80 SQL Interview Question

Whether you're a job hunter who is looking for a new opportunity to apply your SQL
skills or a hiring manager who is going to interrogate a candidate for a job opening in
their company, knowing common SQL interview questions and answers to them is a
must for you.

In this article, we're going to take a look at 80 essential SQL questions and answers
for beginners and intermediate practitioners that will help you better prepare for the
interview and know what to expect from your interviewer/interviewee.
Note that for the sake of convenience, this article is mostly addressing job searchers
since they are the main audience for such information. However, this content will
definitely be of use also for hiring managers/recruiters, especially for conducting their
first SQL interviews.

General SQL Interview Questions for Beginners

To kick off, before asking you technical questions, your interviewer may ask you
some general questions about your overall experience with SQL. You can expect the
following questions:

What SQL flavors are you familiar with?

How can you estimate your level of proficiency in SQL?

For how long have you been working in SQL?

While this information can be mentioned in your resume, be ready to talk about it.
Naturally, there are no "right" answers to such questions, and there is no need to

80 SQL Interview Question 1

 make up things when answering them.
Don't worry if your experience in SQL is limited: this is something your interviewer,
most probably, already knows from your resume. Since they are interested in talking
to you anyway, your profile was considered a good fit for their company.

Also, it's perfectly fine if you have only worked with one SQL flavor. Remember that
all SQL dialects are fairly similar among themselves. Therefore, being familiar with
only one of them is a solid basis for you to learn any others.

Technical SQL Interview Questions for Beginners

Now, let's move on to the technical SQL interview questions and some potential
answers to them.
When answering technical questions, the best strategy is to give as precise answers
as possible. It may look like an attempt to deviate from the main topic. In addition, it
may provocate additional questions about which you can feel less confident.

1. What is SQL?
It stands for Structured Query Language. A programming language used for
interaction with relational database management systems (RDBMS). This includes
fetching, updating, inserting, and removing data from tables.

2. What are SQL dialects? Give some examples.

The various versions of SQL, both free and paid, are also called SQL dialects. All the
flavors of SQL have a very similar syntax and vary insignificantly only in additional
functionality. Some examples are Microsoft SQL Server , PostgreSQL , MySQL , SQLite , T-
SQL , Oracle, and MongoDB.

3. What are the main applications of SQL?

Using SQL, we can:

create, delete, and update tables in a database

access, manipulate, and modify data in a table

retrieve and summarize the necessary information from a table or several tables

add or remove certain rows or columns from a table

All in all, SQL allows querying a database in multiple ways. In addition, SQL easily
integrates with other programming languages, such as Python or R, so we can use

80 SQL Interview Question 2

 their combined power.

4. What is an SQL statement? Give some examples.

Also known as an SQL command. It's a string of characters interpreted by the SQL
engine as a legal command and executed accordingly. Some examples of SQL
statements are SELECT , CREATE , DELETE , DROP , REVOKE , and so on.

5. What types of SQL commands (or SQL subsets) do you

know?
Data Definition Language (DDL) – to define and modify the structure of a
database.

Data Manipulation Language (DML) – to access, manipulate, and modify data

in a database.

Data Control Language (DCL) – to control user access to the data in the
database and give or revoke privileges to a specific user or a group of users.

Transaction Control Language (TCL) – to control transactions in a database.

Data Query Language (DQL) – to perform queries on the data in a database to

retrieve the necessary information from it.

6. Give some examples of common SQL commands of each

type.
DDL: CREATE , ALTER TABLE , DROP , TRUNCATE , and ADD COLUMN

DML: UPDATE , DELETE , and INSERT

DCL: GRANT and REVOKE

TCL: COMMIT , SET TRANSACTION , ROLLBACK , and SAVEPOINT

DQL: – SELECT

7. What is a database?
A structured storage space where the data is kept in many tables and organized so
that the necessary information can be easily fetched, manipulated, and summarized.

8. What is DBMS, and what types of DBMS do you know?

It stands for Database Management System, a software package used to perform
various operations on the data stored in a database, such as accessing, updating,

80 SQL Interview Question 3

 wrangling, inserting, and removing data. There are various types of DBMS, such as
relational, hierarchical, network, graph, or object-oriented. These types are based on
the way the data is organized, structured, and stored in the system.

9. What is RDBMS? Give some examples of RDBMS.

It stands for Relational Database Management System. It's the most common type of
DBMS used for working with data stored in multiple tables related to each other by
means of shared keys. The SQL programming language is particularly designed to
interact with RDBMS. Some examples of RDBMS are MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle,
MariaDB, etc.

10. What are tables and fields in SQL?

A table is an organized set of related data stored in a tabular form, i.e., in rows and
columns. A field is another term for a column of a table.

11. What is an SQL query, and what types of queries do you

know?
A query is a piece of code written in SQL to access the data from a database or to
modify the data. Correspondingly, there are two types of SQL
queries: select and action queries. The first ones are used to retrieve the necessary
data (this also includes limiting, grouping, ordering the data, extracting the data from
multiple tables, etc.), while the second ones are used to create, add, delete, update,
rename the data, etc.

12. What is a subquery?

Also called an inner query; a query placed inside another query, or an outer query. A
subquery may occur in the clauses such as SELECT , FROM , WHERE , UPDATE , etc. It's
also possible to have a subquery inside another subquery. The innermost subquery
is run first, and its result is passed to the containing query (or subquery).

13. What types of SQL subqueries do you know?

Single-row – returns at most one row.

Multi-row – returns at least two rows.

Multi-column – returns at least two columns.

Correlated – a subquery related to the information from the outer query.

Nested – a subquery inside another subquery.

80 SQL Interview Question 4

 14. What is a constraint, and why use constraints?
A set of conditions defining the type of data that can be input into each column of a
table. Constraints ensure data integrity in a table and block undesired actions.

15. What SQL constraints do you know?

DEFAULT – provides a default value for a column.

UNIQUE – allows only unique values.

NOT NULL – allows only non-null values.

PRIMARY KEY – allows only unique and strictly non-null values ( NOT
NULL and UNIQUE ).

FOREIGN KEY – provides shared keys between two and more tables.

16. What is a join?

A clause used to combine and retrieve records from two or multiple tables. SQL
tables can be joined based on the relationship between the columns of those tables.
Check out our SQL joins tutorial for more context.

17. What types of joins do you know?

(INNER) JOIN – returns only those records that satisfy a defined join condition in
both (or all) tables. It's a default SQL join.

LEFT (OUTER) JOIN – returns all records from the left table and those records from
the right table that satisfy a defined join condition.

RIGHT (OUTER) JOIN – returns all records from the right table and those records
from the left table that satisfy a defined join condition.

FULL (OUTER) JOIN– returns all records from both (or all) tables. It can be
considered as a combination of left and right joins.

18. What is a primary key?

A column (or multiple columns) of a table to which the PRIMARY KEY constraint was
imposed to ensure unique and non-null values in that column. In other words, a
primary key is a combination of the NOT NULL and UNIQUE constraints. The primary
key uniquely identifies each record of the table. Each table should contain a primary
key and can't contain more than one primary key.

80 SQL Interview Question 5

 19. What is a unique key?
A column (or multiple columns) of a table to which the UNIQUE constraint was
imposed to ensure unique values in that column, including a possible NULL value
(the only one).

20. What is a foreign key?

A column (or multiple columns) of a table to which the FOREIGN KEY constraint was
imposed to link this column to the primary key in another table (or several tables).
The purpose of foreign keys is to keep connected various tables of a database.

21. What is an index?

A special data structure related to a database table and used for storing its important
parts and enabling faster data search and retrieval. Indexes are especially efficient
for large databases, where they significantly enhance query performance.

22. What types of indexes do you know?

Unique index – doesn't allow duplicates in a table column and hence helps
maintain data integrity.

Clustered index – defines the physical order of records of a database table and
performs data searching based on the key values. A table can have only one
clustered index.

Non-clustered index – keeps the order of the table records that doesn't match
the physical order of the actual data on the disk. It means that the data is stored
in one place and a non-clustered index – in another one. A table can have
multiple non-clustered indexes.

23. What is a schema?

A collection of database structural elements such as tables, stored procedures,
indexes, functions, and triggers. It shows the overall database architecture, specifies
the relationships between various objects of a database, and defines different
access permissions for them.

24. What is a SQL comment?

A human-readable clarification on what a particular piece of code does. SQL code
comments can be single-line (preceded by a double dash -- ) or span over multiple
lines (as follows: /*comment_text*/ ). When the SQL engine runs, it ignores code

80 SQL Interview Question 6

 comments. The purpose of adding SQL code comments is to make the code more
comprehensive for those people who will read it in the future.

25. What is a SQL operator?

A reserved character, a combination of characters, or a keyword used in SQL
queries to perform a specific operation. SQL operators are commonly used with
the WHERE clause to set a condition (or conditions) for filtering the data.

26. What types of SQL operators do you know?

Arithmetic ( + , - , * , / , etc.)

Comparison ( > , < , = , >= , etc.)

Compound ( += , = , = , /= , etc.)

Logical ( AND , OR , NOT , BETWEEN , etc.)

String ( % , _ , + , ^ , etc.)

Set ( UNION , UNION ALL , INTERSECT , and MINUS (or EXCEPT ))

27. What is an alias?

A temporary name given to a table (or a column in a table) while executing a certain
SQL query. Aliases are used to improve the code readability and make the code
more compact. An alias is introduced with the AS keyword:

SELECT col_1 AS column

FROM table_name;

28. What is a clause?

A condition imposed on a SQL query to filter the data to obtain the desired result.
Some examples are WHERE , LIMIT , HAVING , LIKE , AND , OR , ORDER BY , etc.

29. What are some common statements used with

the SELECT query?
The most common ones are FROM , GROUP BY , JOIN , WHERE , ORDER BY , LIMIT ,
and HAVING .

30. How to create a table?

80 SQL Interview Question 7

 Using the CREATE TABLE statement. For example, to create a table with three columns
of predefined datatypes, we apply the following syntax:

CREATE TABLE table_name (col_1 datatype,

col_2 datatype,
col_3 datatype);

31. How to update a table?

Using the UPDATE statement. The syntax is:

UPDATE table_name
SET col_1 = value_1, column_2 = value_2
WHERE condition;

32. How to delete a table from a database?

Using the DROP TABLE statement. The syntax is: DROP TABLE table_name; .

33. How to get the count of records in a table?

Using the COUNT() aggregate function with the asterisk passed as its
argument: SELECT COUNT(*) FROM table_name; .

34. How to sort records in a table?

Using the ORDER BY statement:

SELECT * FROM table_name

ORDER BY col_1;

We can specify that we need a descending order using the DESC keyword; otherwise,
the order will be ascending by default. Also, we can sort by more than one column
and specify for each one, ascending or descending order separately. For example:

SELECT * FROM table_name

ORDER BY col_1 DESC, col_3, col_6 DESC;

80 SQL Interview Question 8

 35. How to select all columns from a table?
Using the asterisk * with the SELECT statement. The syntax is: SELECT * FROM

table_name; .

36. How to select common records from two tables?

Using the INTERSECT statement:

SELECT * FROM table_1
INTERSECT
SELECT * FROM table_1;

37. What is the DISTINCT statement and how do you use it?
This statement is used with the SELECT statement to filter out duplicates and return
only unique values from a column of a table. The syntax is:

SELECT DISTINCT col_1

FROM table_name;

38. What are entities? Give some examples.

An entity is a real-world object, creature, place, or phenomenon for which the data
can be gathered and stored in a database table. Each entity corresponds to a row in
a table, while the table's columns describe its properties. Some examples of entities
are bank transactions, students in a school, cars sold, etc.

39. What are relationships? Give some examples.

Relationships are the connections and correlations between entities, basically
meaning how two or more tables of a database are related to one another. For
example, we can find an ID of the same client in a table on sales data and in a
customer table.

40. What is NULL value? How is it different from zero or a blank

space?
A NULL value indicates the absence of data for a certain cell of a table. Instead, zero
is a valid numeric value, and an empty string is a legal string of zero length.

80 SQL Interview Question 9

 40 Top Intermediate SQL Interview Questions and
Answers
In this section, we take a look at the 40 most popular intermediate SQL questions
and answers, so that you'll know what to expect from your interviewer. These
questions are more suited to SQL practitioners with a few years of experience.

1. What is a function in SQL, and why use functions?

A database object representing a set of SQL statements frequently used for a certain
task. A function takes in some input parameters, performs calculations or other
manipulations on them, and returns the result. Functions help improve code
readability and avoid repetition of the same code snippets.

2. What types of SQL functions do you know?

Aggregate functions – work on multiple, usually grouped records for the
provided columns of a table, and return a single value (usually by group).

Scalar functions – work on each individual value and return a single value.

On the other hand, SQL functions can be built-in (defined by the system) or user-
defined (created by the user for their specific needs).

3. What aggregate functions do you know?

AVG() – returns the average value

SUM() – returns the sum of values

MIN() – returns the minimum value

MAX() – returns the maximum value

COUNT() – returns the number of rows, including those with null values

FIRST() – returns the first value from a column

LAST() – returns the last value from a column

4. What scalar functions do you know?

LEN() (in other SQL flavors – LENGTH() ) – returns the length of a string, including
the blank spaces

UCASE() (in other SQL flavors – UPPER() ) – returns a string converted to the
upper case

80 SQL Interview Question 10

 LCASE() (in other SQL flavors – LOWER() ) – returns a string converted to the lower
case

INITCAP( ) – returns a string converted to the title case (i.e., each word of the
string starts from a capital letter)

MID() (in other SQL flavors – SUBSTR() ) – extracts a substring from a string

ROUND() – returns the numerical value rounded to a specified number of decimals

NOW() – returns the current date and time

5. What are case manipulation functions? Give some examples.

Case manipulation functions represent a subset of character functions, and they're
used to change the case of the text data. With these functions, we can convert the
data into the upper, lower, or title case.

UCASE() (in other SQL flavors – UPPER( )) – returns a string converted to the
upper case

LCASE() (in other SQL flavors – LOWER() ) – returns a string converted to the lower
case

INITCAP() – returns a string converted to the title case (i.e., each word of the
string starts from a capital letter)

6. What are character manipulation functions? Give some

examples.
Character manipulation functions represent a subset of character functions, and
they're used to modify the text data.

CONCAT() – joins two or more string values appending the second string to the
end of the first one

SUBSTR() – returns a part of a string satisfying the provided start and end points

LENGTH() (in other SQL flavors – LEN() ) – returns the length of a string, including
the blank spaces

REPLACE() – replaces all occurrences of a defined substring in a provided string

with another substring

INSTR() – returns the numeric position of a defined substring in a provided string

LPAD() and RPAD() – return the padding of the left-side/right-side character for
right-justified/left-justified value

80 SQL Interview Question 11

 TRIM() – removes all the defined characters, as well as white spaces, from the
left, right, or both ends of a provided string

7. What is the difference between local and global variables?

Local variables can be accessed only inside the function in which they were
declared. Instead, global variables, being declared outside any function, are stored
in fixed memory structures and can be used throughout the entire program.

8. What is the default data ordering with the ORDER BY statement,

and how do you change it?
By default, the order is ascending. To change it to descending, we need to add
the DESC keyword as follows:

SELECT * FROM table_name

ORDER BY col_1 DESC;

9. What set operators do you know?

UNION – returns the records obtained by at least one of two queries (excluding
duplicates)

UNION ALL – returns the records obtained by at least one of two queries (including
duplicates)

INTERSECT – returns the records obtained by both queries

EXCEPT (called MINUS in MySQL and Oracle) – returns only the records obtained
by the first query but not the second one

10. What operator is used in the query for pattern matching?

The LIKE operator in combination with the % and _ wildcards. The % wildcard
represents any number of characters including zero, while _ – strictly one character.

11. What is the difference between a primary key and a unique

key?
While both types of keys ensure unique values in a column of a table, the first one
identifies uniquely each record of the table, and the second one prevents duplicates
in that column.

80 SQL Interview Question 12

 12. What is a composite primary key?
The primary key of a table, based on multiple columns.

13. What is the order of appearance of the common statements

in the SELECT query?
SELECT – FROM – JOIN – ON – WHERE – GROUP BY – HAVING – ORDER BY – LIMIT

14. In which order the interpreter executes the common

statements in the SELECT query?
FROM – JOIN – ON – WHERE – GROUP BY – HAVING – SELECT – ORDER BY – LIMIT

15. What is a view, and why use it?

A virtual table containing a subset of data retrieved from one or more database
tables (or other views). Views take very little space, simplify complex queries, limit
access to the data for security reasons, enable data independence, and summarize
data from multiple tables.

16. Can we create a view based on another view?

Yes. This is also known as nested views. However, we should avoid nesting multiple
views since the code becomes difficult to read and debug.

17. Can we still use a view if the original table is deleted?

No. Any views based on that table will become invalid after deleting the base table. If
we try to use such a view anyway, we'll receive an error message.

18. What types of SQL relationships do you know?

One-to-one – each record in one table corresponds to only one record in
another table

One-to-many – each record in one table corresponds to several records in

another table

Many-to-many – each record in both tables corresponds to several records in

another table

19. What are the possible values of a BOOLEAN data field?

In some SQL flavors, such as PostgreSQL, the BOOLEAN data type exists explicitly
and takes values TRUE , FALSE , or NULL . In other flavors, such as Microsoft SQL

80 SQL Interview Question 13

 Server, the BIT datatype is used to store Boolean values as integers 1 (true)
or 0 (false).

20. What is normalization in SQL, and why use it?

Normalization is a process of database design that includes organizing and
restructuring data in a way to reduce data redundancy, dependency, duplication, and
inconsistency. This leads to enhanced data integrity, more tables within the
database, more efficient data access and security control, and greater query
flexibility.

21. What is denormalization in SQL, and why use it?

Denormalization is the process opposite of normalization: it introduces data
redundancy and combines data from multiple tables. Denormalization optimizes the
performance of the database infrastructure in situations when read operations are
more important than write operations since it helps avoid complex joins and reduces
the time of query running.

22. What is the difference between renaming a column and

giving an alias to it?
Renaming a column means permanently changing its actual name in the original
table. Giving an alias to a column means giving it a temporary name while executing
an SQL query, with the purpose to make the code more readable and compact.

23. What is the difference between nested and correlated

subqueries?
A correlated subquery is an inner query nested in a bigger (outer) query that refers
to the values from the outer query for its execution, meaning that a correlated
subquery depends on its outer query. Instead, a non-correlated subquery doesn't
rely on the data from the outer query and can be run independently of it.

24. What is the difference between clustered and non-clustered

indexes?
While a clustered index defines the physical order of records of a table and
performs data searching based on the key values, a non-clustered index keeps the
order of records that doesn't match the physical order of the actual data on the
disk. A table can have only one clustered index but many non-clustered ones.

25. What is the CASE() function?

80 SQL Interview Question 14

 The way to implement the if-then-else logic in SQL. This function sequentially checks
the provided conditions in the WHEN clauses and returns the value from the
corresponding THEN clause when the first condition is satisfied. If none of the
conditions is satisfied, the function returns the value from the ELSE clause in case it's
provided, otherwise, it returns NULL . The syntax is:

CASE
WHEN condition_1 THEN value_1
WHEN condition_2 THEN value_2
WHEN condition_3 THEN value_3
...
ELSE value
END;

26. What is the difference between

the DELETE and TRUNCATE statements?
DELETEis a reversible DML (Data Manipulation Language) command used to delete
one or more rows from a table based on the conditions specified in the WHERE clause.
Instead, TRUNCATE is an irreversible DDL (Data Definition Language) command used
to delete all rows from a table. DELETE works slower than TRUNCATE . Also, we can't
use the TRUNCATE statement for a table containing a foreign key.

27. What is the difference between

the DROP and TRUNCATE statements?
DROP deletes a table from the database completely, including the table structure and
all the associated constraints, relationships with other tables, and access
privileges. TRUNCATE deletes all rows from a table without affecting the table structure
and constraints. DROP works slower than TRUNCATE . Both are irreversible DDL (Data
Definition Language) commands.

28. What is the difference between the HAVING and WHERE

statements?
The first one works on aggregated data after they are grouped, while the second one
checks each row individually. If both statements are present in a query, they appear
in the following order: WHERE – GROUP BY – HAVING . The SQL engine interprets them
also in the same order.

29. How do you add a record to a table?

80 SQL Interview Question 15

 Using the INSERT INTO statement in combination with VALUES . The syntax is:

INSERT INTO table_name

VALUES (value_1, value_2, ...);

30. How to delete a record from a table?

Using the DELETE statement. The syntax is:

DELETE FROM table_name

WHERE condition;

In this way, we can also delete multiple records if they satisfy the provided condition.

31. How to add a column to a table?

Using the ALTER TABLE statement in combination with ADD . The syntax is:

ALTER TABLE table_name

ADD column_name datatype;

32. How to rename a column of a table?

Using the ALTER TABLE statement in combination with RENAME COLUMN ... TO ... The
syntax is:

ALTER TABLE table_name

RENAME COLUMN old_column_name TO new_column_name;

33. How to delete a column from a table?

Using the ALTER TABLE statement in combination with DROP COLUMN . The syntax is:

ALTER TABLE table_name

DROP COLUMN column_name;

80 SQL Interview Question 16

 34. How to select all even or all odd records in a table?
By checking the remainder of the division by 2. In some SQL versions (e.g.,
PostgreSQL and My SQL), we use the MOD function, in the others (Microsoft SQL
Server and SQLite) – the modulo operator ( % ). To select all even records using MOD :

SELECT * FROM table_name

WHERE MOD(ID_column, 2) = 0;

To select all even records using % :

SELECT * FROM table_name

WHERE ID_column % 2 = 0;

To select all odd records, the syntax is identical in both cases, only that we would
use the inequality operator <> instead of = .

35. How to prevent duplicate records when making a query?

Using the DISTINCT statement in combination with SELECT or creating a unique key for
that table.

36. How to insert many rows in a table?

Using the INSERT INTO statement in combination with VALUES . The syntax is:

INSERT INTO table_name

VALUES (value_1, value_2, ...),
(value_3, value_4, ...),
(value_5, value_6, ...),
...;

37. How to find the nth highest value in a column of a table?

Using the OFFSET clause. For example, to find the 6th highest value from a column,
we would use the following syntax:

SELECT * FROM table_name

ORDER BY column_name DESC
LIMIT 1

80 SQL Interview Question 17

 OFFSET 5;

38. How to find the values in a text column of a table that start
with a certain letter?
Using the LIKE operator in combination with the % and _ wildcards. For example,
we need to find all surnames in a table that start with "A". The query is:

SELECT * FROM table_name

WHERE surname LIKE 'A_';

Here, we assume that a surname must contain at least two letters. Without this
assumption (meaning that a surname can be just A), the query is as follows:

SELECT * FROM table_name

WHERE surname LIKE 'A%';

39. How to find the last id in a table?

Using the MAX() function. Otherwise, in many SQL versions, we can use the
following syntax:

SELECT id
FROM table_name
ORDER BY id DESC
LIMIT 1;

or in Microsoft SQL Server:

SELECT TOP 1 id
FROM table_name
ORDER BY id DESC

40. How to select random rows from a table?

Using the RAND() function in combination with ORDER BY and LIMIT . In some SQL
flavors, such as PostgreSQL, it's called RANDOM() . For example, the following code
will return five random rows from a table in MySQL:

80 SQL Interview Question 18

 SELECT * FROM table_name
ORDER BY RAND()
LIMIT 5;

Key Takeaways
To sum up, we discussed the 80 essential beginner and intermediate SQL interview
questions and the right answers to them. Hopefully, this information will help you to
get ready for the interview and feel more confident, whether you're looking for a job
in SQL or hiring candidates for an intermediate SQL position.

I hope this helps! 😀

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