECTION-SCREEN provides you with several possibilities to carry out processing blocks while the system is processing the selection screen.

START-OF-SELECTION
Point after processing the selection screen
The event START-OF-SELECTION gives you the possibility of creating a processing block after processing the selection screen and before accessing database tables using a logical database. You can use this processing block, for example, to set the values of internal fields or to write informational statements onto the output screen. At the START-OF-SELECTION event, also all statements are processed that are not attached to an event keyword except those that are written behind a FORM-ENDFORM block .

GET


Point at which the logical database offers a line of the database table

The most important event for report programs with an attached logical database is the moment at which the logical database program has read a line from a database table (see Accessing Data Using Logical Databases ). To start a processing block at this event, use the GET statement as follows:

Syntax

GET

[FIELDS ].


[FIELDS ]. After this statement, you can work with the current line of the database table


. The data is provided in the table work area


GET LATE

Point after processing all tables which are hierarchically subordinate to the database table

in the structure of the logical database.
To start a processing block at the moment after the system has processed all database tables of a logical database that are hierarchically inferior to a specific database table, use the event keyword GET as follows:

Syntax :

GET

LATE [FIELDS ]


In analogy to report programs that use only SELECT statements (see table in Comparison of Access Methods ), the processing block of a GET LATE


statement would appear directly before the ENDSELECT statement in the SELECT loop for the database table

.
END-OF-SELECTION
Point after processing all lines offered by the logical database.
To define a processing block after the system has read and processed all database tables of a logical database, use the keyword END-OF-SELECTION. The following events occur during the processing of the output list of a report program: Event keyword
Event
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------TOP-OF-PAGE
Point during list processing when a new page is started
END-OF-PAGE
Point during list processing when a page is ended
The following events occur during the display of the output list of a report program: Event keyword
Event

--AT LINE-SELECTION
Point at which the user selects a line

AT USER-COMMAND
Point at which the user presses a function key or enters a command in the
command field.

AT PF
Point at which the user presses the function key with the function code
PF

With the selection screen, ABAP/4 offers an interactive element also for report programs. You can define a selection screen without having to bother about all the details required in dialog programming. The selection screen is always processed directly after a report program is started. The user can enter field values and selection criteria on this screen. The main purpose of the selection screen is to enable the user to control the database selections of the report program. If a report program is started from another ABAP/4 program with the SUBMIT statement (see Calling Reports), the selection screen objects also serve as a data interface, With a selection screen defined in the report program, you can enable the user to ·
assign values to variables with the PARAMETERS statement
·
determine selection criteria with the SELECT-OPTIONS statement

How do you read selected lines of database table into an internal table in packages of predefined size?.

SELECT * FROM INTO TABLE PACKAGE SIZE .
where 'n' is variable.
Name the WILDCARD characters which are used for comparisions with character strings & numeric strings.
'%' and '_'.

How to specify a client for database table processing.

TABLES SPFLI.
SELECT * FROM SPFLI CLIENT SPECIFIED
WHERE MANDT BETWEEN '001' AND '003'.
...
ENDSELECT.

Activation ­ During activation, the runtime object of aggregate object or tables is created. The runtime object is buffered so that the application program can access it quickly. Runtime object has information about the following objects of table - domain ­ data elements ­ field definition ­ table definition

Lock Mechanism ­ prevents a new database operation being started an existing one has been correctly completed. When conversion is done, lock is created automatically and released only when conversion is successful. Clearing of locks ­ restart adjustment ­ attempt is made to continue conversion at the point of
termination
Cancel adjustment ­ lock entry is simply deleted from table

Version Management functions ­

- Canceling changes ­ reset revised version to active version
- Storing changes ­ active version will be temporarily stored in version
Switching changes ­ switch between active and revised versions

Version catalog ­ list of all existing versions of an object

- Revised version ­ produced when we edit an existing object
- Active version ­ produced when we activate an object
- Temporary version ­ produced when we copy the active version temporarily to the database with store version functions
- Historical versions ­ created when 1. Correction is created 2 correction is
released

Table Buffering : Possible buffering types

- full buffering ­ either, whole table or none of the table is located in the buffer (Tables up to 30 kb done in client dependent fully buffered tables)
- Generic buffering ­ generic areas of the table are fully buffered.
- Generic key ­ left justified section of primary key of a table.
Single record buffering ­ records actually being accessed are loaded to buffers, large records where few records are accessed.

Internal Tables ? Types ?

STANDARD table Key access to a standard table uses a linear search. This means that the time required for a search is in linear relation to the number of table entries. You should use index operations to access standard tables.

SORTED table Defines the table as one that is always saved correctly sorted. Key access to a sorted table uses a binary key. If the key is not unique, the system takes the entry with the lowest index. The runtime required for key access is logarithmically related to the number of table entries.

HASHED table Defines the table as one that is managed with an internal hash procedure You can only access a hashed table using the generic key operations or other generic operations ( SORT, LOOP, and so on). Explicit or implicit index operations (such as LOOP ... FROM oe INSERT itab within a LOOP) are not allowed.

INDEX table A table that can be accessed using an index. Index table is only used to specify the type of generic parameters in a FORM or FUNCTION. That means that you can't create a table of type INDEX. Standard tables and sorted tables are index tables.

Syntax : DATA itab TYPE table type of line type [WITH UNIQUE/NON-UNIQUE KEY ] [Iinitial size n] [WITH HEADER LINE]

What are DATA CLUSTERS ?

You can group any complex internal data objects of an ABAP/4 program together in data clusters and store them temporarily in ABAP/4 memory or for longer periods in databases. You can store data clusters in special databases of the ABAP/4 Dictionary. These databases are known as ABAP/4 cluster databases and have a predefined structure.Storing a data cluster is specific to ABAP/4. Although you can also access
cluster databases using SQL statements, only ABAP/4 statements are able to decode the structure of the stored data cluster.

Describe the functions of the debugger screen.

- Single step(F5) - Use this option to step through the program statement by statement. This allows you to branch into subroutines and function modules, and to execute these routines step by step as well. Once a subroutine or function module has been processed, control returns to the statement following the CALL FUNCTION or PERFORM statement.

- Execute(F6)- Use this option to process a program line by line. All of the statements on the current line are processed in a single step. If you are positioned on a line that calls a subroutine and you choose Execute, the Debugger processes the whole subroutine and then moves on to the line following the subroutine call. This allows you to jump through the statements within the subroutine.

- Return(F7) - The Debugger returns from a routine to the point at which control returns to the main program. Use this option to return from a subroutine, function module, or called program to the calling program.

- Continue(F8)- Use this option to process the program up to the next dynamic or static breakpoint or up to the cursor position. If there are no more breakpoints in the program and no cursor has been set, the system exits debugging mode and executes the rest of the program normally.

- Tables - Display the contents of internal tables.

Problem:How to run a program in background?

Solution :Execute the Report In the selection screen :After filling the screen fields press F9. A screen appears requesting U to print the Background Parameters *Enter the output device(Eg HPLJ /SAP2 etc) *In the spool options Uncheck Print immedietly,Uncheck delete after output,and new spool request. Press enter. Another screen appears with heading start time .U can press start immly ,then save Now the Background job is scheduled for the given program .
To View the status of background Job,The transaction code is SM37. Execute from the resulting screen . Job overview -->From the Job list select U'r program and select Spool from the application toolbar Output Controller :List of Spool Requests Select U'r Spool request and click Display icon from the overview screen . U will be displayed with the List. Caution :See to that the list with does not exceed 255 columns ,If it exceeds the extra columns will be truncated in Background

What are presentation and application servers in SAP?

A presentation server is actually a program named Sapgui.exe. It is usually installed on a user's workstation. Application server is a set of executables that collectively interpret the ABAP/4 programs and manage the input & output for them.

In an ABAP/4 program how do you access data that exists on a presentation server v/s on an application server?

For presentation server use UPLOAD or WS_UPLOAD function modules. For application server use OPEN DATASET, READ DATASET and CLOSE DATASET commands.

Describe the syntax and function of the AUTHORITY CHECK command?

Ans :- AUTHORITY ­ CHECK OBJECT

ID FIELD ID FIELD ... IF SY-SUBRC NE 0. The AUTHORITY-CHECK checks whether a user has the appropriate authorization to execute a particular activity.