What is database?

A database is a logically coherent collection of data with

some inherent meaning, representing some aspect of real
world and which is designed, built and populated with data
for a specific purpose.

1. What is DBMS?
It is a collection of programs that enables user to
create and maintain a database. In other words it is
general-purpose software that provides the users with the
processes of defining, constructing and manipulating the
database for various applications.

2. What is a Database system?

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

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

4. Disadvantage in File Processing System?

 Data redundancy & inconsistency.
 Difficult in accessing data.
 Data isolation.
 Data integrity.
 Concurrent access is not possible.
 Security Problems.
5. Describe the three levels of data abstraction?
The are three levels of abstraction:
 Physical level: The lowest level of abstraction describes
how data are stored.
 Logical level: The next higher level of abstraction,
describes what data are stored in database and what
relationship among those data.
 View level: The highest level of abstraction describes
only part of entire database.

6. Define the "integrity rules"

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

7. What is extension and intension?

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

8. What is Data Independence?

Data independence means, “The application is
independent of the storage structure and access strategy of
data”. In other words, the ability to modify the schema
definition in one level should not affect the schema
definition in the next higher level.
Two types of Data Independence:
 Physical Data Independence: Modification in physical
level should not affect the logical level.
 Logical Data Independence: Modification in logical level
should affect the view level.
NOTE: Logical Data Independence is more difficult to
achieve

9. What is a view? How it is related to data independence?

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

13. What is Data Model?

A collection of conceptual tools for describing
data, data relationships data semantics and
constraints.
14. What is E-R model?
This data model is based on real world that consists
of basic objects called entities and of relationship
among these objects. Entities are described in a
database by a set of attributes.

15. What is Object Oriented model?

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

16. What is an Entity?

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

17. What is an Entity type?

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

18. What is an Entity set?

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

19. What is an Extension of entity type?

The collections of entities of a particular entity
type are grouped together into an entity set.
20. What is Weak Entity set?
An entity set may not have sufficient attributes to
form a primary key, and its primary key compromises of
its partial key and primary key of its parent entity,
then it is said to be Weak Entity set.

21. What is an attribute?

It is a particular property, which describes the
entity.

22. What are a Relation Schema and a Relation?

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

23. What is degree of a Relation?

It is the number of attribute of its relation schema.

24. What is Relationship?

It is an association among two or more entities.

25. What is Relationship set?

The collection (or set) of similar relationships.

26. What is Relationship type?

Relationship type defines a set of associations or a
relationship set among a given set of entity types.
27. What is degree of Relationship type?
It is the number of entity type participating.

25. What is DDL (Data Definition Language)?

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

26. What is VDL (View Definition Language)?

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

27. What is SDL (Storage Definition Language)?

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

28. What is Data Storage - Definition Language?

The storage structures and access methods used by
database system are specified by a set of definition
in a special type of DDL called data storage-
definition language.

29. What is DML (Data Manipulation Language)?

This language that enable user to access or manipulate
data as organized by appropriate data model.
 Procedural DML or Low level: DML requires a user
to specify what data are needed and how to get those
data.
 Non-Procedural DML or High level: DML requires a
user to specify what data are needed without
specifying how to get those data.
31. What is DML Compiler?
It translates DML statements in a query language into
low-level instruction that the query evaluation engine
can understand.

32. What is Query evaluation engine?

It executes low-level instruction generated by
compiler.

33. What is DDL Interpreter?

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

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

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

35. What is Set-at-a-time or Set-oriented?

The High level or Non-procedural DML can specify and
retrieve many records in a single DML statement. This
retrieve of a record is said to be Set-at-a-time or
Set-oriented.

36. What is Relational Algebra?

It is procedural query language. It consists of a set
of operations that take one or two relations as input
and produce a new relation.
37. What is Relational Calculus?
It is an applied predicate calculus specifically
tailored for relational databases proposed by E.F.
Codd. E.g. of languages based on it are DSL ALPHA,
QUEL.

38. How does Tuple-oriented relational calculus differ

from domain-oriented relational calculus
The tuple-oriented calculus uses a tuple variable
i.e., variable whose only permitted values are tuples
of that relation. E.g. QUEL
The domain-oriented calculus has domain variables
i.e., variables that range over the underlying domains
instead of over relation. E.g. ILL, DEDUCE.

39. What is normalization?

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

40. What is Functional Dependency?

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

41. When is a functional dependency F said to be minimal?

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

42. What is multivalued dependency?

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

43. What is Lossless join property?

It guarantees that the spurious tuple generation does
not occur with respect to relation schemas after
decomposition.

44. What is 1 NF (Normal Form)?

 The domain of attribute must include only atomic
(simple, indivisible) values.
45. What is Fully Functional dependency?
It is based on concept of full functional dependency.
A functional dependency X Y is full functional
dependency if removal of any attribute A from X means
that the dependency does not hold any more.

46. What is 2NF?

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

47. What is 3NF?

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

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

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

49. What is 4NF?

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

50. What is 5NF?

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

51. What is Domain-Key Normal Form?

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

52. What are partial, alternate,, artificial, compound and

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

53. What is system catalog or catalog relation? How is

better known as?
A RDBMS maintains a description of all the data that
it contains, information about every relation and
index that it contains. This information is stored in
a collection of relations maintained by the system
called metadata. It is also called data dictionary.

54. What is meant by query optimization?

The phase that identifies an efficient execution plan
for evaluating a query that has the least estimated
cost is referred to as query optimization.

55. What is join dependency and inclusion dependency?

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

56. What is durability in DBMS?

Once the DBMS informs the user that a transaction has
successfully completed, its effects should persist
even if the system crashes before all its changes are
reflected on disk. This property is called durability.

57. What do you mean by atomicity and aggregation?

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

58. What is a Phantom Deadlock?

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

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

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

60. What are the different phases of transaction?

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

61. What do you mean by flat file database?

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

62. What is "transparent DBMS"?

It is one, which keeps its Physical Structure hidden
from user.

63. Brief theory of Network, Hierarchical schemas and

their properties
Network schema uses a graph data structure to organize
records example for such a database management system
is CTCG while a hierarchical schema uses a tree data
structure example for such a system is IMS.

64. What is a query?

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

65. What do you mean by Correlated subquery?

Subqueries, or nested queries, are used to bring back
a set of rows to be used by the parent query.
Depending on how the subquery is written, it can be
executed once for the parent query or it can be
executed once for each row returned by the parent
query. If the subquery is executed for each row of the
parent, this is called a correlated subquery.
A correlated subquery can be easily identified if it
contains any references to the parent subquery columns
in its WHERE clause. Columns from the subquery cannot
be referenced anywhere else in the parent query. The
following example demonstrates a non-correlated
subquery.
E.g. Select * From CUST Where '10/03/1990' IN (Select
ODATE From ORDER Where CUST.CNUM = ORDER.CNUM)

66. What are the primitive operations common to all record

management systems?
Addition, deletion and modification.

67. What are the unary operations in Relational Algebra?

PROJECTION and SELECTION.

68. Are the resulting relations of PRODUCT and JOIN

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

69. What is RDBMS KERNEL?

Two important pieces of RDBMS architecture are the
kernel, which is the software, and the data
dictionary, which consists of the system-level data
structures used by the kernel to manage the database
You might think of an RDBMS as an operating system (or
set of subsystems), designed specifically for
controlling data access; its primary functions are
storing, retrieving, and securing data. An RDBMS
maintains its own list of authorized users and their
associated privileges; manages memory caches and
paging; controls locking for concurrent resource
usage; dispatches and schedules user requests; and
manages space usage within its table-space structures
.
70. Name the sub-systems of a RDBMS
I/O, Security, Language Processing, Process Control,
Storage Management, Logging and Recovery, Distribution
Control, Transaction Control, Memory Management, Lock
Management

71. Which part of the RDBMS takes care of the data

dictionary? How?
Data dictionary is a set of tables and database
objects that is stored in a special area of the
database and maintained exclusively by the kernel.
72. What is the job of the information stored in data-
dictionary?
The information in the data dictionary validates the
existence of the objects, provides access to them, and
maps the actual physical storage location.
73. Not only RDBMS takes care of locating data it also
Determines an optimal access path to store or retrieve
the data.

74. How do you communicate with an RDBMS?

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

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

76. Tables derived from the ERD

(a) Are totally unnormalised
(b) Are always in 1NF
(c) Can be further denormalised
(d) May have multi-valued attributes
(e) Are always in 1NF

77. Spurious tuples may occur due to

i. Bad normalization
 ii. Theta joins
iii. Updating tables from join
a) i & ii b) ii & iii
c) i & iii d) ii & iii

(a) i & iii because theta joins are joins made on

keys that are not primary keys.

78. A B C is a set of attributes. The functional

dependency is as follows
AB -> B
AC -> C
C -> B
a) is in 1NF
b) is in 2NF
c) is in 3NF
d) is in BCNF

(a) is in 1NF since (AC)+ = { A, B, C} hence AC is the

primary key. Since C B is a FD given, where
neither C is a Key nor B is a prime attribute, this it is
not in 3NF. Further B is not functionally dependent on
key AC thus it is not in 2NF. Thus the given FDs is in
1NF.

79. In mapping of ERD to DFD

(a) Entities in ERD should correspond to an existing
entity/store in DFD
(b) Entity in DFD is converted to attributes of an
entity in ERD
(c) Relations in ERD has 1 to 1 correspondence to
processes in DFD
 (d) Relationships in ERD has 1 to 1 correspondence to
flows in DFD
(e) Entities in ERD should correspond to an existing
entity/store in DFD

80. A dominant entity is the entity

a) On the N side in a 1: N relationship
b) On the 1 side in a 1: N relationship
c) On either side in a 1: 1 relationship
d) Nothing to do with 1: 1 or 1: N relationship

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

81. How can you find the minimal key of relational schema?
Minimal key is one which can identify each tuple of
the given relation schema uniquely. For finding the
minimal key it is required to find the closure that is
the set of all attributes that are dependent on any
given set of attributes under the given set of
functional dependency.
Algo. I Determining X+, closure for X, given set of
FDs F
1. Set X+ = X
2. Set Old X+ =
X+
3. For each FD Y Z in F and if Y
belongs to X+ then add Z to X+
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until Old X+ = X+

Algo.II Determining minimal K for relation schema R,

given set of FDs F
1. Set K to R that is make K a set of all
attributes in R
 2. For each attribute A in K
a. Compute (K – A)+ with respect to F
b. If (K – A)+ = R then set K = (K – A)+

82. What do you understand by dependency preservation?

Given a relation R and a set of FDs F, dependency
preservation states that the closure of the union of
the projection of F on each decomposed relation Ri is
equal to the closure of F. i.e.,
((Π R1(F)) U … U (Π Rn(F)))+ = F+
if decomposition is not dependency preserving, then
some dependency is lost in the decomposition.

83. What do Proactive, Retroactive and Simultaneous Update

mean?
Proactive Update:
The updates that are applied to database before it
becomes effective in real world.
Retroactive Update:
The updates that are applied to database after it
become effective in real world.
Simultaneous Update:
The updates that are applied to database at the same
time when it becomes effective in real world.

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