DB2 selected interview questions given in sequence so that any new developer can start to refresh quickly.
DB2 tough interview questions
Q1. What is a DB2 bind?
A1. A DB2 bind is a process that builds an access path to DB2 tables.
Q2. What is a DB2 access path?
A2. An access path is a method used to access data specified in DB2 SQL statements.
Q3. What is a DB2 plan?
A3. An application plan or package is generated by the bind to define an access path.
Q4. What is normalization and what are the five normal forms?
A4. Normalization is a design procedure for representing data in tabular format. The five normal forms are progressive rules to represent the data with minimal redundancy.
Q5. What are foreign keys?
A5. Attributes of one table that have matching values in a primary key in another table, allowing for relationships between tables.
Q6. Describe the elements of the SELECT query syntax?
A6. SELECT element FROM table Where conditional statement.
Q7. Explain the use of the WHERE clause?
A7. WHERE is used with a relational statement to isolate the object element or row.
Q8. What techniques are used to retrieve data from more than one table in a single SQL statement?
A8. Joins, unions, and nested selects are used to retrieve data.
Q9. What do the initials DDL and DML stand for and what is their meaning?
A9. DDL is data definition language and DML is data manipulation language. DDL statements are created, ALTER, TRUNCATE. DML statements are SELECT, INSERT, DELETE and UPDATE.
Q10. What is a view? Why use it?
A10. A view is a virtual table made up of data from base tables and other views, but not stored separately.
Q11. Explain an outer join.
A11. An outer join includes rows from tables when there are no matching values in the tables.
Q12. What is a subselect? Is it different from a nested select?
A12. A subselect is a select that works in conjunction with another select. A nested select is a kind of subselect where the inner select passes to the where criteria for the outer select.
Q13. What is the difference between group by and order by?
A13. Group by controls the presentation of the rows, order by controls the presentation of the columns for the results of the SELECT statement.
Q14. Explain the EXPLAIN statement.
A14. The explanation statement provides information about the optimizer’s choice of access path of the SQL.
Q15. What is a tablespace?
A15. Tables are stored in tablespaces (hence the name)! There are three types of tablespaces: simple, segmented, and partitioned.
Q16. What is a cursor and what is its function?
A16. An embedded SQL statement may return a number of rows while the programming language can only access one row at a time. The programming device called a cursor controls the position of the row.
Q17. What is referential integrity?
A17. Referential integrity refers to the consistency that must be maintained between primary and foreign keys, ie every foreign key value must have a corresponding primary key value.
Q18. Usually, which is more important for DB2 system performance – CPU processing or I/O access?
A18. I/O operations are usually most critical for DB2 performance (or any other database for that matter).
Q19. Is there any advantage to denormalizing DB2 tables?
A19. Denormalizing DB2 tables reduces the need for processing-intensive relational joins and reduces the number of foreign keys.
Q20. What is the database descriptor?
A20. The database descriptor, DBD is the DB2 component that limits access to the database whenever objects are created, altered, or dropped.
Q21. What is lock contention?
A21. To maintain the integrity of DB2 objects the DBD permits access to only one object at a time. Lock contention happens if several objects are required by contending application processes simultaneously.
Q22. What is SPUFI?
A22. SPUFI stands for SQL processing using file input. It is the DB2 interactive menu-driven tool used by developers to create database objects.
Q23. What is the significance of DB2 free space and what parameters control it?
A23. The two parameters used in the CREATE statement are the PCTFREE which specifies the percentage of free space for each page and FREEPAGE which indicates the number of pages to be loaded with data between each free page. Free space allows room for the insertion of new rows.
Q24. What is a NULL value? What are the pros and cons of using NULLS?
A24. A NULL value takes up one byte of storage and indicates that a value is not present as opposed to a space or zero value. It’s the DB2 equivalent of TBD on an organizational chart and often correctly portrays a business situation. Unfortunately, it requires extra coding for an application program to handle this situation.
Q25. What is a synonym? How is it used?
A25. A synonym is used to reference a table or view by another name. The other name can then be written in the application code pointing to test tables in the development stage and to production entities when the code is migrated. The synonym is linked to the AUTHID that created it.
Q26. What is an alias and how does it differ from a synonym?
A26. An alias is an alternative to a synonym, designed for a distributed environment to avoid having to use the location qualifier of a table or view. The alias is not dropped when the table is dropped.
Q27. What is a LIKE table and how is it created?
A27. LIKE table is created by using the LIKE parameter in a CREATE table statement. LIKE tables are typically created for a test environment from the production environment.
Q28. If the base table underlying a view is restructured, eg. attributes are added, does the application code accessing the view need to be redone?
A28. No. The table and its view are created anew, but the programs accessing the view do not need to be changed if the view and attributes accessed remain the same.
Q29. Under what circumstances will DB2 allow an SQL statement to update more than one primary key value at a time?
A29. Never. Such processing could produce duplicate values violating entity integrity. Primary keys must be updated one at a time.
Q30. What is the cascade rule and how does it relate to deletions made with a subselect?
A30. The cascade rule will not allow deletions based on a subselect that references the same table from which the deletions are being made.
Q31. What is the self-referencing constraint?
A31. The self-referencing constraint limits in a single table the changes to a primary key that the related foreign key defines. The foreign key in a self-referencing table must specify the DELETE CASCADE rule.
Q32. What are delete-connected tables?
A32. Tables related to foreign keys are called delete-connected because a deletion in the primary key table can affect the contents of the foreign key table.
Q33. When can an insert of a new primary key value threaten referential integrity?
A33. Never. New primary key values are not a problem. However, the values of foreign key inserts must have corresponding primary key values in their related tables. And updates of primary key values may require changes in foreign key values to maintain referential integrity.
Q34. In terms of DB2 indexing, what is the root page?
A34. The simplest DB2 index is the B-tree and the B-tree’s top page is called the root page. The root page entries represent the upper range limits of the index and are referenced first in a search.
Q35. How does Db2 use multiple table indexes?
A35. DB2 uses the multiple indexes to satisfy multiple predicates in a SELECT statement that are joined by an AND or OR.
Q36. What are some characteristics of columns that benefit from indexes?
A36. Primary key and foreign key columns; columns that have unique values; columns that have aggregates computed frequently and columns used to test the existence of a value.
Q37. What is a composite index and how does it differ from multiple indexes?
A37. Multiple indexes are not one index but two indexes for two different columns of a table. A composite index is one index made up of combined values from two columns in a table. If two columns in a table will often be accessed together a composite index will be efficient.
Q38. What is meant by index cardinality?
A38. The number of distinct values for a column is called index cardinality. DB2’s RUNSTATS utility analyzes column value redundancy to determine whether to use a tablespace or index scan to search for data.
Q39. What is a clustered index?
A39. For a clustered index DB2 maintains rows in the same sequence as the columns in the index for as long as there is free space. DB2 can then process that table in that order efficiently.
Q40. What keyword does an SQL SELECT statement use for a string search?
A40. The LIKE keyword allows for string searches. The % sign is used as a wildcard.
Q41. What are some SQL aggregates and other built-in functions?
A41. The common aggregate, built-in functions are AVG, SUM, MIN, MAX, COUNT, and DISTINCT.
Q42. How is the SUBSTR keyword used in SQL?
A42. SUBSTR is used for string manipulation with a column name, first position, and string length used as arguments. Eg. SUBSTR (NAME, 1 3) refers to the first three characters in the column NAME.
Q43. What are the three DB2 date and time data types and their associated functions?
A43. The three data types are DATE, TIME, and TIMESTAMP. CHAR can be used to specify the format of each type. The DAYS function calculates the number of days between two dates. (It’s Y2K compliant).
Q44. Explain transactions, commits, and rollbacks in DB2?
A44. In DB2 a transaction typically requires a series of updates, insertions, and deletions that represent a logical unit of work. A transaction puts an implicit lock on the DB2 data. Programmers can use the COMMIT WORK statement to terminate the transaction creating smaller units for recovery. If the transaction fails DB2 uses the log to roll back values to the start of the transaction or to the preceding commit point.
Q45. What is deadlock?
A45. Deadlock occurs when transactions executing at the same time lock each other out of data that they need to complete their logical units of work.
Q46. What are the four lockable units for DB2?
A46. DB2 imposes locks of four different sizes: pages, tables, tablespace, and for indexes subpage.
Q47. What are the three lock types?
A47. The three types are share, update, and exclusive. Shared locks allow two or more programs to read simultaneously but not change the locked space. An exclusive lock bars all other users from accessing the space. An update lock is less restrictive; it allows other transactions to read or acquire shared locks on the space.
Q48. What is the isolation level?
A48. SQL statements may return any number of rows, but most host languages deal with one row at a time by declaring a cursor that presents each row at a unique isolation level.
Q49. What is an intent lock?
A49. An intent lock is at the table level for a segmented tablespace or at the tablespace level for a nonsegmented tablespace. They indicate at the table or tablespace level the kinds of locks at lower levels.
Q50. What is the difference between static and dynamic SQL?
A50. Static SQL is hard-coded in a program when the programmer knows the statements to be executed. For dynamic SQL, the program must dynamically allocate memory to receive the query results.
Q51. What is cursor stability?
A51. Cursor stability means that DB2 takes a lock on the page the cursor is accessing and releases the lock when the cursor moves to another page.
Q52. What is the significance of the CURSOR WITH HOLD clause in a cursor declaration?
A52. The clause avoids closing the cursor and repositioning it to the last row processed when the cursor is reopened.
Q53. What is the SQL Communications Area and what are some of its key fields?
A53. It is a data structure that must be included in any host-language program using SQL. It is used to pass feedback about the SQL operations to the program. Fields are return codes, error messages, handling codes, and warnings.
Q54. What is the purpose of the WHENEVER statement?
A54. The WHENEVER statement is coded once in the host program to control program actions depending on the SQL-CODE returned by each SQL statement within the program.
Q55. What is DCLGEN?
A55. DCLGEN stands for declarations generator; it is a facility to generate DB2 SQL data structures in COBOL or PL/I programs.
Q56. What is the FREE command?
A56. The FREE command can be used to delete plans and/or packages no longer needed.
Q57. DB2 can implement a join in three ways using a merge join, a nested join, or a hybrid join. Explain the differences?
A57. A merge join requires that the tables being joined be in a sequence; the rows are retrieved with a high cluster ratio index or are sorted by DB2. A nested join does not require a sequence and works best on joining a small number of rows. DB2 reads the outer table values and each time scans the inner table for matches. The hybrid join is a nested join that requires the outer table to be in sequence.
Q58. Compare a subselect to a join?
A58. Any subselect can be rewritten as a join, but not vice versa. Joins are usually more efficient as join rows can be returned immediately, subselects require a temporary work area for inner selects results while processing the outer select.
Q59. What is the difference between IN subselects and EXISTS subselect?
A59. If there is an index on the attributes tested an IN is more efficient since DB2 uses the index for the IN. (IN for the index is the mnemonic).
Q60. What is a Cartesian product?
A60. A Cartesian product results from a faulty query. It is a row in the results for every combination in the join tables.
Q61. 4/99 Mail from Joseph Howard: ‘Q: DB2 What is the difference between a package and a plan? How does one bind 2 versions of a CICS transaction with the same module name in two different CICS regions that share the same DB2 subsystem?
A61. Package and plan are usually used synonymously, as in this site. Both contain optimized code for SQL statements – a package for a single program, module, or subroutine contained in the database request module (DBRM) library. A plan may contain multiple packages and pointers to packages. The one CICS module would then exist in a package that could be referenced in two different plans.
Q62. What is an asynchronous write?
A62. It is a write to a disk that may occur before or long after a commit. The write is controlled by the buffer manager.
Q63. What is a lock?
A63. A lock is a mechanism that controls access to data pages and tablespaces.
Q64. What is meant by isolation level?
A64. This is a key concept for any relational database. Isolation level is the manner in which locks are applied and released during a transaction. For DB@ a ‘repeatable read’ holds all locks until the transaction completes or a sync point is issued. For transactions using ‘cursor stability,’ the page lock releases are issued as the cursor ‘moves’, i.e. as the transaction releases addressability to the records.
Q65. What are leaf pages?
A65. They are the opposite of root pages. Leaf pages are the lowest level index pages – the pages that contain index entries and information to the corresponding table rows.
Q66. What is a precompiler?
A66. It is a DB2 facility for static SQL statements – it replaces these statements with calls to the DB2 language interface module.
Q67. What is a root page?
A67. The opposite of a leaf page; is the highest level index page. An index can contain only one root page; all other index pages are associated with the root.
Q68. What is a thread?
A68. A thread is a connection between DB2 and some other subsystem, such as CICS or IMS/DC.
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