WinRunner Interview Questions

How you used WinRunner in your project? - Yes, I have been using WinRunner for creating automated scripts for GUI, functional and regression testing of the AUT.
Explain WinRunner testing process? - WinRunner testing process involves six main stages
Create GUI Map File so that WinRunner can recognize the GUI objects in the application being tested
Create test scripts by recording, programming, or a combination of both. While recording tests, insert checkpoints where you want to check the response of the application being tested.
Debug Test: run tests in Debug mode to make sure they run smoothly
Run Tests: run tests in Verify mode to test your application.
View Results: determines the success or failure of the tests.
Report Defects: If a test run fails due to a defect in the application being tested, you can report information about the defect directly from the Test Results window.
What is contained in the GUI map? - WinRunner stores information it learns about a window or object in a GUI Map. When WinRunner runs a test, it uses the GUI map to locate objects. It reads an object’s description in the GUI map and then looks for an object with the same properties in the application being tested. Each of these objects in the GUI Map file will be having a logical name and a physical description. There are 2 types of GUI Map files. Global GUI Map file: a single GUI Map file for the entire application. GUI Map File per Test: WinRunner automatically creates a GUI Map file for each test created.
How does WinRunner recognize objects on the application? - WinRunner uses the GUI Map file to recognize objects on the application. When WinRunner runs a test, it uses the GUI map to locate objects. It reads an object’s description in the GUI map and then looks for an object with the same properties in the application being tested.
Have you created test scripts and what is contained in the test scripts? - Yes I have created test scripts. It contains the statement in Mercury Interactive’s Test Script Language (TSL). These statements appear as a test script in a test window. You can then enhance your recorded test script, either by typing in additional TSL functions and programming elements or by using WinRunner’s visual programming tool, the Function Generator.
How does WinRunner evaluate test results? - Following each test run, WinRunner displays the results in a report. The report details all the major events that occurred during the run, such as checkpoints, error messages, system messages, or user messages. If mismatches are detected at checkpoints during the test run, you can view the expected results and the actual results from the Test Results window.
Have you performed debugging of the scripts? - Yes, I have performed debugging of scripts. We can debug the script by executing the script in the debug mode. We can also debug script using the Step, Step Into, Step out functionalities provided by the WinRunner.
How do you run your test scripts? - We run tests in Verify mode to test your application. Each time WinRunner encounters a checkpoint in the test script, it compares the current data of the application being tested to the expected data captured earlier. If any mismatches are found, WinRunner captures them as actual results.
How do you analyze results and report the defects? - Following each test run, WinRunner displays the results in a report. The report details all the major events that occurred during the run, such as checkpoints, error messages, system messages, or user messages. If mismatches are detected at checkpoints during the test run, you can view the expected results and the actual results from the Test Results window. If a test run fails due to a defect in the application being tested, you can report information about the defect directly from the Test Results window. This information is sent via e-mail to the quality assurance manager, who tracks the defect until it is fixed.
What is the use of Test Director software? - TestDirector is Mercury Interactive’s software test management tool. It helps quality assurance personnel plan and organize the testing process. With TestDirector you can create a database of manual and automated tests, build test cycles, run tests, and report and track defects. You can also create reports and graphs to help review the progress of planning tests, running tests, and tracking defects before a software release.
Have you integrated your automated scripts from TestDirector? - When you work with WinRunner, you can choose to save your tests directly to your TestDirector database or while creating a test case in the TestDirector we can specify whether the script in automated or manual. And if it is automated script then TestDirector will build a skeleton for the script that can be later modified into one which could be used to test the AUT.
What are the different modes of recording? - There are two type of recording in WinRunner. Context Sensitive recording records the operations you perform on your application by identifying Graphical User Interface (GUI) objects. Analog recording records keyboard input, mouse clicks, and the precise x- and y-coordinates traveled by the mouse pointer across the screen.
What is the purpose of loading WinRunner Add-Ins? - Add-Ins are used in WinRunner to load functions specific to the particular add-in to the memory. While creating a script only those functions in the add-in selected will be listed in the function generator and while executing the script only those functions in the loaded add-in will be executed else WinRunner will give an error message saying it does not recognize the function.
What are the reasons that WinRunner fails to identify an object on the GUI? - WinRunner fails to identify an object in a GUI due to various reasons. The object is not a standard windows object. If the browser used is not compatible with the WinRunner version, GUI Map Editor will not be able to learn any of the objects displayed in the browser window.
What is meant by the logical name of the object? - An object’s logical name is determined by its class. In most cases, the logical name is the label that appears on an object.
If the object does not have a name then what will be the logical name? - If the object does not have a name then the logical name could be the attached text.
What is the different between GUI map and GUI map files? - The GUI map is actually the sum of one or more GUI map files. There are two modes for organizing GUI map files. Global GUI Map file: a single GUI Map file for the entire application. GUI Map File per Test: WinRunner automatically creates a GUI Map file for each test created. GUI Map file is a file which contains the windows and the objects learned by the WinRunner with its logical name and their physical description.
How do you view the contents of the GUI map? - GUI Map editor displays the content of a GUI Map. We can invoke GUI Map Editor from the Tools Menu in WinRunner. The GUI Map Editor displays the various GUI Map files created and the windows and objects learned in to them with their logical name and physical description. When you create GUI map do you record all the objects of specific objects? - If we are learning a window then WinRunner automatically learns all the objects in the window else we will we identifying those object, which are to be learned in a window, since we will be working with only those objects while creating scripts.

LoadRunner Interview Questions

1. What is load testing? - Load testing is to test that if the application works fine with the loads that result from large number of simultaneous users, transactions and to determine weather it can handle peak usage periods.
What is Performance testing? - Timing for both read and update transactions should be gathered to determine whether system functions are being performed in an acceptable timeframe. This should be done standalone and then in a multi user environment to determine the effect of multiple transactions on the timing of a single transaction.
Did u use Load Runner? What version? - Yes. Version 8.0.
Explain the Load testing process? Step 1: Planning the test. Here, we develop a clearly defined test plan to ensure the test scenarios we develop will accomplish load-testing objectives.
Step 2: Creating Vusers. Here, we create Vuser scripts that contain tasks performed by each Vuser, tasks performed by Vusers as a whole, and tasks measured as transactions.
Step 3: Creating the scenario. A scenario describes the events that occur during a testing session. It includes a list of machines, scripts, and Vusers that run during the scenario. We create scenarios using LoadRunner Controller. We can create manual scenarios as well as goal-oriented scenarios. In manual scenarios, we define the number of Vusers, the load generator machines, and percentage of Vusers to be assigned to each script. For web tests, we may create a goal-oriented scenario where we define the goal that our test has to achieve. LoadRunner automatically builds a scenario for us.
Step4: Runningthescenario.We emulate load on the server by instructing multiple Vusers to perform tasks simultaneously. Before the testing, we set the scenario configuration and scheduling. We can run the entire scenario, Vuser groups, or individual Vusers.
Step5: Monitoring the scenario.We monitor scenario execution using the LoadRunner online runtime, transaction, system resource, Web resource, Web server resource, Web application server resource, database server resource, network delay, streaming media resource, firewall server resource, ERP server resource, and Java performance monitors.
Step 6: Analyzing test results. During scenario execution, LoadRunner records the performance of the application under different loads. We use Load Runner’s graphs and reports to analyze the application’s performance.
When do you do load and performance Testing? - We perform load testing once we are done with interface (GUI) testing. Modern system architectures are large and complex. Whereas single user testing primarily on functionality and user interface of a system component, application testing focuses on performance and reliability of an entire system. For example, typical application-testing scenario might depict 1000 users logging in simultaneously to a system. This gives rise to issues such as what is the response time of the system, does it crash, will it go with different software applications and platforms, can it hold so many hundreds and thousands of users, etc. This is when we set do load and performance testing.
What are the components of LoadRunner? - The components of LoadRunner are The Virtual User Generator, Controller, and the Agent process, LoadRunner Analysis and Monitoring, LoadRunner Books Online.
What Component of LoadRunner would you use to record a Script? - The Virtual User Generator (VuGen) component is used to record a script. It enables you to develop Vuser scripts for a variety of application types and communication protocols.
What Component of LoadRunner would you use to play Back the script in multi user mode? - The Controller component is used to playback the script in multi-user mode. This is done during a scenario run where a vuser script is executed by a number of vusers in a group.
What is a rendezvous point? - You insert rendezvous points into Vuser scripts to emulate heavy user load on the server. Rendezvous points instruct Vusers to wait during test execution for multiple Vusers to arrive at a certain point, in order that they may simultaneously perform a task. For example, to emulate peak load on the bank server, you can insert a rendezvous point instructing 100 Vusers to deposit cash into their accounts at the same time.
What is a scenario? - A scenario defines the events that occur during each testing session. For example, a scenario defines and controls the number of users to emulate, the actions to be performed, and the machines on which the virtual users run their emulations.
Explain the recording mode for web Vuser script? - We use VuGen to develop a Vuser script by recording a user performing typical business processes on a client application. VuGen creates the script by recording the activity between the client and the server. For example, in web based applications, VuGen monitors the client end of the database and traces all the requests sent to, and received from, the database server. We use VuGen to: Monitor the communication between the application and the server; Generate the required function calls; and Insert the generated function calls into a Vuser script.
Why do you create parameters? - Parameters are like script variables. They are used to vary input to the server and to emulate real users. Different sets of data are sent to the server each time the script is run. Better simulate the usage model for more accurate testing from the Controller; one script can emulate many different users on the system.
What is correlation? Explain the difference between automatic correlation and manual correlation? - Correlation is used to obtain data which are unique for each run of the script and which are generated by nested queries. Correlation provides the value to avoid errors arising out of duplicate values and also optimizing the code (to avoid nested queries). Automatic correlation is where we set some rules for correlation. It can be application server specific. Here values are replaced by data which are created by these rules. In manual correlation, the value we want to correlate is scanned and create correlation is used to correlate.
How do you find out where correlation is required? Give few examples from your projects? - Two ways: First we can scan for correlations, and see the list of values which can be correlated. From this we can pick a value to be correlated. Secondly, we can record two scripts and compare them. We can look up the difference file to see for the values which needed to be correlated. In my project, there was a unique id developed for each customer, it was nothing but Insurance Number, it was generated automatically and it was sequential and this value was unique. I had to correlate this value, in order to avoid errors while running my script. I did using scan for correlation.
Where do you set automatic correlation options? - Automatic correlation from web point of view can be set in recording options and correlation tab. Here we can enable correlation for the entire script and choose either issue online messages or offline actions, where we can define rules for that correlation. Automatic correlation for database can be done using show output window and scan for correlation and picking the correlate query tab and choose which query value we want to correlate. If we know the specific value to be correlated, we just do create correlation for the value and specify how the value to be created.
What is a function to capture dynamic values in the web Vuser script? - Web_reg_save_param function saves dynamic data information to a parameter.
When do you disable log in Virtual User Generator, When do you choose standard and extended logs? - Once we debug our script and verify that it is functional, we can enable logging for errors only. When we add a script to a scenario, logging is automatically disabled. Standard Log Option: When you selectStandard log, it creates a standard log of functions and messages sent during script execution to use for debugging. Disable this option for large load testing scenarios. When you copy a script to a scenario, logging is automatically disabled Extended Log Option: Selectextended log to create an extended log, including warnings and other messages. Disable this option for large load testing scenarios. When you copy a script to a scenario, logging is automatically disabled. We can specify which additional information should be added to the extended log using the Extended log options.
How do you debug a LoadRunner script? - VuGen contains two options to help debug Vuser scripts-the Run Step by Step command and breakpoints. The Debug settings in the Options dialog box allow us to determine the extent of the trace to be performed during scenario execution. The debug information is written to the Output window. We can manually set the message class within your script using the lr_set_debug_message function. This is useful if we want to receive debug information about a small section of the script only.
How do you write user defined functions in LR? Give me few functions you wrote in your previous project? - Before we create the User Defined functions we need to create the externallibrary (DLL) with the function. We add this library to VuGen bin directory. Once the library is added then we assign user defined function as a parameter. The function should have the following format: __declspec (dllexport) char* (char*, char*)Examples of user defined functions are as follows:GetVersion, GetCurrentTime, GetPltform are some of the user defined functions used in my earlier project.
What are the changes you can make in run-time settings? - The Run Time Settings that we make are: a) Pacing - It has iteration count. b) Log - Under this we have Disable Logging Standard Log and c) Extended Think Time - In think time we have two options like Ignore think time and Replay think time. d) General - Under general tab we can set the vusers as process or as multithreading and whether each step as a transaction.
Where do you set Iteration for Vuser testing? - We set Iterations in the Run Time Settings of the VuGen. The navigation for this is Run time settings, Pacing tab, set number of iterations.
How do you perform functional testing under load? - Functionality under load can be tested by running several Vusers concurrently. By increasing the amount of Vusers, we can determine how much load the server can sustain.
What is Ramp up? How do you set this? - This option is used to gradually increase the amount of Vusers/load on the server. An initial value is set and a value to wait between intervals can bespecified. To set Ramp Up, go to ‘Scenario Scheduling Options’
What is the advantage of running the Vuser as thread? - VuGen provides the facility to use multithreading. This enables more Vusers to be run pergenerator. If the Vuser is run as a process, the same driver program is loaded into memory for each Vuser, thus taking up a large amount of memory. This limits the number of Vusers that can be run on a singlegenerator. If the Vuser is run as a thread, only one instance of the driver program is loaded into memory for the given number ofVusers (say 100). Each thread shares the memory of the parent driver program, thus enabling more Vusers to be run per generator.
If you want to stop the execution of your script on error, how do you do that? - The lr_abort function aborts the execution of a Vuser script. It instructs the Vuser to stop executing the Actions section, execute the vuser_end section and end the execution. This function is useful when you need to manually abort a script execution as a result of a specific error condition. When you end a script using this function, the Vuser is assigned the status "Stopped". For this to take effect, we have to first uncheck the “Continue on error” option in Run-Time Settings.
What is the relation between Response Time and Throughput? - The Throughput graph shows the amount of data in bytes that the Vusers received from the server in a second. When we compare this with the transaction response time, we will notice that as throughput decreased, the response time also decreased. Similarly, the peak throughput and highest response time would occur approximately at the same time.
Explain the Configuration of your systems? - The configuration of our systems refers to that of the client machines on which we run the Vusers. The configuration of any client machine includes its hardware settings, memory, operating system, software applications, development tools, etc. This system component configuration should match with the overall system configuration that would include the network infrastructure, the web server, the database server, and any other components that go with this larger system so as to achieve the load testing objectives.
How do you identify the performance bottlenecks? - Performance Bottlenecks can be detected by using monitors. These monitors might be application server monitors, web server monitors, database server monitors and network monitors. They help in finding out the troubled area in our scenario which causes increased response time. The measurements made are usually performance response time, throughput, hits/sec, network delay graphs, etc.
If web server, database and Network are all fine where could be the problem? - The problem could be in the system itself or in the application server or in the code written for the application.
How did you find web server related issues? - Using Web resource monitors we can find the performance of web servers. Using these monitors we can analyze throughput on the web server, number of hits per second thatoccurred during scenario, the number of http responses per second, the number of downloaded pages per second.
How did you find database related issues? - By running “Database” monitor and help of “Data Resource Graph” we can find database related issues. E.g. You can specify the resource you want to measure on before running the controller and than you can see database related issues
Explain all the web recording options?
What is the difference between Overlay graph and Correlate graph? - Overlay Graph: It overlay the content of two graphs that shares a common x-axis. Left Y-axis on the merged graph show’s the current graph’s value & Right Y-axis show the value of Y-axis of the graph that was merged. Correlate Graph: Plot the Y-axis of two graphs against each other. The active graph’s Y-axis becomes X-axis of merged graph. Y-axis of the graph that was merged becomes merged graph’s Y-axis.
How did you plan the Load? What are the Criteria? - Load test is planned to decide the number of users, what kind of machines we are going to use and from where they are run. It is based on 2 important documents, Task Distribution Diagram and Transaction profile. Task Distribution Diagram gives us the information on number of users for a particular transaction and the time of the load. The peak usage and off-usage are decided from this Diagram. Transaction profile gives us the information about the transactions name and their priority levels with regard to the scenario we are deciding.
What does vuser_init action contain? - Vuser_init action contains procedures to login to a server.
What does vuser_end action contain? - Vuser_end section contains log off procedures.
What is think time? How do you change the threshold? - Think time is the time that a real user waits between actions. Example: When a user receives data from a server, the user may wait several seconds to review the data before responding. This delay is known as the think time. Changing the Threshold: Threshold level is the level below which the recorded think time will be ignored. The default value is five (5) seconds. We can change the think time threshold in the Recording options of the Vugen.
What is the difference between standard log and extended log? - The standard log sends a subset of functions and messages sent during script execution to a log. The subset depends on the Vuser type Extended log sends a detailed script execution messages to the output log. This is mainly used during debugging when we want information about: Parameter substitution. Data returned by the server. Advanced trace.
Explain the following functions: - lr_debug_message - The lr_debug_message function sends a debug message to the output log when the specified message class is set. lr_output_message - The lr_output_message function sends notifications to the Controller Output window and the Vuser log file. lr_error_message - The lr_error_message function sends an error message to the LoadRunner Output window. lrd_stmt - The lrd_stmt function associates a character string (usually a SQL statement) with a cursor. This function sets a SQL statement to be processed. lrd_fetch - The lrd_fetch function fetches the next row from the result set.
Throughput - If the throughput scales upward as time progresses and the number of Vusers increase, this indicates that the bandwidth is sufficient. If the graph were to remain relatively flat as the number of Vusers increased, it wouldbe reasonable to conclude that the bandwidth is constraining the volume ofdata delivered.
Types of Goals in Goal-Oriented Scenario - Load Runner provides you with five different types of goals in a goal oriented scenario:
The number of concurrent Vusers
The number of hits per second
The number of transactions per second
The number of pages per minute
The transaction response time that you want your scenario
Analysis Scenario (Bottlenecks): In Running Vuser graph correlated with the response time graph you can see that as the number of Vusers increases, the average response time of the check itinerary transaction very gradually increases. In other words, the average response time steadily increases as the loadincreases. At 56 Vusers, there is a sudden, sharp increase in the average responsetime. We say that the test broke the server. That is the mean time before failure (MTBF). The response time clearly began to degrade when there were more than 56 Vusers running simultaneously.
What is correlation? Explain the difference between automatic correlation and manual correlation? - Correlation is used to obtain data which are unique for each run of the script and which are generated by nested queries. Correlation provides the value to avoid errors arising out of duplicate values and also optimizing the code (to avoid nested queries). Automatic correlation is where we set some rules for correlation. It can be application server specific. Here values are replaced by data which are created by these rules. In manual correlation, the value we want to correlate is scanned and create correlation is used to correlate.
Where do you set automatic correlation options? - Automatic correlation from web point of view, can be set in recording options and correlation tab. Here we can enable correlation for the entire script and choose either issue online messages or offline actions, where we can define rules for that correlation. Automatic correlation for database, can be done using show output window and scan for correlation and picking the correlate query tab and choose which query value we want to correlate. If we know the specific value to be correlated, we just do create correlation for the value and specify how the value to be created. What is a function to capture dynamic values in the web vuser script? - Web_reg_save_param function saves dynamic data information to a parameter.

Oracle Interview Questions

1. How many memory layers are in the shared pool?
2. How do you find out from the RMAN catalog if a particular archive log has been backed-up?
3. How can you tell how much space is left on a given file system and how much space each of the file system's subdirectories take-up?
4. Define the SGA and:• How you would configure SGA for a mid-sized OLTP environment?• What is involved in tuning the SGA?
5. What is the cache hit ratio, what impact does it have on performance of an Oracle database and what is involved in tuning it?
6. Other than making use of the statspack utility, what would you check when you are monitoring or running a health check on an Oracle 8i or 9i database?
7. How do you tell what your machine name is and what is its IP address?
8. How would you go about verifying the network name that the local_listener is currently using?
9. You have 4 instances running on the same UNIX box. How can you determine which shared memory and semaphores are associated with which instance?
10. What view(s) do you use to associate a user's SQLPLUS session with his o/s process?
11. What is the recommended interval at which to run statspack snapshots, and why?
12. What spfile/init.ora file parameter exists to force the CBO to make the execution path of a given statement use an index, even if the index scan may appear to be calculated as more costly?
13. Assuming today is Monday, how would you use the DBMS_JOB package to schedule the execution of a given procedure owned by SCOTT to start Wednesday at 9AM and to run subsequently every other day at2AM.
14. How would you edit your CRONTAB to schedule the running of /test/test.sh to run every other day at 2PM?
15. What do the 9i dbms_standard.sql_txt() anddbms_standard.sql_text() procedures do?
16. In which dictionary table or view would you look to determine at which time a snapshot or MVIEW last successfully refreshed?
17. How would you best determine why your MVIEW couldn't FAST REFRESH?
18. How does propagation differ between Advanced Replication and Snapshot Replication (read-only)?
19. Which dictionary view(s) would you first look at tounderstand or get a high-level idea of a given Advanced Replication environment?
20. How would you begin to troubleshoot an ORA-3113 error?
21. Which dictionary tables and/or views would you look at to diagnose a locking issue?
22. An automatic job running via DBMS_JOB has failed. Knowing only that "it's failed", how do you approach troubleshooting this issue?
23. How would you extract DDL of a table without using a GUI tool?
24. You're getting high "busy buffer waits" - how can you find what's causing it?
25. What query tells you how much space a tablespace named "test" is taking up, and how much space is remaining?
26. Database is hung. Old and new user connections alike hang on impact. What do you do? Your SYS SQLPLUS session IS able to connect.
29. How do you increase the OS limitation for open files (LINUX and/or Solaris)?
30. Provide an example of a shell script which logs into SQLPLUS as SYS, determines the current date, changes the date format to include minutes & seconds, issues a drop table command, displays the date again, and finally exits.
31. Explain how you would restore a database using RMAN to Point in Time?
32. How does Oracle guarantee data integrity of data changes?
33. Which environment variables are absolutely critical in order to run the OUI?
34. What SQL query from v$session can you run to show how many sessions are logged in as a particular user account?
35. Why does Oracle not permit the use of PCTUSED with indexes?
36. What would you use to improve performance on an insert statement that places millions of rows into that table?
37. What would you do with an "in-doubt" distributed transaction?
38. What are the commands you'd issue to show the explain plan for "select * from dual"?
39. In what script is "snap$" created? In what script isthe "scott/tiger" schema created?
40. If you're unsure in which script a sys or system-owned object is created, but you know it's in a script from a specific directory, what UNIX command from that directory structure can you run to find your answer?
41. How would you configure your networking files to connect to a database by the name of DSS which resides in domain icallinc.com?
42. You create a private database link <> and uponconnection, fails with: ORA-2085: <> connects to <>. What is the problem? How would you go about resolving this error?
43. I have my backup RMAN script called "backup_rman.sh". I am on the target database. My catalog username/password is rman/rman. My catalog db is called rman. How would you run this shell script from the O/S such that it would run as a background process?
44. Explain the concept of the DUAL table.
45. What are the ways tablespaces can be managed and how do they differ?
46. From the database level, how can you tell under which time zone a database is operating?
47. What's the benefit of "dbms_stats" over "analyze"?
48. Typically, where is the conventional directory structure chosen for Oracle binaries to reside?
49. You have found corruption in a tablespace that contains static tables that are part of a database that is in NOARCHIVE log mode. How would you restore the tablespace without losing new data in the other tablespaces?
50. How do you recover a datafile that has not been physically been backed up since its creation and has been deleted. Provide syntax example.
1. What are the different types of joins?
2. Explain normalization with examples.
3. What cursor type do you use to retrieve multiple record sets?
4. Difference between a "where" clause and a "having" clause
5. What is the difference between "procedure" and "function"?
6. How will you copy the structure of a table without copying the data?
7. How to find out the database name from SQL*PLUScommand prompt?
8. Takeoffs with having indexes
9. Talk about "Exception Handling" in PL/SQL?
10. What is the difference between "NULL in C" and "NULL in Oracle?"
11. What is Pro*C? What is OCI?
12. Give some examples of Analytical functions.
13. What is the difference between "translate" and "replace"?
14. What is DYNAMIC SQL method 4?
15. How to remove duplicate records from a table?
16. What is the use of analyzing the tables?
17. How to run SQL script from a Unix Shell?
18. What is a "transaction"? Why are they necessary?
19. Explain Normalization and Denormalization with examples.
20. When do you get constraint violation? What are the types of constraints?
21. How to convert RAW data type into TEXT?
22. Difference - Primary Key and Aggregate Key
23. How functional dependency is related to database table design?
24. What is a "trigger"?
25. Why can a "group by" or "order by" clause be expensive to process?
26. What are "HINTS"? What is "index covering" of a query?
27. What is a VIEW? How to get script for a view?
28. What are the Large object types supported by Oracle?
29. What is SQL*Loader?
30. Difference between "VARCHAR" and "VARCHAR2" data types.
31. What is the difference among "dropping a table", "truncating a table" and "deleting all records" from a table?
32. Difference between "ORACLE" and "MICROSOFT ACCESS" databases.
33. How to create a database link?
1. Explain the difference between a hot backup and a cold backup and the benefits associated with each. - A hot backup is basically taking a backup of the database while it is still up and running and it must be in archive log mode. A cold backup is taking a backup of the database while it is shut down and does not require being in archive log mode. The benefit of taking a hot backup is that the database is still available for use while the backup is occurring and you can recover the database to any point in time. The benefit of taking a cold backup is that it is typically easier to administer the backup and recovery process. In addition, since you are taking cold backups the database does not require being in archive log mode and thus there will be a slight performance gain as the database is not cutting archive logs to disk.2. You have just had to restore from backup and do not have any control files. How would you go about bringing up this database? - I would create a text based backup control file, stipulating where on disk all the data files where and then issue the recover command with the using backup control file clause.
1. Give one method for transferring a table from one schema to another:
Level:Intermediate
Expected Answer: There are several possible methods, export-import, CREATE TABLE... AS SELECT, or COPY.
2. What is the purpose of the IMPORT option IGNORE? What is it?s default setting?
Level: Low
Expected Answer: The IMPORT IGNORE option tells import to ignore "already exists" errors. If it is not specified the tables that already exist will be skipped. If it is specified, the error is ignored and the tables data will be inserted. The default value is N.
3. You have a rollback segment in a version 7.2 database that has expanded beyond optimal, how can it be restored to optimal?
Level: Low
Expected answer: Use the ALTER TABLESPACE ..... SHRINK command.
4. If the DEFAULT and TEMPORARY tablespace clauses are left out of a CREATE USER command what happens? Is this bad or good? Why?
Level: Low
Expected answer: The user is assigned the SYSTEM tablespace as a default and temporary tablespace. This is bad because it causes user objects and temporary segments to be placed into the SYSTEM tablespace resulting in fragmentation and improper table placement (only data dictionary objects and the system rollback segment should be in SYSTEM).
5. What are some of the Oracle provided packages that DBAs should be aware of?
Level: Intermediate to High
Expected answer: Oracle provides a number of packages in the form of the DBMS_ packages owned by the SYS user. The packages used by DBAs may include: DBMS_SHARED_POOL, DBMS_UTILITY, DBMS_SQL, DBMS_DDL, DBMS_SESSION, DBMS_OUTPUT and DBMS_SNAPSHOT. They may also try to answer with the UTL*.SQL or CAT*.SQL series of SQL procedures. These can be viewed as extra credit but aren?t part of the answer.
6. What happens if the constraint name is left out of a constraint clause?
Level: Low
Expected answer: The Oracle system will use the default name of SYS_Cxxxx where xxxx is a system generated number. This is bad since it makes tracking which table the constraint belongs to or what the constraint does harder.
7. What happens if a tablespace clause is left off of a primary key constraint clause?
Level: Low
Expected answer: This results in the index that is automatically generated being placed in then users default tablespace. Since this will usually be the same tablespace as the table is being created in, this can cause serious performance problems.
8. What is the proper method for disabling and re-enabling a primary key constraint?
Level: Intermediate
Expected answer: You use the ALTER TABLE command for both. However, for the enable clause you must specify the USING INDEX and TABLESPACE clause for primary keys.
9. What happens if a primary key constraint is disabled and then enabled without fully specifying the index clause?
Level: Intermediate
Expected answer: The index is created in the user?s default tablespace and all sizing information is lost. Oracle doesn?t store this information as a part of the constraint definition, but only as part of the index definition, when the constraint was disabled the index was dropped and the information is gone.
10. (On UNIX) When should more than one DB writer process be used? How many should be used?
Level: High
Expected answer: If the UNIX system being used is capable of asynchronous IO then only one is required, if the system is not capable of asynchronous IO then up to twice the number of disks used by Oracle number of DB writers should be specified by use of the db_writers initialization parameter.
11. You are using hot backup without being in archivelog mode, can you recover in the event of a failure? Why or why not?
Level: High
Expected answer: You can?t use hot backup without being in archivelog mode. So no, you couldn?t recover.
12. What causes the "snapshot too old" error? How can this be prevented or mitigated?
Level: Intermediate
Expected answer: This is caused by large or long running transactions that have either wrapped onto their own rollback space or have had another transaction write on part of their rollback space. This can be prevented or mitigated by breaking the transaction into a set of smaller transactions or increasing the size of the rollback segments and their extents.
13. How can you tell if a database object is invalid?
Level: Low
Expected answer: By checking the status column of the DBA_, ALL_ or USER_OBJECTS views, depending upon whether you own or only have permission on the view or are using a DBA account.
14. A user is getting an ORA-00942 error yet you know you have granted them permission on the table, what else should you check?
Level: Low
Expected answer: You need to check that the user has specified the full name of the object (select empid from scott.emp; instead of select empid from emp;) or has a synonym that points to the object (create synonym emp for scott.emp;)
15. A developer is trying to create a view and the database won?t let him. He has the "DEVELOPER" role which has the "CREATE VIEW" system privilege and SELECT grants on the tables he is using, what is the problem?
Level: Intermediate
Expected answer: You need to verify the developer has direct grants on all tables used in the view. You can?t create a stored object with grants given through views.
16. If you have an example table, what is the best way to get sizing data for the production table implementation?
Level: Intermediate
Expected answer: The best way is to analyze the table and then use the data provided in the DBA_TABLES view to get the average row length and other pertinent data for the calculation. The quick and dirty way is to look at the number of blocks the table is actually using and ratio the number of rows in the table to its number of blocks against the number of expected rows.
17. How can you find out how many users are currently logged into the database? How can you find their operating system id?
Level: high
Expected answer: There are several ways. One is to look at the v$session or v$process views. Another way is to check the current_logins parameter in the v$sysstat view. Another if you are on UNIX is to do a "ps -efgrep oraclewc -l? command, but this only works against a single instance installation.
18. A user selects from a sequence and gets back two values, his select is:
SELECT pk_seq.nextval FROM dual;
What is the problem?
Level: Intermediate
Expected answer: Somehow two values have been inserted into the dual table. This table is a single row, single column table that should only have one value in it.
19. How can you determine if an index needs to be dropped and rebuilt?
Level: Intermediate
Expected answer: Run the ANALYZE INDEX command on the index to validate its structure and then calculate the ratio of LF_BLK_LEN/LF_BLK_LEN+BR_BLK_LEN and if it isn?t near 1.0 (i.e. greater than 0.7 or so) then the index should be rebuilt. Or if the ratio
BR_BLK_LEN/ LF_BLK_LEN+BR_BLK_LEN is nearing 0.3.

SQL Admin Interview Questions

1. Explain the architecture of SQL Server?
**
2. Different types of Backups?
o A full database backup is a full copy of the database.
o A transaction log backup copies only the transaction log.
o A differential backup copies only the database pages modified after the last full database backup.
o A file or filegroup restore allows the recovery of just the portion of a database that was on the failed disk.
3. What are ‘jobs’ in SQL Server? How do we create one? What is tasks?
Using SQL Server Agent jobs, you can automate administrative tasks and run them on a recurring basis.
**
4. What is database replication? What are the different types of replication you can set up in SQL Server? How are they used? What is snapshot replication how is it different from Transactional replication?
Replication is the process of copying/moving data between databases on the same or different servers. SQL Server supports the following types of replication scenarios:
1. Snapshot replication - It distributes data exactly as it appears at a specific moment in time and doesn’t monitor for updates. It can be used when data changes are infrequent. It is often used for browsing data such as price lists, online catalog, or data for decision support where the current data is not required and data is used as read only.
2. Transactional replication (with immediate updating subscribers, with queued updating subscribers) - With this an initial snapshot of data is applied, and whenever data modifications are made at the publisher, the individual transactions are captured and propagated to the subscribers.
3. Merge replication - It is the process of distributing the data between publisher and subscriber, it allows the publisher and subscriber to update the data while connected or disconnected, and then merging the updates between the sites when they are connected.
5. How can u look at what are the process running on SQL server? How can you kill a process in SQL server?
o Expand a server group, and then expand a server.
o Expand Management, and then expand Current Activity.
o Click Process Info. The current server activity is displayed in the details pane.
In the details pane, right-click a Process ID, and then click Kill Process.
6. What is RAID and what are different types of RAID configurations?
RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, used to provide fault tolerance to database servers. There are six RAID levels 0 through 5 offering different levels of performance, fault tolerance.
7.
Some of the tools/ways that help you troubleshooting performance problems are: SET SHOWPLAN_ALL ON, SET SHOWPLAN_TEXT ON, SET STATISTICS IO ON, SQL Server Profiler, Windows NT /2000 Performance monitor, Graphical execution plan in Query Analyzer.
8. How to determine the service pack currently installed on SQL Server?
The global variable @@Version stores the build number of the sqlservr.exe, which is used to determine the service pack installed.
eg: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 - 8.00.760 (Intel X86) Dec 17 2002 14:22:05 Copyright (c) 1988-2003 Microsoft Corporation Enterprise Edition on Windows NT 5.0 (Build 2195: Service Pack 3)
9. What is the purpose of using COLLATE in a query?
The term, collation, refers to a set of rules that determine how data is sorted and compared. In Microsoft® SQL Server 2000, it is not required to separately specify code page and sort order for character data, and the collation used for Unicode data. Instead, specify the collation name and sorting rules to use. Character data is sorted using rules that define the correct character sequence, with options for specifying case-sensitivity, accent marks, kana character types, and character width. Microsoft SQL Server 2000 collations include these groupings:
• Windows collations - Windows collations define rules for storing character data based on the rules defined for an associated Windows locale. The base Windows collation rules specify which alphabet or language is used when dictionary sorting is applied, as well as the code page used to store non-Unicode character data. For Windows collations, the nchar, nvarchar, and ntext data types have the same sorting behavior as char, varchar, and text data types
• SQL collations - SQL collations are provided for compatibility with sort orders in earlier versions of Microsoft SQL Server.
Sort Order
Binary is the fastest sorting order, and is case-sensitive. If Binary is selected, the Case-sensitive, Accent-sensitive, Kana-sensitive, and Width-sensitive options are not available.

Sort order Description
Binary Sorts and compares data in Microsoft® SQL Server™ tables based on the bit patterns defined for each character. Binary sort order is case-sensitive, that is lowercase precedes uppercase, and accent-sensitive. This is the fastest sorting order.
If this option is not selected, SQL Server follows sorting and comparison rules as defined in dictionaries for the associated language or alphabet.
Case-sensitive Specifies that SQL Server distinguish between uppercase and lowercase letters.
If not selected, SQL Server considers the uppercase and lowercase versions of letters to be equal. SQL Server does not define whether lowercase letters sort lower or higher in relation to uppercase letters when Case-sensitive is not selected.
Accent-sensitive Specifies that SQL Server distinguish between accented and unaccented characters. For example, 'a' is not equal to 'á'.
If not selected, SQL Server considers the accented and unaccented versions of letters to be equal.
Kana-sensitive Specifies that SQL Server distinguish between the two types of Japanese kana characters: Hiragana and Katakana.
If not selected, SQL Server considers Hiragana and Katakana characters to be equal.
Width-sensitive Specifies that SQL Server distinguish between a single-byte character (half-width) and the same character when represented as a double-byte character (full-width).
If not selected, SQL Server considers the single-byte and double-byte representation of the same character to be equal.
Windows collation options:
• Use Latin1_General for the U.S. English character set (code page 1252).
• Use Modern_Spanish for all variations of Spanish, which also use the same character set as U.S. English (code page 1252).
• Use Arabic for all variations of Arabic, which use the Arabic character set (code page 1256).
• Use Japanese_Unicode for the Unicode version of Japanese (code page 932), which has a different sort order from Japanese, but the same code page (932).
10. What is the STUFF Function and how does it differ from the REPLACE function?
STUFF - Deletes a specified length of characters and inserts another set of characters at a specified starting point.
SELECT STUFF('abcdef', 2, 3, 'ijklmn')
GO
Here is the result set:
---------
aijklmnef
REPLACE - Replaces all occurrences of the second given string expression in the first string expression with a third expression.
SELECT REPLACE('abcdefghicde','cde','xxx')
GO
Here is the result set:
------------
abxxxfghixxx
11. What does it mean to have quoted_identifier on? What are the implications of having it off?
When SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER is OFF (default), literal strings in expressions can be delimited by single or double quotation marks.
When SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER is ON, all strings delimited by double quotation marks are interpreted as object identifiers. Therefore, quoted identifiers do not have to follow the Transact-SQL rules for identifiers.
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER must be ON when creating or manipulating indexes on computed columns or indexed views. If SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER is OFF, CREATE, UPDATE, INSERT, and DELETE statements on tables with indexes on computed columns or indexed views will fail.
The SQL Server ODBC driver and Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server automatically set QUOTED_IDENTIFIER to ON when connecting.
When a stored procedure is created, the SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER and SET ANSI_NULLS settings are captured and used for subsequent invocations of that stored procedure. When executed inside a stored procedure, the setting of SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER is not changed.
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER OFF
GO
-- Attempt to create a table with a reserved keyword as a name
-- should fail.
CREATE TABLE "select" ("identity" int IDENTITY, "order" int)
GO

SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO
-- Will succeed.
CREATE TABLE "select" ("identity" int IDENTITY, "order" int)
GO
12. What is the purpose of UPDATE STATISTICS?
Updates information about the distribution of key values for one or more statistics groups (collections) in the specified table or indexed view.
13. Fundamentals of Data warehousing & olap?
14. What do u mean by OLAP server? What is the difference between OLAP and OLTP?
15. What is a tuple?
A tuple is an instance of data within a relational database.
16. Services and user Accounts maintenance
17. sp_configure commands?
Displays or changes global configuration settings for the current server.
18. What is the basic functions for master, msdb, tempdb databases?
Microsoft® SQL Server 2000 systems have four system databases:
• master - The master database records all of the system level information for a SQL Server system. It records all login accounts and all system configuration settings. master is the database that records the existence of all other databases, including the location of the database files.
• tempdb - tempdb holds all temporary tables and temporary stored procedures. It also fills any other temporary storage needs such as work tables generated by SQL Server. tempdb is re-created every time SQL Server is started so the system starts with a clean copy of the database.
By default, tempdb autogrows as needed while SQL Server is running. If the size defined for tempdb is small, part of your system processing load may be taken up with autogrowing tempdb to the size needed to support your workload each time to restart SQL Server. You can avoid this overhead by using ALTER DATABASE to increase the size of tempdb.
• model - The model database is used as the template for all databases created on a system. When a CREATE DATABASE statement is issued, the first part of the database is created by copying in the contents of the model database, then the remainder of the new database is filled with empty pages. Because tempdb is created every time SQL Server is started, the model database must always exist on a SQL Server system.
• msdb - The msdb database is used by SQL Server Agent for scheduling alerts and jobs, and recording operators.
19. What are sequence diagrams? What you will get out of this sequence diagrams?
Sequence diagrams document the interactions between classes to achieve a result, such as a use case. Because UML is designed for object-oriented programming, these communications between classes are known as messages. The sequence diagram lists objects horizontally, and time vertically, and models these messages over time.
20. What are the new features of SQL 2000 than SQL 7? What are the new datatypes in sql?
• XML Support - The relational database engine can return data as Extensible Markup Language (XML) documents. Additionally, XML can also be used to insert, update, and delete values in the database. (for xml raw - to retrieve output as xml type)
• User-Defined Functions - The programmability of Transact-SQL can be extended by creating your own Transact-SQL functions. A user-defined function can return either a scalar value or a table.
• Indexed Views - Indexed views can significantly improve the performance of an application where queries frequently perform certain joins or aggregations. An indexed view allows indexes to be created on views, where the result set of the view is stored and indexed in the database.
• New Data Types - SQL Server 2000 introduces three new data types. bigint is an 8-byte integer type. sql_variant is a type that allows the storage of data values of different data types. table is a type that allows applications to store results temporarily for later use. It is supported for variables, and as the return type for user-defined functions.
• INSTEAD OF and AFTER Triggers - INSTEAD OF triggers are executed instead of the triggering action (for example, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE). They can also be defined on views, in which case they greatly extend the types of updates a view can support. AFTER triggers fire after the triggering action. SQL Server 2000 introduces the ability to specify which AFTER triggers fire first and last.
• Multiple Instances of SQL Server - SQL Server 2000 supports running multiple instances of the relational database engine on the same computer. Each computer can run one instance of the relational database engine from SQL Server version 6.5 or 7.0, along with one or more instances of the database engine from SQL Server 2000. Each instance has its own set of system and user databases.
• Index Enhancements - You can now create indexes on computed columns. You can specify whether indexes are built in ascending or descending order, and if the database engine should use parallel scanning and sorting during index creation.
21. How do we open SQL Server in single user mode?
We can accomplish this in any of the three ways given below :-
. From Command Prompt :-
sqlservr -m
a. From Startup Options :-
Go to SQL Server Properties by right-clicking on the Server name in the Enterprise manager.
Under the 'General' tab, click on 'Startup Parameters'.
Enter a value of -m in the Parameter.
b. From Registry :-
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\MSSQLServer\MSSQLServer\Parameters.
Add new string value.
Specify the 'Name' as SQLArg(n) & 'Data' as -m.
Where n is the argument number in the list of arguments.
22. Difference between clustering and NLB (Network Load Balancing)?
**
23. Explain Active/Active and Active/Passive cluster configurations?
**
24. What is Log Shipping?
In Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 Enterprise Edition, you can use log shipping to feed transaction logs from one database to another on a constant basis. Continually backing up the transaction logs from a source database and then copying and restoring the logs to a destination database keeps the destination database synchronized with the source database. This allows you to have a backup server and also provides a way to offload query processing from the main computer (the source server) to read-only destination servers.
25. What are the main steps you take care for enhancing SQL Server performance?
**
26. You have to check whether any users are connected to sql server database and if any user is connected to database, you have to disconnect the user(s) and run a process in a job. How do you do the above in a job?
**
XML
27. How can I convert data in a Microsoft Access table into XML format?
The following applications can help you convert Access data into XML format: Access 2002, ADO 2.5, and SQLXML. Access 2002 (part of Microsoft Office XP) enables you to query or save a table in XML format. You might be able to automate this process. ADO 2.5 and later enables you to open the data into a recordset, then persist the recordset in XML format, as the following code shows:
rs.Save "c:\rs.xml", adPersistXML
You can use linked servers to add the Access database to your SQL Server 2000 database so you can run queries from within SQL Server to retrieve data. Then, through HTTP, you can use the SQLXML technology to extract the Access data in the XML format you want.
NEW
28. @@IDENTITY ?
Ans: Returns the last-inserted identity value.
29. If a job is fail in sql server, how do find what went wrong?
30. Have you used Error handling in DTS?

SQL Tools Interview Questions

1. Have you ever used DBCC command? Give an example for it.
The Transact-SQL programming language provides DBCC statements that act as Database Console Commands for Microsoft® SQL Serve 2000. These statements check the physical and logical consistency of a database. Many DBCC statements can fix detected problems. Database Console Command statements are grouped into these categories.

Statement category Perform
Maintenance statements Maintenance tasks on a database, index, or filegroup.
Miscellaneous statements Miscellaneous tasks such as enabling row-level locking or removing a dynamic-link library (DLL) from memory.
Status statements Status checks.
Validation statements Validation operations on a database, table, index, catalog, filegroup, system tables, or allocation of database pages.
DBCC CHECKDB, DBCC CHECKTABLE, DBCC CHECKCATALOG, DBCC CHECKALLOC, DBCC SHOWCONTIG, DBCC SHRINKDATABASE, DBCC SHRINKFILE etc.
2.
3. How do you use DBCC statements to monitor various aspects of a SQL server installation?
**
4. What is the output of DBCC Showcontig statement?
Displays fragmentation information for the data and indexes of the specified table.
5. How do I reset the identity column?
You can use the DBCC CHECKIDENT statement, if you want to reset or reseed the identity column. For example, if you need to force the current identity value in the jobs table to a value of 100, you can use the following:
USE pubs
GO
DBCC CHECKIDENT (jobs, RESEED, 100)
GO
6. About SQL Command line executables
Utilities
bcp
console
isql
sqlagent
sqldiag
sqlmaint
sqlservr
vswitch
dtsrun
dtswiz
isqlw
itwiz
odbccmpt
osql
rebuildm
sqlftwiz
distrib
logread
replmerg
snapshot
scm
regxmlss
7. What is DTC?
The Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MS DTC) is a transaction manager that allows client applications to include several different sources of data in one transaction. MS DTC coordinates committing the distributed transaction across all the servers enlisted in the transaction.
8. What is DTS? Any drawbacks in using DTS?
Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 Data Transformation Services (DTS) is a set of graphical tools and programmable objects that lets you extract, transform, and consolidate data from disparate sources into single or multiple destinations.
9. What is BCP?
The bcp utility copies data between an instance of Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 and a data file in a user-specified format.
C:\Documents and Settings\sthomas>bcp
usage: bcp {dbtable | query} {in | out | queryout | format} datafile
[-m maxerrors] [-f formatfile] [-e errfile]
[-F firstrow] [-L lastrow] [-b batchsize]
[-n native type] [-c character type] [-w wide character type]
[-N keep non-text native] [-V file format version] [-q quoted identifier]
[-C code page specifier] [-t field terminator] [-r row terminator]
[-i inputfile] [-o outfile] [-a packetsize]
[-S server name] [-U username] [-P password]
[-T trusted connection] [-v version] [-R regional enable]
[-k keep null values] [-E keep identity values]
[-h "load hints"]
10. How can I create a plain-text flat file from SQL Server as input to another application?
One of the purposes of Extensible Markup Language (XML) is to solve challenges like this, but until all applications become XML-enabled, consider using our faithful standby, the bulk copy program (bcp) utility. This utility can do more than just dump a table; bcp also can take its input from a view instead of from a table. After you specify a view as the input source, you can limit the output to a subset of columns or to a subset of rows by selecting appropriate filtering (WHERE and HAVING) clauses.
More important, by using a view, you can export data from multiple joined tables. The only thing you cannot do is specify the sequence in which the rows are written to the flat file, because a view does not let you include an ORDER BY clause in it unless you also use the TOP keyword.
If you want to generate the data in a particular sequence or if you cannot predict the content of the data you want to export, be aware that in addition to a view, bcp also supports using an actual query. The only "gotcha" about using a query instead of a table or view is that you must specify queryout in place of out in the bcp command line.
For example, you can use bcp to generate from the pubs database a list of authors who reside in California by writing the following code:
bcp "SELECT * FROM pubs..authors WHERE state = 'CA'" queryout c:\CAauthors.txt -c -T -S
11. What are the different ways of moving data/databases between servers and databases in SQL Server?
There are lots of options available, you have to choose your option depending upon your requirements. Some of the options you have are: BACKUP/RESTORE, detaching and attaching databases, replication, DTS, BCP, logshipping, INSERT...SELECT, SELECT...INTO, creating INSERT scripts to generate data.
12. How will I export database?
Through DTS - Import/Export wizard
Backup - through Complete/Differential/Transaction Log
13. How to export database at a particular time, every week?
Backup - Schedule
DTS - Schedule
Jobs - create a new job
14. How do you load large data to the SQL server database?
bcp
15. How do you transfer data from text file to database (other than DTS)?
bcp
16. What is OSQL and ISQL utility?
The osql utility allows you to enter Transact-SQL statements, system procedures, and script files. This utility uses ODBC to communicate with the server.
The isql utility allows you to enter Transact-SQL statements, system procedures, and script files; and uses DB-Library to communicate with Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000.
All DB-Library applications, such as isql, work as SQL Server 6.5–level clients when connected to SQL Server 2000. They do not support some SQL Server 2000 features.
The osql utility is based on ODBC and does support all SQL Server 2000 features. Use osql to run scripts that isql cannot run.
17. What Tool you have used for checking Query Optimization? What is the use of profiler in sql server? What is the first thing u look at in a 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 is hampering performance by executing too slowly.
Use SQL Profiler to:
• Monitor the performance of an instance of SQL Server.
• Debug Transact-SQL statements and stored procedures.
• Identify slow-executing queries.
• Test SQL statements and stored procedures in the development phase of a project by single-stepping through statements to confirm that the code works as expected.
• Troubleshoot problems in SQL Server by capturing events on a production system and replaying them on a test system. This is useful for testing or debugging purposes and allows users to continue using the production system without interference.
Audit and review activity that occurred on an instance of SQL Server. This allows a security administrator to review any of the auditing events, including the success and failure of a login attempt and the success and failure of permissions in accessing statements and objects.

Permissions
18. A user is a member of Public role and Sales role. Public role has the permission to select on all the table, and Sales role, which doesn’t have a select permission on some of the tables. Will that user be able to select from all tables?
**
19. If a user does not have permission on a table, but he has permission to a view created on it, will he be able to view the data in table?
Yes.
20. Describe Application Role and explain a scenario when you will use it?
**
21. After removing a table from database, what other related objects have to be dropped explicitly?
(view, SP)
22. You have a SP names YourSP and have the a Select Stmt inside the SP. You also have a user named YourUser. What permissions you will give him for accessing the SP.
**
23. Different Authentication modes in Sql server? If a user is logged under windows authentication mode, how to find his userid?
There are Three Different authentication modes in sqlserver.
1. Windows Authentication Mode
2. SqlServer Authentication Mode
3. Mixed Authentication Mode
“system_user” system function in sqlserver to fetch the logged on user name.
24. Give the connection strings from front-end for both type logins(windows,sqlserver)?
This are specifically for sqlserver not for any other RDBMS
Data Source=MySQLServer;Initial Catalog=NORTHWIND;Integrated Security=SSPI (windows)
Data Source=MySQLServer;Initial Catalog=NORTHWIND;Uid=” ”;Pwd=” ”(sqlserver)
25. What are three SQL keywords used to change or set someone’s permissions?
Grant, Deny and Revoke

SQL Transaction Interview Questions

1. What is Transaction?
A transaction is a sequence of operations performed as a single logical unit of work. A logical unit of work must exhibit four properties, called the ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability) properties, to qualify as a transaction:
o Atomicity - A transaction must be an atomic unit of work; either all of its data modifications are performed or none of them is performed.
o Consistency - When completed, a transaction must leave all data in a consistent state. In a relational database, all rules must be applied to the transaction's modifications to maintain all data integrity. All internal data structures, such as B-tree indexes or doubly-linked lists, must be correct at the end of the transaction.
o Isolation - Modifications made by concurrent transactions must be isolated from the modifications made by any other concurrent transactions. A transaction either sees data in the state it was in before another concurrent transaction modified it, or it sees the data after the second transaction has completed, but it does not see an intermediate state. This is referred to as serializability because it results in the ability to reload the starting data and replay a series of transactions to end up with the data in the same state it was in after the original transactions were performed.
o Durability - After a transaction has completed, its effects are permanently in place in the system. The modifications persist even in the event of a system failure.
2. After one Begin Transaction a truncate statement and a RollBack statements are there. Will it be rollbacked? Since the truncate statement does not perform logged operation how does it RollBack?
It will rollback.
**
3. Given a SQL like
Begin Tran
Select @@Rowcount
Begin Tran
Select @@Rowcount
Begin Tran
Select @@Rowcount
Commit Tran
Select @@Rowcount
RollBack
Select @@Rowcount
RollBack
Select @@Rowcount
What is the value of @@Rowcount at each stmt levels?
Ans : 0 – zero.
@@ROWCOUNT - Returns the number of rows affected by the last statement.
@@TRANCOUNT - Returns the number of active transactions for the current connection.
Each Begin Tran will add count, each commit will reduce count and ONE rollback will make it 0.

OTHER
4. What are the constraints for Table Constraints define rules regarding the values allowed in columns and are the standard mechanism for enforcing integrity. SQL Server 2000 supports five classes of constraints.
NOT NULL
CHECK
UNIQUE
PRIMARY KEY
FOREIGN KEY
5. There are 50 columns in a table. Write a query to get first 25 columns
Ans: Need to mention each column names.
6. How to list all the tables in a particular database?
USE pubs
GO
sp_help
7. What are cursors? Explain different types of cursors. What are the disadvantages of cursors? How can you avoid cursors?
Cursors allow row-by-row processing of the result sets.
Types of cursors: Static, Dynamic, Forward-only, Keyset-driven.
Disadvantages of cursors: Each time you fetch a row from the cursor, it results in a network roundtrip. Cursors are also costly because they require more resources and temporary storage (results in more IO operations). Further, there are restrictions on the SELECT statements that can be used with some types of cursors.
How to avoid cursor:
1. Most of the times, set based operations can be used instead of cursors. Here is an example: If you have to give a flat hike to your employees using the following criteria:
Salary between 30000 and 40000 -- 5000 hike
Salary between 40000 and 55000 -- 7000 hike
Salary between 55000 and 65000 -- 9000 hike
In this situation many developers tend to use a cursor, determine each employee's salary and update his salary according to the above formula. But the same can be achieved by multiple update statements or can be combined in a single UPDATE statement as shown below:
UPDATE tbl_emp SET salary =
CASE WHEN salary BETWEEN 30000 AND 40000 THEN salary + 5000
WHEN salary BETWEEN 40000 AND 55000 THEN salary + 7000
WHEN salary BETWEEN 55000 AND 65000 THEN salary + 10000
END
2. You need to call a stored procedure when a column in a particular row meets certain condition. You don't have to use cursors for this. This can be achieved using WHILE loop, as long as there is a unique key to identify each row. For examples of using WHILE loop for row by row processing, check out the 'My code library' section of my site or search for WHILE.
8. What is Dynamic Cursor? Suppose, I have a dynamic cursor attached to table in a database. I have another means by which I will modify the table. What do you think will the values in the cursor be?
Dynamic cursors reflect all changes made to the rows in their result set when scrolling through the cursor. The data values, order, and membership of the rows in the result set can change on each fetch. All UPDATE, INSERT, and DELETE statements made by all users are visible through the cursor. Updates are visible immediately if they are made through the cursor using either an API function such as SQLSetPos or the Transact-SQL WHERE CURRENT OF clause. Updates made outside the cursor are not visible until they are committed, unless the cursor transaction isolation level is set to read uncommitted.
9. What is DATEPART?
Returns an integer representing the specified datepart of the specified date.
10. Difference between Delete and Truncate?
TRUNCATE TABLE is functionally identical to DELETE statement with no WHERE clause: both remove all rows in the table.
(1) But TRUNCATE TABLE is faster and uses fewer system and transaction log resources than DELETE. The DELETE statement removes rows one at a time and records an entry in the transaction log for each deleted row. TRUNCATE TABLE 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.
(2) Because TRUNCATE TABLE is not logged, it cannot activate a trigger.
(3) The counter used by an identity for new rows is reset to the seed for the column. If you want to retain the identity counter, use DELETE instead.
Of course, TRUNCATE TABLE can be rolled back.
11. Given a scenario where two operations, Delete Stmt and Truncate Stmt, where the Delete Statement was successful and the truncate stmt was failed. – Can u judge why?
**
12. What are global variables? Tell me some of them?
Transact-SQL global variables are a form of function and are now referred to as functions.
ABS - Returns the absolute, positive value of the given numeric expression.
SUM
AVG
AND
13. What is DDL?
Data definition language (DDL) statements are SQL statements that support the definition or declaration of database objects (for example, CREATE TABLE, DROP TABLE, and ALTER TABLE).
You can use the ADO Command object to issue DDL statements. To differentiate DDL statements from a table or stored procedure name, set the CommandType property of the Command object to adCmdText. Because executing DDL queries with this method does not generate any recordsets, there is no need for a Recordset object.
14. What is DML?
Data Manipulation Language (DML), which is used to select, insert, update, and delete data in the objects defined using DDL
15. What are keys in RDBMS? What is a primary key/ foreign key?
There are two kinds of keys.
A primary key is a set of columns from a table that are guaranteed to have unique values for each row of that table.
Foreign keys are attributes of one table that have matching values in a primary key in another table, allowing for relationships between tables.
16. What is the difference between Primary Key and Unique Key?
Both primary key and unique key 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.
17. Define candidate key, alternate key, composite key?
A candidate key is one that can identify each row of a table uniquely. Generally a candidate key becomes the primary key of the table. If the table has more than one candidate key, one of them will become the primary key, and the rest are called alternate keys.
A key formed by combining at least two or more columns is called composite key.
18. What is the Referential Integrity?
Referential integrity refers to the consistency that must be maintained between primary and foreign keys, i.e. every foreign key value must have a corresponding primary key value.
19. What are defaults? Is there a column to which a default can't be bound?
A default is a value that will be used by a column, if no value is supplied to that column while inserting data. IDENTITY columns and timestamp columns can't have defaults bound to them.
20. What is Query optimization? How is tuning a performance of query done?
21. What is the use of trace utility?
**
22. What is the use of shell commands? xp_cmdshell
Executes a given command string as an operating-system command shell and returns any output as rows of text. Grants nonadministrative users permissions to execute xp_cmdshell.
23. What is use of shrink database?
Microsoft® SQL Server 2000 allows each file within a database to be shrunk to remove unused pages. Both data and transaction log files can be shrunk.
24. If the performance of the query suddenly decreased where you will check?
25. What is a pass-through query?
Microsoft® SQL Server 2000 sends pass-through queries as un-interpreted query strings to an OLE DB data source. The query must be in a syntax the OLE DB data source will accept. A Transact-SQL statement uses the results from a pass-through query as though it is a regular table reference.
This example uses a pass-through query to retrieve a result set from a Microsoft Access version of the Northwind sample database.
SELECT *
FROM OpenRowset('Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0',
'c:\northwind.mdb';'admin'; '',
'SELECT CustomerID, CompanyName
FROM Customers
WHERE Region = ''WA'' ')
26. How do you differentiate Local and Global Temporary table?
You can create local and global temporary tables. Local temporary tables are visible only in the current session; global temporary tables are visible to all sessions. Prefix local temporary table names with single number sign (#table_name), and prefix global temporary table names with a double number sign (##table_name). SQL statements reference the temporary table using the value specified for table_name in the CREATE TABLE statement:
CREATE TABLE #MyTempTable (cola INT PRIMARY KEY)
INSERT INTO #MyTempTable VALUES (1)
27. How the Exists keyword works in SQL Server?
USE pubs
SELECT au_lname, au_fname
FROM authors
WHERE exists
(SELECT *
FROM publishers
WHERE authors.city = publishers.city)
When a subquery is introduced with the keyword EXISTS, it functions as an existence test. The WHERE clause of the outer query tests for the existence of rows returned by the subquery. The subquery does not actually produce any data; it returns a value of TRUE or FALSE.
28. ANY?
USE pubs
SELECT au_lname, au_fname
FROM authors
WHERE city = ANY
(SELECT city
FROM publishers)
29. to select date part only
SELECT CONVERT(char(10),GetDate(),101)
--to select time part only
SELECT right(GetDate(),7)
30. How can I send a message to user from the SQL Server?
You can use the xp_cmdshell extended stored procedure to run net send command. This is the example to send the 'Hello' message to JOHN:
EXEC master..xp_cmdshell "net send JOHN 'Hello'"
To get net send message on the Windows 9x machines, you should run the WinPopup utility. You can place WinPopup in the Startup group under Program Files.
31. What is normalization? Explain different levels of normalization? Explain Third normalization form with an example?
The process of refining tables, keys, columns, and relationships to create an efficient database is called normalization. This should eliminates unnecessary duplication and provides a rapid search path to all necessary information.
Some of the benefits of normalization are:
• Data integrity (because there is no redundant, neglected data)
• Optimized queries (because normalized tables produce rapid, efficient joins)
• Faster index creation and sorting (because the tables have fewer columns)
• Faster UPDATE performance (because there are fewer indexes per table)
• Improved concurrency resolution (because table locks will affect less data)
• Eliminate redundancy
There are a few rules for database normalization. Each rule is called a "normal form." If the first rule is observed, the database is said to be in "first normal form." If the first three rules are observed, the database is considered to be in "third normal form." Although other levels of normalization are possible, third normal form is considered the highest level necessary for most applications.
6. First Normal Form (1NF)
 Eliminate repeating groups in individual tables
 Create a separate table for each set of related data.
 Identify each set of related data with a primary key.
Do not use multiple fields in a single table to store similar data.
Example
Subordinate1 Subordinate2 Subordinate3 Subordinate4
Bob Jim Mary Beth
Mary Mike Jason Carol Mark
Jim Alan
Eliminate duplicative columns from the same table. Clearly, the Subordinate1-Subordinate4 columns are duplicative. What happens when we need to add or remove a subordinate?
Subordinates
Bob Jim, Mary, Beth
Mary Mike, Jason, Carol, Mark
Jim Alan
This solution is closer, but it also falls short of the mark. The subordinates column is still duplicative and non-atomic. What happens when we need to add or remove a subordinate? We need to read and write the entire contents of the table. That’s not a big deal in this situation, but what if one manager had one hundred employees? Also, it complicates the process of selecting data from the database in future queries.
Solution:

Subordinate
Bob Jim
Bob Mary
Bob Beth
Mary Mike
Mary Jason
Mary Carol
Mary Mark
Jim Alan
7. Second Normal Form (2NF)
 Create separate tables for sets of values that apply to multiple records.
 Relate these tables with a foreign key.
Records should not depend on anything other than a table's primary key (a compound key, if necessary).
For example, consider a customer's address in an accounting system. The address is needed by the Customers table, but also by the Orders, Shipping, Invoices, Accounts Receivable, and Collections tables. Instead of storing the customer's address as a separate entry in each of these tables, store it in one place, either in the Customers table or in a separate Addresses table.
8. Third Normal Form (3NF)
 Eliminate fields that do not depend on the key.
Values in a record that are not part of that record's key do not belong in the table. In general, any time the contents of a group of fields may apply to more than a single record in the table, consider placing those fields in a separate table.
For example, in an Employee Recruitment table, a candidate's university name and address may be included. But you need a complete list of universities for group mailings. If university information is stored in the Candidates table, there is no way to list universities with no current candidates. Create a separate Universities table and link it to the Candidates table with a university code key.
Another Example :
MemberId Name Company CompanyLoc
1 John Smith ABC Alabama
2 Dave Jones MCI Florida
The Member table satisfies first normal form - it contains no repeating groups. It satisfies second normal form - since it doesn't have a multivalued key. But the key is MemberID, and the company name and location describe only a company, not a member. To achieve third normal form, they must be moved into a separate table. Since they describe a company, CompanyCode becomes the key of the new "Company" table.
The motivation for this is the same for second normal form: we want to avoid update and delete anomalies. For example, suppose no members from the IBM were currently stored in the database. With the previous design, there would be no record of its existence, even though 20 past members were from IBM!
Member Table
MemberId Name CID
1 John Smith 1
2 Dave Jones 2

Company Table
CId Name Location
1 ABC Alabama
2 MCI Florida

9. Boyce-Codd Normal Form (BCNF)
A relation is in Boyce/Codd normal form if and only if the only determinants are candidate key. Its a different version of 3NF, indeed, was meant to replace it. [A determinant is any attribute on which some other attribute is (fully) functionally dependent.]
10. 4th Normal Form (4NF)
A table is in 4NF if it is in BCNF and if it has no multi-valued dependencies. This applies primarily to key-only associative tables, and appears as a ternary relationship, but has incorrectly merged 2 distinct, independent relationships.
Eg: This could be any 2 M:M relationships from a single entity. For instance, a member could know many software tools, and a software tool may be used by many members. Also, a member could have recommended many books, and a book could be recommended by many members.
Software
member
Book
11. The correct solution, to cause the model to be in 4th normal form, is to ensure that all M:M relationships are resolved independently if they are indeed independent.

Software
membersoftware
member
memberBook
book
12. 5th Normal Form (5NF)(PJNF)
A table is in 5NF, also called "Projection-Join Normal Form", if it is in 4NF and if every join dependency in the table is a consequence of the candidate keys of the table.
13. Domain/key normal form (DKNF). A key uniquely identifies each row in a table. A domain is the set of permissible values for an attribute. By enforcing key and domain restrictions, the database is assured of being freed from modification anomalies. DKNF is the normalization level that most designers aim to achieve.
**
Remember, these normalization guidelines are cumulative. For a database to be in 2NF, it must first fulfill all the criteria of a 1NF database.
32. If a database is normalized by 3 NF then how many number of tables it should contain in minimum? How many minimum if 2NF and 1 NF?
33. What is denormalization and when would you go for it?
As the name indicates, denormalization is the reverse process of normalization. It's the controlled introduction of redundancy in to the database design. It helps improve the query performance as the number of joins could be reduced.
34. How can I randomly sort query results?
To randomly order rows, or to return x number of randomly chosen rows, you can use the RAND function inside the SELECT statement. But the RAND function is resolved only once for the entire query, so every row will get same value. You can use an ORDER BY clause to sort the rows by the result from the NEWID function, as the following code shows:
SELECT *
FROM Northwind..Orders
ORDER BY NEWID()
35. sp_who
Provides information about current Microsoft® SQL Server™ users and processes. The information returned can be filtered to return only those processes that are not idle.
36. Have you worked on Dynamic SQL? How will You handled “ (Double Quotes) in Dynamic SQL?
37. How to find dependents of a table?
Verify dependencies with sp_depends before dropping an object
38. What is the difference between a CONSTRAINT AND RULE?
Rules are a backward-compatibility feature that perform some of the same functions as CHECK constraints. CHECK constraints are the preferred, standard way to restrict the values in a column. CHECK constraints are also more concise than rules; there can only be one rule applied to a column, but multiple CHECK constraints can be applied. CHECK constraints are specified as part of the CREATE TABLE statement, while rules are created as separate objects and then bound to the column.
39. How to call a COM dll from SQL Server 2000?
sp_OACreate - Creates an instance of the OLE object on an instance of Microsoft® SQL Server
Syntax
sp_OACreate progid, | clsid,
objecttoken OUTPUT
[ , context ]
context - Specifies the execution context in which the newly created OLE object runs. If specified, this value must be one of the following:
1 = In-process (.dll) OLE server only
4 = Local (.exe) OLE server only
5 = Both in-process and local OLE server allowed
Examples
A. Use Prog ID - This example creates a SQL-DMO SQLServer object by using its ProgID.
DECLARE @object int
DECLARE @hr int
DECLARE @src varchar(255), @desc varchar(255)
EXEC @hr = sp_OACreate 'SQLDMO.SQLServer', @object OUT
IF @hr <> 0
BEGIN
EXEC sp_OAGetErrorInfo @object, @src OUT, @desc OUT
SELECT hr=convert(varbinary(4),@hr), Source=@src, Description=@desc
RETURN
END
B. Use CLSID - This example creates a SQL-DMO SQLServer object by using its CLSID.
DECLARE @object int
DECLARE @hr int
DECLARE @src varchar(255), @desc varchar(255)
EXEC @hr = sp_OACreate '{00026BA1-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}',
@object OUT
IF @hr <> 0
BEGIN
EXEC sp_OAGetErrorInfo @object, @src OUT, @desc OUT
SELECT hr=convert(varbinary(4),@hr), Source=@src, Description=@desc
RETURN
END
40. Difference between sysusers and syslogins?
sysusers - Contains one row for each Microsoft® Windows user, Windows group, Microsoft SQL Server™ user, or SQL Server role in the database.
syslogins - Contains one row for each login account.
41. What is the row size in SQL Server 2000?
8060 bytes.
42. How will you find structure of table, all tables/views in one db, all dbs?
//structure of table
sp_helpdb tbl_emp

//list of all databases
sp_helpdb
OR
SELECT * FROM master.dbo.sysdatabases

//details about database pubs. .mdf, .ldf file locations, size of database
sp_helpdb pubs

//lists all tables under current database
sp_tables
OR
SELECT * FROM information_schema.tables WHERE (table_type = 'base table')
OR
SELECT * FROM sysobjects WHERE type = 'U' //faster
43. B-tree indexes or doubly-linked lists?
44. What is the system function to get the current user's user id?
USER_ID(). Also check out other system functions like USER_NAME(), SYSTEM_USER, SESSION_USER, CURRENT_USER, USER, SUSER_SID(), HOST_NAME().
45. What are the series of steps that happen on execution of a query in a Query Analyzer?
1) Syntax checking 2) Parsing 3) Execution plan
46. Which event (Check constraints, Foreign Key, Rule, trigger, Primary key check) will be performed last for integrity check?
Identity Insert Check
Nullability constraint
Data type check
Instead of trigger
Primary key
Check constraint
Foreign key
DML Execution (update statements)
After Trigger
**
47. How will you show many to many relation in sql?
Create 3rd table with 2 columns which having one to many relation to these tables.
48. When a query is sent to the database and an index is not being used, what type of execution is taking place?
A table scan.
49. What is #, ##, @, @@ means?
@@ - System variables
@ - user defined variables
50. What is the difference between a Local temporary table and a Global temporary table? How is each one denoted?
Local temporary table will be accessible to only current user session, its name will be preceded with a single hash (#mytable)
Global temporary table will be accessible to all users, & it will be dropped only after ending of all active connections, its name will be preceded with double hash (##mytable)
51. What is covered queries in SQL Server?
52. What is HASH JOIN, MERGE JOIN?

Trigger and View Interview Questions

1. What is Trigger? What is its use? What are the types of Triggers? What are the new kinds of triggers in sql 2000?
Triggers are a special class of stored procedure defined to execute automatically when an UPDATE, INSERT, or DELETE statement is issued against a table or view. Triggers are powerful tools that sites can use to enforce their business rules automatically when data is modified.
The CREATE TRIGGER statement can be defined with the FOR UPDATE, FOR INSERT, or FOR DELETE clauses to target a trigger to a specific class of data modification actions. When FOR UPDATE is specified, the IF UPDATE (column_name) clause can be used to target a trigger to updates affecting a particular column.
You can use the FOR clause to specify when a trigger is executed:
• AFTER (default) - The trigger executes after the statement that triggered it completes. If the statement fails with an error, such as a constraint violation or syntax error, the trigger is not executed. AFTER triggers cannot be specified for views.
• INSTEAD OF -The trigger executes in place of the triggering action. INSTEAD OF triggers can be specified on both tables and views. You can define only one INSTEAD OF trigger for each triggering action (INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE). INSTEAD OF triggers can be used to perform enhance integrity checks on the data values supplied in INSERT and UPDATE statements. INSTEAD OF triggers also let you specify actions that allow views, which would normally not support updates, to be updatable.
An INSTEAD OF trigger can take actions such as:
• Ignoring parts of a batch.
• Not processing a part of a batch and logging the problem rows.
• Taking an alternative action if an error condition is encountered.
In SQL Server 6.5 you could define only 3 triggers per table, one for INSERT, one for UPDATE and one for DELETE. From SQL Server 7.0 onwards, this restriction is gone, and you could create multiple triggers per each action. But in 7.0 there's no way to control the order in which the triggers fire. In SQL Server 2000 you could specify which trigger fires first or fires last using sp_settriggerorder.
Till SQL Server 7.0, triggers fire only after the data modification operation happens. So in a way, they are called post triggers. But in SQL Server 2000 you could create pre triggers also.
2. When should one use "instead of Trigger"? Example
CREATE TABLE BaseTable
(
PrimaryKey int IDENTITY(1,1),
Color nvarchar(10) NOT NULL,
Material nvarchar(10) NOT NULL,
ComputedCol AS (Color + Material)
)
GO

--Create a view that contains all columns from the base table.
CREATE VIEW InsteadView
AS SELECT PrimaryKey, Color, Material, ComputedCol
FROM BaseTable
GO

--Create an INSTEAD OF INSERT trigger on tthe view.
CREATE TRIGGER InsteadTrigger on InsteadView
INSTEAD OF INSERT
AS
BEGIN
--Build an INSERT statement ignoring inserrted.PrimaryKey and
--inserted.ComputedCol.
INSERT INTO BaseTable
SELECT Color, Material
FROM inserted
END
GO

-- can insert value to basetable by this insert into basetable(color,material) values ('red','abc')

-- insert into InsteadView(color,material)) values ('red','abc') can't do this.
-- It will give error "'PrimaryKey' iin table 'InsteadView' cannot be null."

-- can insert value through table by this<
insert into InsteadView values (1,'red','abc',1) --PrimaryKey, ComputedCol wont take values from here
3. Difference between trigger and stored procedure?
Trigger will get execute automatically when an UPDATE, INSERT, or DELETE statement is issued against a table or view.
We have to call stored procedure manually, or it can execute automatic when the SQL Server starts (You can use the sp_procoption system stored procedure to mark the stored procedure to automatic execution when the SQL Server will start.
4. The following trigger generates an e-mail whenever a new title is added.
CREATE TRIGGER reminder
ON titles
FOR INSERT
AS
EXEC master..xp_sendmail 'MaryM', 'New title, mention in the next report to distributors.'
5. Drawback of trigger? Its alternative solution?
Triggers are generally used to implement business rules, auditing. Triggers can also be used to extend the referential integrity checks, but wherever possible, use constraints for this purpose, instead of triggers, as constraints are much faster.
VIEW
1. What is View? Use? Syntax of View?
A view is a virtual table made up of data from base tables and other views, but not stored separately.
o Views simplify users perception of the database (can be used to present only the necessary information while hiding details in underlying relations)
o Views improve data security preventing undesired accesses
o Views facilite the provision of additional data independence
2. Does the View occupy memory space?
No
3. Can u drop a table if it has a view?
Views or tables participating in a view created with the SCHEMABINDING clause cannot be dropped. If the view is not created using SCHEMABINDING, then we can drop the table.
4. Why doesn't SQL Server permit an ORDER BY clause in the definition of a view?
SQL Server excludes an ORDER BY clause from a view to comply with the ANSI SQL-92 standard. Because analyzing the rationale for this standard requires a discussion of the underlying structure of the structured query language (SQL) and the mathematics upon which it is based, we can't fully explain the restriction here. However, if you need to be able to specify an ORDER BY clause in a view, consider using the following workaround:
USE pubs
GO
CREATE VIEW AuthorsByName
AS
SELECT TOP 100 PERCENT *
FROM authors
ORDER BY au_lname, au_fname
GO
The TOP construct, which Microsoft introduced in SQL Server 7.0, is most useful when you combine it with the ORDER BY clause. The only time that SQL Server supports an ORDER BY clause in a view is when it is used in conjunction with the TOP keyword. (Note that the TOP keyword is a SQL Server extension to the ANSI SQL-92 standard.)

SQL Server Stored Procedures

1. What is Stored procedure?
A stored procedure is a set of Structured Query Language (SQL) statements that you assign a name to and store in a database in compiled form so that you can share it between a number of programs.
o They allow modular programming.
o They allow faster execution.
o They can reduce network traffic.
o They can be used as a security mechanism.
2. What are the different types of Storage Procedure?
a. Temporary Stored Procedures - SQL Server supports two types of temporary procedures: local and global. A local temporary procedure is visible only to the connection that created it. A global temporary procedure is available to all connections. Local temporary procedures are automatically dropped at the end of the current session. Global temporary procedures are dropped at the end of the last session using the procedure. Usually, this is when the session that created the procedure ends. Temporary procedures named with # and ## can be created by any user.
b. System stored procedures are created and stored in the master database and have the sp_ prefix.(or xp_) System stored procedures can be executed from any database without having to qualify the stored procedure name fully using the database name master. (If any user-created stored procedure has the same name as a system stored procedure, the user-created stored procedure will never be executed.)
c. Automatically Executing Stored Procedures - One or more stored procedures can execute automatically when SQL Server starts. The stored procedures must be created by the system administrator and executed under the sysadmin fixed server role as a background process. The procedure(s) cannot have any input parameters.
d. User stored procedure
3. How do I mark the stored procedure to automatic execution?
You can use the sp_procoption system stored procedure to mark the stored procedure to automatic execution when the SQL Server will start. Only objects in the master database owned by dbo can have the startup setting changed and this option is restricted to objects that have no parameters.
USE master
EXEC sp_procoption 'indRebuild', 'startup', 'true')
4. How can you optimize a stored procedure?
5. How will know whether the SQL statements are executed?
When used in a stored procedure, the RETURN statement can specify an integer value to return to the calling application, batch, or procedure. If no value is specified on RETURN, a stored procedure returns the value 0. The stored procedures return a value of 0 when no errors were encountered. Any nonzero value indicates an error occurred.
6. Why one should not prefix user stored procedures with sp_?
It is strongly recommended that you do not create any stored procedures using sp_ as a prefix. SQL Server always looks for a stored procedure beginning with sp_ in this order:
0. The stored procedure in the master database.
1. The stored procedure based on any qualifiers provided (database name or owner).
2. The stored procedure using dbo as the owner, if one is not specified.
Therefore, although the user-created stored procedure prefixed with sp_ may exist in the current database, the master database is always checked first, even if the stored procedure is qualified with the database name.
7. What can cause a Stored procedure execution plan to become invalidated and/or fall out of cache?
0. Server restart
1. Plan is aged out due to low use
2. DBCC FREEPROCCACHE (sometime desired to force it)
8. When do one need to recompile stored procedure?
if a new index is added from which the stored procedure might benefit, optimization does not automatically happen (until the next time the stored procedure is run after SQL Server is restarted).
9. SQL Server provides three ways to recompile a stored procedure:
• The sp_recompile system stored procedure forces a recompile of a stored procedure the next time it is run.
• Creating a stored procedure that specifies the WITH RECOMPILE option in its definition indicates that SQL Server does not cache a plan for this stored procedure; the stored procedure is recompiled each time it is executed. Use the WITH RECOMPILE option when stored procedures take parameters whose values differ widely between executions of the stored procedure, resulting in different execution plans to be created each time. Use of this option is uncommon, and causes the stored procedure to execute more slowly because the stored procedure must be recompiled each time it is executed.
• You can force the stored procedure to be recompiled by specifying the WITH RECOMPILE option when you execute the stored procedure. Use this option only if the parameter you are supplying is atypical or if the data has significantly changed since the stored procedure was created.
10. How to find out which stored procedure is recompiling? How to stop stored procedures from recompiling?
11. I have Two Stored Procedures SP1 and SP2 as given below. How the Transaction works, whether SP2 Transaction succeeds or fails?
CREATE PROCEDURE SP1 AS
BEGIN TRAN
INSERT INTO MARKS (SID,MARK,CID) VALUES (5,6,3)
EXEC SP2
ROLLBACK
GO

CREATE PROCEDURE SP2 AS
BEGIN TRAN
INSERT INTO MARKS (SID,MARK,CID) VALUES (100,100,103)
commit tran
GO
Both will get roll backed.
12. CREATE PROCEDURE SP1 AS
BEGIN TRAN
INSERT INTO MARKS (SID,MARK,CID) VALUES (5,6,3)
BEGIN TRAN
INSERT INTO STUDENT (SID,NAME1) VALUES (1,'SA')
commit tran
ROLLBACK TRAN
GO
Both will get roll backed.
13. How will you handle Errors in Sql Stored Procedure?
INSERT NonFatal VALUES (@Column2)
IF @@ERROR <>0
BEGIN
PRINT 'Error Occured'
END
http://www.sqlteam.com/item.asp?ItemID=2463
14. How will you raise an error in sql?
RAISERROR - Returns a user-defined error message and sets a system flag to record that an error has occurred. Using RAISERROR, the client can either retrieve an entry from the sysmessages table or build a message dynamically with user-specified severity and state information. After the message is defined it is sent back to the client as a server error message.
15. I have a stored procedure like
commit tran
create table a()
insert into table b
--
--
rollback tran
what will be the result? Is table created? data will be inserted in table b?
16. What do you do when one procedure is blocking the other?
**
17. How you will return XML from Stored Procedure?
You use the FOR XML clause of the SELECT statement, and within the FOR XML clause you specify an XML mode: RAW, AUTO, or EXPLICIT.
18. What are the differences between RAW, AUTO and Explicit modes in retrieving data from SQL Server in XML format?
**
19. Can a Stored Procedure call itself (recursive). If so then up to what level and can it be control?
Stored procedures are nested when one stored procedure calls another. You can nest stored procedures up to 32 levels. The nesting level increases by one when the called stored procedure begins execution and decreases by one when the called stored procedure completes execution. Attempting to exceed the maximum of 32 levels of nesting causes the whole calling stored procedure chain to fail. The current nesting level for the stored procedures in execution is stored in the @@NESTLEVEL function.
eg:
SET NOCOUNT ON
USE master
IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.sp_calcfactorial') IS NOT NULL
DROP PROC dbo.sp_calcfactorial
GO
CREATE PROC dbo.sp_calcfactorial
@base_number int, @factorial int OUT
AS
DECLARE @previous_number int
IF (@base_number<2) factorial="1" 1="1
ELSE BEGIN
SET @previous_number=@base_number-1
EXEC dbo.sp_calcfactorial @previous_number, @factorial OUT -- Recursive call
IF (@factorial=-1) RETURN(-1) -- Got an error, return
SET @factorial=@factorial*@base_number
END
RETURN(0)
GO

calling proc.
DECLARE @factorial int
EXEC dbo.sp_calcfactorial 4, @factorial OUT
SELECT @factorial
20. Nested Triggers
Triggers are nested when a trigger performs an action that initiates another trigger, which can initiate another trigger, and so on. Triggers can be nested up to 32 levels, and you can control whether triggers can be nested through the nested triggers server configuration option.
21. What is an extended stored procedure? Can you instantiate a COM object by using T-SQL?
An extended stored procedure is a function within a DLL (written in a programming language like C, C++ using Open Data Services (ODS) API) that can be called from T-SQL, just the way we call normal stored procedures using the EXEC statement.
22. Difference between view and stored procedure?
Views can have only select statements (create, update, truncate, delete statements are not allowed) Views cannot have “select into”, “Group by” “Having”, ”Order by”
23. What is a Function & what are the different user defined functions?
Function is a saved Transact-SQL routine that returns a value. User-defined functions cannot be used to perform a set of actions that modify the global database state. User-defined functions, like system functions, can be invoked from a query. They also can be executed through an EXECUTE statement like stored procedures.
0. Scalar Functions
Functions are scalar-valued if the RETURNS clause specified one of the scalar data types
1. Inline Table-valued Functions
If the RETURNS clause specifies TABLE with no accompanying column list, the function is an inline function.
2. Multi-statement Table-valued Functions
If the RETURNS clause specifies a TABLE type with columns and their data types, the function is a multi-statement table-valued function.
24. What are the difference between a function and a stored procedure?

0. Functions can be used in a select statement where as procedures cannot
1. Procedure takes both input and output parameters but Functions takes only input parameters
2. Functions cannot return values of type text, ntext, image & timestamps where as procedures can
3. Functions can be used as user defined datatypes in create table but procedures cannot
***Eg:-create table (name varchar(10),salary getsal(name))
Here getsal is a user defined function which returns a salary type, when table is created no storage is allotted for salary type, and getsal function is also not executed, But when we are fetching some values from this table, getsal function get’s executed and the return
Type is returned as the result set.
How to debug a stored procedure?

SQL Indexes

1. What is Index? It’s purpose?
Indexes in databases are similar to indexes in books. In a database, an index allows the database program to find data in a table without scanning the entire table. An index in a database is a list of values in a table with the storage locations of rows in the table that contain each value. Indexes can be created on either a single column or a combination of columns in a table and are implemented in the form of B-trees. An index contains an entry with one or more columns (the search key) from each row in a table. A B-tree is sorted on the search key, and can be searched efficiently on any leading subset of the search key. For example, an index on columns A, B, C can be searched efficiently on A, on A, B, and A, B, C.
2. Explain about Clustered and non clustered index? How to choose between a Clustered Index and a Non-Clustered Index?
There are clustered and nonclustered indexes. 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 nodes of a nonclustered index does not consist of the data pages. Instead, the leaf nodes contain index rows.
Consider using a clustered index for:
o Columns that contain a large number of distinct values.
o Queries that return a range of values using operators such as BETWEEN, >, >=, <, and <=.
o Columns that are accessed sequentially.
o Queries that return large result sets.
Non-clustered indexes have the same B-tree structure as clustered indexes, with two significant differences:
o The data rows are not sorted and stored in order based on their non-clustered keys.
o The leaf layer of a non-clustered index does not consist of the data pages. Instead, the leaf nodes contain index rows. Each index row contains the non-clustered key value and one or more row locators that point to the data row (or rows if the index is not unique) having the key value.
o Per table only 249 non clustered indexes.
3. Disadvantage of index?
Every index increases the time in takes to perform INSERTS, UPDATES and DELETES, so the number of indexes should not be very much.
4. Given a scenario that I have a 10 Clustered Index in a Table to all their 10 Columns. What are the advantages and disadvantages?
A: Only 1 clustered index is possible.
5. How can I enforce to use particular index?
You can use index hint (index=) after the table name.
SELECT au_lname FROM authors (index=aunmind)
6. What is Index Tuning?
One of the hardest tasks facing database administrators is the selection of appropriate columns for non-clustered indexes. You should consider creating non-clustered indexes on any columns that are frequently referenced in the WHERE clauses of SQL statements. Other good candidates are columns referenced by JOIN and GROUP BY operations.
You may wish to also consider creating non-clustered indexes that cover all of the columns used by certain frequently issued queries. These queries are referred to as “covered queries” and experience excellent performance gains.
Index Tuning is the process of finding appropriate column for non-clustered indexes.
SQL Server provides a wonderful facility known as the Index Tuning Wizard which greatly enhances the index selection process.
7. Difference between Index defrag and Index rebuild?
When you create an index in the database, the index information used by queries is stored in index pages. The sequential index pages are chained together by pointers from one page to the next. When changes are made to the data that affect the index, the information in the index can become scattered in the database. Rebuilding an index reorganizes the storage of the index data (and table data in the case of a clustered index) to remove fragmentation. This can improve disk performance by reducing the number of page reads required to obtain the requested data
DBCC INDEXDEFRAG - Defragments clustered and secondary indexes of the specified table or view.
**
8. What is sorting and what is the difference between sorting & clustered indexes?
The ORDER BY clause sorts query results by one or more columns up to 8,060 bytes. This will happen by the time when we retrieve data from database. Clustered indexes physically sorting data, while inserting/updating the table.
9. What are statistics, under what circumstances they go out of date, how do you update them?
Statistics determine the selectivity of the indexes. If an indexed column has unique values then the selectivity of that index is more, as opposed to an index with non-unique values. Query optimizer uses these indexes in determining whether to choose an index or not while executing a query.
Some situations under which you should update statistics:
1) If there is significant change in the key values in the index
2) If a large amount of data in an indexed column has been added, changed, or removed (that is, if the distribution of key values has changed), or the table has been truncated using the TRUNCATE TABLE statement and then repopulated
3) Database is upgraded from a previous version
10. What is fillfactor? What is the use of it ? What happens when we ignore it? When you should use low fill factor?
When you create a clustered index, the data in the table is stored in the data pages of the database according to the order of the values in the indexed columns. When new rows of data are inserted into the table or the values in the indexed columns are changed, Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 may have to reorganize the storage of the data in the table to make room for the new row and maintain the ordered storage of the data. This also applies to nonclustered indexes. When data is added or changed, SQL Server may have to reorganize the storage of the data in the nonclustered index pages. When a new row is added to a full index page, SQL Server moves approximately half the rows to a new page to make room for the new row. This reorganization is known as a page split. Page splitting can impair performance and fragment the storage of the data in a table.
When creating an index, you can specify a fill factor to leave extra gaps and reserve a percentage of free space on each leaf level page of the index to accommodate future expansion in the storage of the table's data and reduce the potential for page splits. The fill factor value is a percentage from 0 to 100 that specifies how much to fill the data pages after the index is created. A value of 100 means the pages will be full and will take the least amount of storage space. This setting should be used only when there will be no changes to the data, for example, on a read-only table. A lower value leaves more empty space on the data pages, which reduces the need to split data pages as indexes grow but requires more storage space. This setting is more appropriate when there will be changes to the data in the table.

DATA TYPES
11. What are the data types in SQL
bigint Binary bit char cursor
datetime Decimal float image int
money Nchar ntext nvarchar real
smalldatetime Smallint smallmoney text timestamp
tinyint Varbinary Varchar uniqueidentifier
12. Difference between char and nvarchar / char and varchar data-type?
char[(n)] - Fixed-length non-Unicode character data with length of n bytes. n must be a value from 1 through 8,000. Storage size is n bytes. The SQL-92 synonym for char is character.
nvarchar(n) - Variable-length Unicode character data of n characters. n must be a value from 1 through 4,000. Storage size, in bytes, is two times the number of characters entered. The data entered can be 0 characters in length. The SQL-92 synonyms for nvarchar are national char varying and national character varying.
varchar[(n)] - Variable-length non-Unicode character data with length of n bytes. n must be a value from 1 through 8,000. Storage size is the actual length in bytes of the data entered, not n bytes. The data entered can be 0 characters in length. The SQL-92 synonyms for varchar are char varying or character varying.
13. GUID datasize?
128bit
14. How GUID becoming unique across machines?
To ensure uniqueness across machines, the ID of the network card is used (among others) to compute the number.
15. What is the difference between text and image data type?
Text and image. Use text for character data if you need to store more than 255 characters in SQL Server 6.5, or more than 8000 in SQL Server 7.0. Use image for binary large objects (BLOBs) such as digital images. With text and image data types, the data is not stored in the row, so the limit of the page size does not apply.All that is stored in the row is a pointer to the database pages that contain the data.Individual text, ntext, and image values can be a maximum of 2-GB, which is too long to store in a single data row.

JOINS
16. What are joins?
Sometimes we have to select data from two or more tables to make our result complete. We have to perform a join.
17. How many types of Joins?
Joins can be categorized as:
• Inner joins (the typical join operation, which uses some comparison operator like = or <>). These include equi-joins and natural joins.
Inner joins use a comparison operator to match rows from two tables based on the values in common columns from each table. For example, retrieving all rows where the student identification number is the same in both the students and courses tables.
• Outer joins. Outer joins can be a left, a right, or full outer join.
Outer joins are specified with one of the following sets of keywords when they are specified in the FROM clause:
• LEFT JOIN or LEFT OUTER JOIN -The result set of a left outer join includes all the rows from the left table specified in the LEFT OUTER clause, not just the ones in which the joined columns match. When a row in the left table has no matching rows in the right table, the associated result set row contains null values for all select list columns coming from the right table.
• RIGHT JOIN or RIGHT OUTER JOIN - A right outer join is the reverse of a left outer join. All rows from the right table are returned. Null values are returned for the left table any time a right table row has no matching row in the left table.
• FULL JOIN or FULL OUTER JOIN - A full outer join returns all rows in both the left and right tables. Any time a row has no match in the other table, the select list columns from the other table contain null values. When there is a match between the tables, the entire result set row contains data values from the base tables.
• Cross joins - Cross joins return all rows from the left table, each row from the left table is combined with all rows from the right table. Cross joins are also called Cartesian products. (A Cartesian join will get you a Cartesian product. A Cartesian join is when you join every row of one table to every row of another table. You can also get one by joining every row of a table to every row of itself.)
18. What is self join?
A table can be joined to itself in a self-join.
19. What are the differences between UNION and JOINS?
A join selects columns from 2 or more tables. A union selects rows.
20. Can I improve performance by using the ANSI-style joins instead of the old-style joins?
Code Example 1:
select o.name, i.name
from sysobjects o, sysindexes i
where o.id = i.id
Code Example 2:
select o.name, i.name
from sysobjects o inner join sysindexes i
on o.id = i.id
You will not get any performance gain by switching to the ANSI-style JOIN syntax.
Using the ANSI-JOIN syntax gives you an important advantage: Because the join logic is cleanly separated from the filtering criteria, you can understand the query logic more quickly.
The SQL Server old-style JOIN executes the filtering conditions before executing the joins, whereas the ANSI-style JOIN reverses this procedure (join logic precedes filtering).
Perhaps the most compelling argument for switching to the ANSI-style JOIN is that Microsoft has explicitly stated that SQL Server will not support the old-style OUTER JOIN syntax indefinitely. Another important consideration is that the ANSI-style JOIN supports query constructions that the old-style JOIN syntax does not support.
21. What is derived table?
Derived tables are SELECT statements in the FROM clause referred to by an alias or a user-specified name. The result set of the SELECT in the FROM clause forms a table used by the outer SELECT statement. For example, this SELECT uses a derived table to find if any store carries all book titles in the pubs database:
SELECT ST.stor_id, ST.stor_name
FROM stores AS ST,
(SELECT stor_id, COUNT(DISTINCT title_id) AS title_count
FROM sales
GROUP BY stor_id
) AS SA
WHERE ST.stor_id = SA.stor_id
AND SA.title_count = (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM titles)

locks
1. What are locks?
Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 uses locking to ensure transactional integrity and database consistency. Locking prevents users from reading data being changed by other users, and prevents multiple users from changing the same data at the same time. If locking is not used, data within the database may become logically incorrect, and queries executed against that data may produce unexpected results.
2. What are the different types of locks?
SQL Server uses these resource lock modes.
Lock mode Description
Shared (S) Used for operations that do not change or update data (read-only operations), such as a SELECT statement.
Update (U) Used on resources that can be updated. Prevents a common form of deadlock that occurs when multiple sessions are reading, locking, and potentially updating resources later.
Exclusive (X) Used for data-modification operations, such as INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE. Ensures that multiple updates cannot be made to the same resource at the same time.
Intent Used to establish a lock hierarchy. The types of intent locks are: intent shared (IS), intent exclusive (IX), and shared with intent exclusive (SIX).
Schema Used when an operation dependent on the schema of a table is executing. The types of schema locks are: schema modification (Sch-M) and schema stability (Sch-S).
Bulk Update (BU) Used when bulk-copying data into a table and the TABLOCK hint is specified.
3. What is a dead lock? Give a practical sample? How you can minimize the deadlock situation? What is a deadlock and what is a live lock? How will you go about resolving deadlocks?
Deadlock is a situation when two processes, each having a lock on one piece of data, attempt to acquire a lock on the other's piece. Each process would wait indefinitely for the other to release the lock, unless one of the user processes is terminated. SQL Server detects deadlocks and terminates one user's process.
A livelock is one, where a request for an exclusive lock is repeatedly denied because a series of overlapping shared locks keeps interfering. SQL Server detects the situation after four denials and refuses further shared locks. (A livelock also occurs when read transactions monopolize a table or page, forcing a write transaction to wait indefinitely.)
4. What is isolation level?
An isolation level determines the degree of isolation of data between concurrent transactions. The default SQL Server isolation level is Read Committed. A lower isolation level increases concurrency, but at the expense of data correctness. Conversely, a higher isolation level ensures that data is correct, but can affect concurrency negatively. The isolation level required by an application determines the locking behavior SQL Server uses.
SQL-92 defines the following isolation levels, all of which are supported by SQL Server:
• Read uncommitted (the lowest level where transactions are isolated only enough to ensure that physically corrupt data is not read).
• Read committed (SQL Server default level).
• Repeatable read.
• Serializable (the highest level, where transactions are completely isolated from one another).
Isolation level Dirty read Nonrepeatable read Phantom
Read uncommitted Yes Yes Yes
Read committed No Yes Yes
Repeatable read No No Yes
Serializable No No No
5. Uncommitted Dependency (Dirty Read) - Uncommitted dependency occurs when a second transaction selects a row that is being updated by another transaction. The second transaction is reading data that has not been committed yet and may be changed by the transaction updating the row. For example, an editor is making changes to an electronic document. During the changes, a second editor takes a copy of the document that includes all the changes made so far, and distributes the document to the intended audience.
Inconsistent Analysis (Nonrepeatable Read) Inconsistent analysis occurs when a second transaction accesses the same row several times and reads different data each time. Inconsistent analysis is similar to uncommitted dependency in that another transaction is changing the data that a second transaction is reading. However, in inconsistent analysis, the data read by the second transaction was committed by the transaction that made the change. Also, inconsistent analysis involves multiple reads (two or more) of the same row and each time the information is changed by another transaction; thus, the term nonrepeatable read. For example, an editor reads the same document twice, but between each reading, the writer rewrites the document. When the editor reads the document for the second time, it has changed.
Phantom Reads Phantom reads occur when an insert or delete action is performed against a row that belongs to a range of rows being read by a transaction. The transaction's first read of the range of rows shows a row that no longer exists in the second or succeeding read, as a result of a deletion by a different transaction. Similarly, as the result of an insert by a different transaction, the transaction's second or succeeding read shows a row that did not exist in the original read. For example, an editor makes changes to a document submitted by a writer, but when the changes are incorporated into the master copy of the document by the production department, they find that new unedited material has been added to the document by the author. This problem could be avoided if no one could add new material to the document until the editor and production department finish working with the original document.
6. nolock? What is the difference between the REPEATABLE READ and SERIALIZE isolation levels?
Locking Hints - A range of table-level locking hints can be specified using the SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE statements to direct Microsoft® SQL Server 2000 to the type of locks to be used. Table-level locking hints can be used when a finer control of the types of locks acquired on an object is required. These locking hints override the current transaction isolation level for the session.
Locking hint Description
HOLDLOCK Hold a shared lock until completion of the transaction instead of releasing the lock as soon as the required table, row, or data page is no longer required. HOLDLOCK is equivalent to SERIALIZABLE.
NOLOCK Do not issue shared locks and do not honor exclusive locks. When this option is in effect, it is possible to read an uncommitted transaction or a set of pages that are rolled back in the middle of a read. Dirty reads are possible. Only applies to the SELECT statement.
PAGLOCK Use page locks where a single table lock would usually be taken.
READCOMMITTED Perform a scan with the same locking semantics as a transaction running at the READ COMMITTED isolation level. By default, SQL Server 2000 operates at this isolation level.
READPAST Skip locked rows. This option causes a transaction to skip rows locked by other transactions that would ordinarily appear in the result set, rather than block the transaction waiting for the other transactions to release their locks on these rows. The READPAST lock hint applies only to transactions operating at READ COMMITTED isolation and will read only past row-level locks. Applies only to the SELECT statement.
READUNCOMMITTED Equivalent to NOLOCK.
REPEATABLEREAD Perform a scan with the same locking semantics as a transaction running at the REPEATABLE READ isolation level.
ROWLOCK Use row-level locks instead of the coarser-grained page- and table-level locks.
SERIALIZABLE Perform a scan with the same locking semantics as a transaction running at the SERIALIZABLE isolation level. Equivalent to HOLDLOCK.
TABLOCK Use a table lock instead of the finer-grained row- or page-level locks. SQL Server holds this lock until the end of the statement. However, if you also specify HOLDLOCK, the lock is held until the end of the transaction.
TABLOCKX Use an exclusive lock on a table. This lock prevents others from reading or updating the table and is held until the end of the statement or transaction.
UPDLOCK Use update locks instead of shared locks while reading a table, and hold locks until the end of the statement or transaction. UPDLOCK has the advantage of allowing you to read data (without blocking other readers) and update it later with the assurance that the data has not changed since you last read it.
XLOCK Use an exclusive lock that will be held until the end of the transaction on all data processed by the statement. This lock can be specified with either PAGLOCK or TABLOCK, in which case the exclusive lock applies to the appropriate level of granularity.
7. For example, if the transaction isolation level is set to SERIALIZABLE, and the table-level locking hint NOLOCK is used with the SELECT statement, key-range locks typically used to maintain serializable transactions are not taken.
USE pubs
GO
SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL SERIALIZABLE
GO
BEGIN TRANSACTION
SELECT au_lname FROM authors WITH (NOLOCK)
GO
What is escalation of locks?
Lock escalation is the process of converting a lot of low level locks (like row locks, page locks) into higher level locks (like table locks). Every lock is a memory structure too many locks would mean, more memory being occupied by locks. To prevent this from happening, SQL Server escalates the many fine-grain locks to fewer coarse-grain locks. Lock escalation threshold was definable in SQL Server 6.5, but from SQL Server 7.0 onwards it's dynamically managed by SQL Server.

SQL Optimization

T-SQL Optimization Tips
• Use views and stored procedures instead of heavy-duty queries.
This can reduce network traffic, because your client will send to server only stored procedure or view name (perhaps with some parameters) instead of large heavy-duty queries text. This can be used to facilitate permission management also, because you can restrict user access to table columns they should not see.
• Try to use constraints instead of triggers, whenever possible.
Constraints are much more efficient than triggers and can boost performance. So, you should use constraints instead of triggers, whenever possible.
• Use table variables instead of temporary tables.
Table variables require less locking and logging resources than temporary tables, so table variables should be used whenever possible. The table variables are available in SQL Server 2000 only.
• Try to use UNION ALL statement instead of UNION, whenever possible.
The UNION ALL statement is much faster than UNION, because UNION ALL statement does not look for duplicate rows, and UNION statement does look for duplicate rows, whether or not they exist.
• Try to avoid using the DISTINCT clause, whenever possible.
Because using the DISTINCT clause will result in some performance degradation, you should use this clause only when it is necessary.
• Try to avoid using SQL Server cursors, whenever possible.
SQL Server cursors can result in some performance degradation in comparison with select statements. Try to use correlated sub-query or derived tables, if you need to perform row-by-row operations.
• Try to avoid the HAVING clause, whenever possible.
The HAVING clause is used to restrict the result set returned by the GROUP BY clause. When you use GROUP BY with the HAVING clause, the GROUP BY clause divides the rows into sets of grouped rows and aggregates their values, and then the HAVING clause eliminates undesired aggregated groups. In many cases, you can write your select statement so, that it will contain only WHERE and GROUP BY clauses without HAVING clause. This can improve the performance of your query.
• If you need to return the total table's row count, you can use alternative way instead of SELECT COUNT(*) statement.
Because SELECT COUNT(*) statement make a full table scan to return the total table's row count, it can take very many time for the large table. There is another way to determine the total row count in a table. You can use sysindexes system table, in this case. There is ROWS column in the sysindexes table. This column contains the total row count for each table in your database. So, you can use the following select statement instead of SELECT COUNT(*): SELECT rows FROM sysindexes WHERE id = OBJECT_ID('table_name') AND indid <>
• Include SET NOCOUNT ON statement into your stored procedures to stop the message indicating the number of rows affected by a T-SQL statement.
This can reduce network traffic, because your client will not receive the message indicating the number of rows affected by a T-SQL statement.
• Try to restrict the queries result set by using the WHERE clause.
This can results in good performance benefits, because SQL Server will return to client only particular rows, not all rows from the table(s). This can reduce network traffic and boost the overall performance of the query.
• Use the select statements with TOP keyword or the SET ROWCOUNT statement, if you need to return only the first n rows.
This can improve performance of your queries, because the smaller result set will be returned. This can also reduce the traffic between the server and the clients.
• Try to restrict the queries result set by returning only the particular columns from the table, not all table's columns.
This can results in good performance benefits, because SQL Server will return to client only particular columns, not all table's columns. This can reduce network traffic and boost the overall performance of the query.
1.Indexes
2.avoid more number of triggers on the table
3.unnecessary complicated joins
4.correct use of Group by clause with the select list
5.in worst cases De normalization

Index Optimization tips
• Every index increases the time in takes to perform INSERTS, UPDATES and DELETES, so the number of indexes should not be very much. Try to use maximum 4-5 indexes on one table, not more. If you have read-only table, then the number of indexes may be increased.
• Keep your indexes as narrow as possible. This reduces the size of the index and reduces the number of reads required to read the index.
• Try to create indexes on columns that have integer values rather than character values.
• If you create a composite (multi-column) index, the order of the columns in the key are very important. Try to order the columns in the key as to enhance selectivity, with the most selective columns to the leftmost of the key.
• If you want to join several tables, try to create surrogate integer keys for this purpose and create indexes on their columns.
• Create surrogate integer primary key (identity for example) if your table will not have many insert operations.
• Clustered indexes are more preferable than nonclustered, if you need to select by a range of values or you need to sort results set with GROUP BY or ORDER BY.
• If your application will be performing the same query over and over on the same table, consider creating a covering index on the table.
• You can use the SQL Server Profiler Create Trace Wizard with "Identify Scans of Large Tables" trace to determine which tables in your database may need indexes. This trace will show which tables are being scanned by queries instead of using an index.
• You can use sp_MSforeachtable undocumented stored procedure to rebuild all indexes in your database. Try to schedule it to execute during CPU idle time and slow production periods.
sp_MSforeachtable @command1="print '?' DBCC DBREINDEX ('?')"
QUERIES

1. 2 tables
Employee Phone
empid
empname
salary
mgrid empid
phnumber
2. Select all employees who doesn't have phone?
SELECT empname
FROM Employee
WHERE (empid NOT IN
(SELECT DISTINCT empid
FROM phone))

3. Select the employee names who is having more than one phone numbers.
SELECT empname
FROM employee
WHERE (empid IN
(SELECT empid
FROM phone
GROUP BY empid
HAVING COUNT(empid) > 1))
4. Select the details of 3 max salaried employees from employee table.
SELECT TOP 3 empid, salary
FROM employee
ORDER BY salary DESC
5. Display all managers from the table. (manager id is same as emp id)
SELECT empname
FROM employee
WHERE (empid IN
(SELECT DISTINCT mgrid
FROM employee))
6. Write a Select statement to list the Employee Name, Manager Name under a particular manager?
SELECT e1.empname AS EmpName, e2.empname AS ManagerName
FROM Employee e1 INNER JOIN
Employee e2 ON e1.mgrid = e2.empid
ORDER BY e2.mgrid
7. 2 tables emp and phone.
emp fields are - empid, name
Ph fields are - empid, ph (office, mobile, home). Select all employees who doesn't have any ph nos.
SELECT *
FROM employee LEFT OUTER JOIN
phone ON employee.empid = phone.empid
WHERE (phone.office IS NULL OR phone.office = ' ')
AND (phone.mobile IS NULL OR phone.mobile = ' ')
AND (phone.home IS NULL OR phone.home = ' ')
8. Find employee who is living in more than one city.
Two Tables:
Emp City
Empid
empName
Salary Empid
City
9. SELECT empname, fname, lname
FROM employee
WHERE (empid IN
(SELECT empid
FROM city
GROUP BY empid
HAVING COUNT(empid) > 1))
10. Find all employees who is living in the same city. (table is same as above)
SELECT fname
FROM employee
WHERE (empid IN
(SELECT empid
FROM city a
WHERE city IN
(SELECT city
FROM city b
GROUP BY city
HAVING COUNT(city) > 1)))
11. There is a table named MovieTable with three columns - moviename, person and role. Write a query which gets the movie details where Mr. Amitabh and Mr. Vinod acted and their role is actor.
SELECT DISTINCT m1.moviename
FROM MovieTable m1 INNER JOIN
MovieTable m2 ON m1.moviename = m2.moviename
WHERE (m1.person = 'amitabh' AND m2.person = 'vinod' OR
m2.person = 'amitabh' AND m1.person = 'vinod') AND (m1.role = 'actor') AND (m2.role = 'actor')
ORDER BY m1.moviename
12. There are two employee tables named emp1 and emp2. Both contains same structure (salary details). But Emp2 salary details are incorrect and emp1 salary details are correct. So, write a query which corrects salary details of the table emp2
update a set a.sal=b.sal from emp1 a, emp2 b where a.empid=b.empid
13. Given a Table named “Students” which contains studentid, subjectid and marks. Where there are 10 subjects and 50 students. Write a Query to find out the Maximum marks obtained in each subject.
14. In this same tables now write a SQL Query to get the studentid also to combine with previous results.
15. Three tables – student , course, marks – how do go at finding name of the students who got max marks in the diff courses.
SELECT student.name, course.name AS coursename, marks.sid, marks.mark
FROM marks INNER JOIN
student ON marks.sid = student.sid INNER JOIN
course ON marks.cid = course.cid
WHERE (marks.mark =
(SELECT MAX(Mark)
FROM Marks MaxMark
WHERE MaxMark.cID = Marks.cID))
16. There is a table day_temp which has three columns dayid, day and temperature. How do I write a query to get the difference of temperature among each other for seven days of a week?
SELECT a.dayid, a.dday, a.tempe, a.tempe - b.tempe AS Difference
FROM day_temp a INNER JOIN
day_temp b ON a.dayid = b.dayid + 1
OR
Select a.day, a.degree-b.degree from temperature a, temperature b where a.id=b.id+1
17. There is a table which contains the names like this. a1, a2, a3, a3, a4, a1, a1, a2 and their salaries. Write a query to get grand total salary, and total salaries of individual employees in one query.
SELECT empid, SUM(salary) AS salary
FROM employee
GROUP BY empid WITH ROLLUP
ORDER BY empid
18. How to know how many tables contains empno as a column in a database?
SELECT COUNT(*) AS Counter
FROM syscolumns
WHERE (name = 'empno')
19. Find duplicate rows in a table? OR I have a table with one column which has many records which are not distinct. I need to find the distinct values from that column and number of times it’s repeated.
SELECT sid, mark, COUNT(*) AS Counter
FROM marks
GROUP BY sid, mark
HAVING (COUNT(*) > 1)
20. How to delete the rows which are duplicate (don’t delete both duplicate records).
SET ROWCOUNT 1
DELETE yourtable
FROM yourtable a
WHERE (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM yourtable b WHERE b.name1 = a.name1 AND b.age1 = a.age1) > 1
WHILE @@rowcount > 0
DELETE yourtable
FROM yourtable a
WHERE (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM yourtable b WHERE b.name1 = a.name1 AND b.age1 = a.age1) > 1
SET ROWCOUNT 0
21. How to find 6th highest salary
SELECT TOP 1 salary
FROM (SELECT DISTINCT TOP 6 salary
FROM employee
ORDER BY salary DESC) a
ORDER BY salary
22. Find top salary among two tables
SELECT TOP 1 sal
FROM (SELECT MAX(sal) AS sal
FROM sal1
UNION
SELECT MAX(sal) AS sal
FROM sal2) a
ORDER BY sal DESC
23. Write a query to convert all the letters in a word to upper case
SELECT UPPER('test')
24. Write a query to round up the values of a number. For example even if the user enters 7.1 it should be rounded up to 8.
SELECT CEILING (7.1)
25. Write a SQL Query to find first day of month?
SELECT DATENAME(dw, DATEADD(dd, - DATEPART(dd, GETDATE()) + 1, GETDATE())) AS FirstDay
Datepart Abbreviations
year yy, yyyy
quarter qq, q
month mm, m
dayofyear dy, y
day dd, d
week wk, ww
weekday dw
hour hh
minute mi, n
second ss, s
millisecond ms
26. Table A contains column1 which is primary key and has 2 values (1, 2) and Table B contains column1 which is primary key and has 2 values (2, 3). Write a query which returns the values that are not common for the tables and the query should return one column with 2 records.
SELECT tbla.a
FROM tbla, tblb
WHERE tbla.a <>
(SELECT tblb.a
FROM tbla, tblb
WHERE tbla.a = tblb.a)
UNION
SELECT tblb.a
FROM tbla, tblb
WHERE tblb.a <>
(SELECT tbla.a
FROM tbla, tblb
WHERE tbla.a = tblb.a)

OR (better approach)

SELECT a
FROM tbla
WHERE a NOT IN
(SELECT a
FROM tblb)
UNION ALL
SELECT a
FROM tblb
WHERE a NOT IN
(SELECT a
FROM tbla)
27. There are 3 tables Titles, Authors and Title-Authors (check PUBS db). Write the query to get the author name and the number of books written by that author, the result should start from the author who has written the maximum number of books and end with the author who has written the minimum number of books.
SELECT authors.au_lname, COUNT(*) AS BooksCount
FROM authors INNER JOIN
titleauthor ON authors.au_id = titleauthor.au_id INNER JOIN
titles ON titles.title_id = titleauthor.title_id
GROUP BY authors.au_lname
ORDER BY BooksCount DESC
28.
UPDATE emp_master
SET emp_sal =
CASE
WHEN emp_sal > 0 AND emp_sal <= 20000 THEN (emp_sal * 1.01)
WHEN emp_sal > 20000 THEN (emp_sal * 1.02)
END
29. List all products with total quantity ordered, if quantity ordered is null show it as 0.
SELECT name, CASE WHEN SUM(qty) IS NULL THEN 0 WHEN SUM(qty) > 0 THEN SUM(qty) END AS tot
FROM [order] RIGHT OUTER JOIN
product ON [order].prodid = product.prodid
GROUP BY name
Result:
coke 60
mirinda 0
pepsi 10
30. ANY, SOME, or ALL?
ALL means greater than every value--in other words, greater than the maximum value. For example, >ALL (1, 2, 3) means greater than 3.
ANY means greater than at least one value, that is, greater than the minimum. So >ANY (1, 2, 3) means greater than 1. SOME is an SQL-92 standard equivalent for ANY.
IN & = (difference in correlated sub query)

IIS Interview Questions

1. In which process does IIS runs (was asking about the EXE file)
inetinfo.exe is the Microsoft IIS server running, handling ASP.NET requests among other things. When an ASP.NET request is received (usually a file with .aspx extension), the ISAPI filter aspnet_isapi.dll takes care of it by passing the request to the actual worker process aspnet_wp.exe.
2. Where are the IIS log files stored?
C:\WINDOWS\system32\Logfiles\W3SVC1
OR
c:\winnt\system32\LogFiles\W3SVC1
3. What are the different IIS authentication modes in IIS 5.0 and Explain? Difference between basic and digest authentication modes?
IIS provides a variety of authentication schemes:
• Anonymous (enabled by default)
• Basic
• Digest
• Integrated Windows authentication (enabled by default)
• Client Certificate Mapping
Anonymous
Anonymous authentication gives users access to the public areas of your Web site without prompting them for a user name or password. Although listed as an authentication scheme, it is not technically performing any client authentication because the client is not required to supply any credentials. Instead, IIS provides stored credentials to Windows using a special user account, IUSR_machinename. By default, IIS controls the password for this account. Whether or not IIS controls the password affects the permissions the anonymous user has. When IIS controls the password, a sub authentication DLL (iissuba.dll) authenticates the user using a network logon. The function of this DLL is to validate the password supplied by IIS and to inform Windows that the password is valid, thereby authenticating the client. However, it does not actually provide a password to Windows. When IIS does not control the password, IIS calls the LogonUser() API in Windows and provides the account name, password and domain name to log on the user using a local logon. After the logon, IIS caches the security token and impersonates the account. A local logon makes it possible for the anonymous user to access network resources, whereas a network logon does not.
Basic Authentication
IIS Basic authentication as an implementation of the basic authentication scheme found in section 11 of the HTTP 1.0 specification.
As the specification makes clear, this method is, in and of itself, non-secure. The reason is that Basic authentication assumes a trusted connection between client and server. Thus, the username and password are transmitted in clear text. More specifically, they are transmitted using Base64 encoding, which is trivially easy to decode. This makes Basic authentication the wrong choice to use over a public network on its own.
Basic Authentication is a long-standing standard supported by nearly all browsers. It also imposes no special requirements on the server side -- users can authenticate against any NT domain, or even against accounts on the local machine. With SSL to shelter the security credentials while they are in transmission, you have an authentication solution that is both highly secure and quite flexible.
Digest Authentication
The Digest authentication option was added in Windows 2000 and IIS 5.0. Like Basic authentication, this is an implementation of a technique suggested by Web standards, namely RFC 2069 (superceded by RFC 2617).
Digest authentication also uses a challenge/response model, but it is much more secure than Basic authentication (when used without SSL). It achieves this greater security not by encrypting the secret (the password) before sending it, but rather by following a different design pattern -- one that does not require the client to transmit the password over the wire at all.
Instead of sending the password itself, the client transmits a one-way message digest (a checksum) of the user's password, using (by default) the MD5 algorithm. The server then fetches the password for that user from a Windows 2000 Domain Controller, reruns the checksum algorithm on it, and compares the two digests. If they match, the server knows that the client knows the correct password, even though the password itself was never sent. (If you have ever wondered what the default ISAPI filter "md5filt" that is installed with IIS 5.0 is used for, now you know.
Integrated Windows Authentication
Integrated Windows authentication (formerly known as NTLM authentication and Windows NT Challenge/Response authentication) can use either NTLM or Kerberos V5 authentication and only works with Internet Explorer 2.0 and later.
When Internet Explorer attempts to access a protected resource, IIS sends two WWW-Authenticate headers, Negotiate and NTLM.
• If Internet Explorer recognizes the Negotiate header, it will choose it because it is listed first. When using Negotiate, the browser will return information for both NTLM and Kerberos. At the server, IIS will use Kerberos if both the client (Internet Explorer 5.0 and later) and server (IIS 5.0 and later) are running Windows 2000 and later, and both are members of the same domain or trusted domains. Otherwise, the server will default to using NTLM.
• If Internet Explorer does not understand Negotiate, it will use NTLM.
So, which mechanism is used depends upon a negotiation between Internet Explorer and IIS.
When used in conjunction with Kerberos v5 authentication, IIS can delegate security credentials among computers running Windows 2000 and later that are trusted and configured for delegation. Delegation enables remote access of resources on behalf of the delegated user.
Integrated Windows authentication is the best authentication scheme in an intranet environment where users have Windows domain accounts, especially when using Kerberos. Integrated Windows authentication, like digest authentication, does not pass the user's password across the network. Instead, a hashed value is exchanged.
Client Certificate Mapping
A certificate is a digitally signed statement that contains information about an entity and the entity's public key, thus binding these two pieces of information together. A trusted organization (or entity) called a Certification Authority (CA) issues a certificate after the CA verifies that the entity is who it says it is. Certificates can contain different types of data. For example, an X.509 certificate includes the format of the certificate, the serial number of the certificate, the algorithm used to sign the certificate, the name of the CA that issued the certificate, the name and public key of the entity requesting the certificate, and the CA's signature. X.509 client certificates simplify authentication for larger user bases because they do not rely on a centralized account database. You can verify a certificate simply by examining the certificate.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vsent7/html/vxconIISAuthentication.asp
4. How to configure the sites in Web server (IIS)?
5. Advantages in IIS 6.0?
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/iis/evaluation/features/default.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/proddocs/datacenter/gs_whatschanged.asp
6. IIS Isolation Levels?
Internet Information Server introduced the notion "Isolation Level", which is also present in IIS4 under a different name. IIS5 supports three isolation levels, that you can set from the Home Directory tab of the site's Properties dialog:
• Low (IIS Process): ASP pages run in INetInfo.Exe, the main IIS process, therefore they are executed in-process. This is the fastest setting, and is the default under IIS4. The problem is that if ASP crashes, IIS crashes as well and must be restarted (IIS5 has a reliable restart feature that automatically restarts a server when a fatal error occurs).
• Medium (Pooled): In this case ASP runs in a different process, which makes this setting more reliable: if ASP crashes IIS won't. All the ASP applications at the Medium isolation level share the same process, so you can have a web site running with just two processes (IIS and ASP process). IIS5 is the first Internet Information Server version that supports this setting, which is also the default setting when you create an IIS5 application. Note that an ASP application that runs at this level is run under COM+, so it's hosted in DLLHOST.EXE (and you can see this executable in the Task Manager).
• High (Isolated): Each ASP application runs out-process in its own process space, therefore if an ASP application crashes, neither IIS nor any other ASP application will be affected. The downside is that you consume more memory and resources if the server hosts many ASP applications. Both IIS4 and IIS5 supports this setting: under IIS4 this process runs inside MTS.EXE, while under IIS5 it runs inside DLLHOST.EXE.
When selecting an isolation level for your ASP application, keep in mind that out-process settings - that is, Medium and High - are less efficient than in-process (Low). However, out-process communication has been vastly improved under IIS5, and in fact IIS5's Medium isolation level often deliver better results than IIS4's Low isolation. In practice, you shouldn't set the Low isolation level for an IIS5 application unless you really need to serve hundreds pages per second.

XML Interview Questions

1. Explain the concept of data island?
2. How to use XML DOM model on client side using JavaScript.
3. What are the ways to create a tree view control using XML, XSL & JavaScript?
4. Questions on XPathNavigator, and the other classes in System.XML Namespace?
5. What is Use of Template in XSL?
6. What is “Well Formed XML” and “Valid XML”
7. How you will do SubString in XSL
8. Can we do sorting in XSL ? how do you deal sorting columns dynamically in XML.
9. What is “Async” property of XML Means ?
10. What is XPath Query ?
11. Difference Between Element and Node.
12. What is CDATA Section.
13. DOM & SAX parsers explanation and difference
14. What is GetElementbyname method will do?
15. What is selectnode method will give?
16. What is valid xml document? What a well formed xml document?
17. What is the Difference between XmlDocument and XmlDataDocument?
18. Explain what a DiffGram is, and a good use for one?
A DiffGram is an XML format that is used to identify current and original versions of data elements. When sending and retrieving a DataSet from an XML Web service, the DiffGram format is implicitly used.
The DataSet uses the DiffGram format to load and persist its contents, and to serialize its contents for transport across a network connection. When a DataSet is written as a DiffGram, it populates the DiffGram with all the necessary information to accurately recreate the contents, though not the schema, of the DataSet, including column values from both the Original and Current row versions, row error information, and row order.
DiffGram Format
The DiffGram format is divided into three sections: the current data, the original (or "before") data, and an errors section, as shown in the following example.


The DiffGram format consists of the following blocks of data:



The name of this element, DataInstance, is used for explanation purposes in this documentation. A DataInstance element represents a DataSet or a row of a DataTable. Instead of DataInstance, the element would contain the name of the DataSet or DataTable. This block of the DiffGram format contains the current data, whether it has been modified or not. An element, or row, that has been modified is identified with the diffgr:hasChanges annotation.

This block of the DiffGram format contains the original version of a row. Elements in this block are matched to elements in the DataInstance block using the diffgr:id annotation.

This block of the DiffGram format contains error information for a particular row in the DataInstance block. Elements in this block are matched to elements in the DataInstance block using the diffgr:id annotation.

19. If I replace my Sqlserver with XML files and how about handling the same?
20. Write syntax to serialize class using XML Serializer?

COM interview Questions

1. Interop Services?
The common language runtime provides two mechanisms for interoperating with unmanaged code:
• Platform invoke, which enables managed code to call functions exported from an unmanaged library.
• COM interop, which enables managed code to interact with COM objects through interfaces.
Both platform invoke and COM interop use interop marshaling to accurately move method arguments between caller and callee and back, if required.
2. How does u handle this COM components developed in other programming languages in .NET?
3. What is RCW (Runtime Callable Wrappers)?
The common language runtime exposes COM objects through a proxy called the runtime callable wrapper (RCW). Although the RCW appears to be an ordinary object to .NET clients, its primary function is to marshal calls between a .NET client and a COM object.
4. What is CCW (COM Callable Wrapper)
A proxy object generated by the common language runtime so that existing COM applications can use managed classes, including .NET Framework classes, transparently.
5. How CCW and RCW is working?
**
6. How will you register com+ services?
The .NET Framework SDK provides the .NET Framework Services Installation Tool (Regsvcs.exe - a command-line tool) to manually register an assembly containing serviced components. You can also access these registration features programmatically with the System.EnterpriseServicesRegistrationHelper class by creating an instance of class RegistrationHelper and using the method InstallAssembly
7. What is use of ContextUtil class?
ContextUtil is the preferred class to use for obtaining COM+ context information.
8. What is the new three features of COM+ services, which are not there in COM (MTS)?
**
9. Is the COM architecture same as .Net architecture? What is the difference between them?
**
10. Can we copy a COM dll to GAC folder?
**
11. What is Pinvoke?
Platform invoke is a service that enables managed code to call unmanaged functions implemented in dynamic-link libraries (DLLs), such as those in the Win32 API. It locates and invokes an exported function and marshals its arguments (integers, strings, arrays, structures, and so on) across the interoperation boundary as needed.
12. Is it true that COM objects no longer need to be registered on the server?
Answer: Yes and No. Legacy COM objects still need to be registered on the server before they can be used. COM developed using the new .NET Framework will not need to be registered. Developers will be able to auto-register these objects just by placing them in the 'bin' folder of the application.
13. Can .NET Framework components use the features of Component Services?
Answer: Yes, you can use the features and functions of Component Services from a .NET Framework component. http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/techart/Pahlcompserv.htm

Webservices and Remoting

WEBSERVICES AND REMOTING

1. What is a WebService and what is the underlying protocol used in it?Why Web Services?
   Web Services are applications delivered as a service on the Web. Web services allow for programmatic access of business logic over the Web. Web services typically rely on XML-based protocols, messages, and interface descriptions for communication and access. Web services are designed to be used by other programs or applications rather than directly by end user. Programs invoking a Web service are called clients. SOAP over HTTP is the most commonly used protocol for invoking Web services.
   There are three main uses of Web services.
1. Application integration Web services within an intranet are commonly used to integrate business applications running on disparate platforms. For example, a .NET client running on Windows 2000 can easily invoke a Java Web service running on a mainframe or Unix machine to retrieve data from a legacy application.
2. Business integration Web services allow trading partners to engage in e-business leveraging the existing Internet infrastructure. Organizations can send electronic purchase orders to suppliers and receive electronic invoices. Doing e-business with Web services means a low barrier to entry because Web services can be added to existing applications running on any platform without changing legacy code.
3. Commercial Web services focus on selling content and business services to clients over the Internet similar to familiar Web pages. Unlike Web pages, commercial Web services target applications not humans as their direct users. Continental Airlines exposes flight schedules and status Web services for travel Web sites and agencies to use in their applications. Like Web pages, commercial Web services are valuable only if they expose a valuable service or content. It would be very difficult to get customers to pay you for using a Web service that creates business charts with the customers? data. Customers would rather buy a charting component (e.g. COM or .NET component) and install it on the same machine as their application. On the other hand, it makes sense to sell real-time weather information or stock quotes as a Web service. Technology can help you add value to your services and explore new markets, but ultimately customers pay for contents and/or business services, not for technology
2. Are Web Services a replacement for other distributed computing platforms?
   No. Web Services is just a new way of looking at existing implementation platforms.
3. In a Webservice, need to display 10 rows from a table. So DataReader or DataSet is best choice?
   A: WebService will support only DataSet.
4. How to generate WebService proxy? What is SOAP, WSDL, UDDI and the concept behind Web Services? What are various components of WSDL? What is the use of WSDL.exe utility?
   SOAP is an XML-based messaging framework specifically designed for exchanging formatted data across the Internet, for example using request and reply messages or sending entire documents. SOAP is simple, easy to use, and completely neutral with respect to operating system, programming language, or distributed computing platform.
   After SOAP became available as a mechanism for exchanging XML messages among enterprises (or among disparate applications within the same enterprise), a better way was needed to describe the messages and how they are exchanged. The Web Services Description Language (WSDL) is a particular form of an XML Schema, developed by Microsoft and IBM for the purpose of defining the XML message, operation, and protocol mapping of a web service accessed using SOAP or other XML protocol. WSDL defines web services in terms of "endpoints" that operate on XML messages. The WSDL syntax allows both the messages and the operations on the messages to be defined abstractly, so they can be mapped to multiple physical implementations. The current WSDL spec describes how to map messages and operations to SOAP 1.1, HTTP GET/POST, and MIME. WSDL creates web service definitions by mapping a group of endpoints into a logical sequence of operations on XML messages. The same XML message can be mapped to multiple operations (or services) and bound to one or more communications protocols (using "ports").
   The Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) framework defines a data model (in XML) and SOAP APIs for registration and searches on business information, including the web services a business exposes to the Internet. UDDI is an independent consortium of vendors, founded by Microsoft, IBM, and Ariba, for the purpose of developing an Internet standard for web service description registration and discovery. Microsoft, IBM, and Ariba also are hosting the initial deployment of a UDDI service, which is conceptually patterned after DNS (the Internet service that translates URLs into TCP addresses). UDDI uses a private agreement profile of SOAP (i.e. UDDI doesn't use the SOAP serialization format because it's not well suited to passing complete XML documents (it's aimed at RPC style interactions). The main idea is that businesses use the SOAP APIs to register themselves with UDDI, and other businesses search UDDI when they want to discover a trading partner, for example someone from whom they wish to procure sheet metal, bolts, or transistors. The information in UDDI is categorized according to industry type and geographical location, allowing UDDI consumers to search through lists of potentially matching businesses to find the specific one they want to contact. Once a specific business is chosen, another call to UDDI is made to obtain the specific contact information for that business. The contact information includes a pointer to the target business's WSDL or other XML schema file describing the web service that the target business publishes.
5. How to generate proxy class other than .net app and wsdl tool?
   To access an XML Web service from a client application, you first add a Web reference, which is a reference to an XML Web service. When you create a Web reference, Visual Studio creates an XML Web service proxy class automatically and adds it to your project. This proxy class exposes the methods of the XML Web service and handles the marshalling of appropriate arguments back and forth between the XML Web service and your application. Visual Studio uses the Web Services Description Language (WSDL) to create the proxy.
   To generate an XML Web service proxy class:

• From a command prompt, use Wsdl.exe to create a proxy class, specifying (at a minimum) the URL to an XML Web service or a service description, or the path to a saved service description.
  Wsdl /language:language /protocol:protocol /namespace:myNameSpace /out:filename
  /username:username /password:password /domain:domain
5. What is a proxy in web service? How do I use a proxy server when invoking a Web service?
   
6. asynchronous web service means?
7. What are the events fired when web service called?
8. How will do transaction in Web Services?
9. How does SOAP transport happen and what is the role of HTTP in it? How you can access a webservice using soap?
10. What are the different formatters can be used in both? Why?.. binary/soap
11. How you will protect / secure a web service?
    For the most part, things that you do to secure a Web site can be used to secure a Web Service. If you need to encrypt the data exchange, you use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or a Virtual Private Network to keep the bits secure. For authentication, use HTTP Basic or Digest authentication with Microsoft® Windows® integration to figure out who the caller is.
    these items cannot:
• Parse a SOAP request for valid values
• Authenticate access at the Web Method level (they can authenticate at the Web Service level)
• Stop reading a request as soon as it is recognized as invalid

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpguide/html/cpcontransactionsupportinaspnetwebservices.asp

13. How will you expose/publish a webservice?
14. What is disco file?
15. What’s the attribute for webservice method? What is the namespace for creating webservice?
    [WebMethod]
    
    using System.Web;
    using System.Web.Services;
16. What is Remoting?
    The process of communication between different operating system processes, regardless of whether they are on the same computer. The .NET remoting system is an architecture designed to simplify communication between objects living in different application domains, whether on the same computer or not, and between different contexts, whether in the same application domain or not.
17. Difference between web services & remoting?

	ASP.NET Web Services	.NET Remoting
Protocol	Can be accessed only over HTTP	Can be accessed over any protocol (including TCP, HTTP, SMTP and so on)
State Management	Web services work in a stateless environment	Provide support for both stateful and stateless environments through Singleton and SingleCall objects
Type System	Web services support only the datatypes defined in the XSD type system, limiting the number of objects that can be serialized.	Using binary communication, .NET Remoting can provide support for rich type system
Interoperability	Web services support interoperability across platforms, and are ideal for heterogeneous environments.	.NET remoting requires the client be built using .NET, enforcing homogenous environment.
Reliability	Highly reliable due to the fact that Web services are always hosted in IIS	Can also take advantage of IIS for fault isolation. If IIS is not used, application needs to provide plumbing for ensuring the reliability of the application.
Extensibility	Provides extensibility by allowing us to intercept the SOAP messages during the serialization and deserialization stages.	Very extensible by allowing us to customize the different components of the .NET remoting framework.
Ease-of-Programming	Easy-to-create and deploy.	Complex to program.

18. Though both the .NET Remoting infrastructure and ASP.NET Web services can enable cross-process communication, each is designed to benefit a different target audience. ASP.NET Web services provide a simple programming model and a wide reach. .NET Remoting provides a more complex programming model and has a much narrower reach.
    As explained before, the clear performance advantage provided by TCPChannel-remoting should make you think about using this channel whenever you can afford to do so. If you can create direct TCP connections from your clients to your server and if you need to support only the .NET platform, you should go for this channel. If you are going to go cross-platform or you have the requirement of supporting SOAP via HTTP, you should definitely go for ASP.NET Web services.
    Both the .NET remoting and ASP.NET Web services are powerful technologies that provide a suitable framework for developing distributed applications. It is important to understand how both technologies work and then choose the one that is right for your application. For applications that require interoperability and must function over public networks, Web services are probably the best bet. For those that require communications with other .NET components and where performance is a key priority, .NET Remoting is the best choice. In short, use Web services when you need to send and receive data from different computing platforms, use .NET Remoting when sending and receiving data between .NET applications. In some architectural scenarios, you might also be able to use.NET Remoting in conjunction with ASP.NET Web services and take advantage of the best of both worlds.
    The Key difference between ASP.NET webservices and .NET Remoting is how they serialize data into messages and the format they choose for metadata. ASP.NET uses XML serializer for serializing or Marshalling. And XSD is used for Metadata. .NET Remoting relies on System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatter.Binary and System.Runtime.Serialization.SOAPFormatter and relies on .NET CLR Runtime assemblies for metadata.

19.

20. Can you pass SOAP messages through remoting?
21. CAO and SAO.
    Client Activated objects are those remote objects whose Lifetime is directly Controlled by the client. This is in direct contrast to SAO. Where the server, not the client has complete control over the lifetime of the objects.
    Client activated objects are instantiated on the server as soon as the client request the object to be created. Unlike as SAO a CAO doesn’t delay the object creation until the first method is called on the object. (In SAO the object is instantiated when the client calls the method on the object)
22. singleton and singlecall.
    Singleton types never have more than one instance at any one time. If an instance exists, all client requests are serviced by that instance.
    Single Call types always have one instance per client request. The next method invocation will be serviced by a different server instance, even if the previous instance has not yet been recycled by the system.
23. What is Asynchronous Web Services?
24. Web Client class and its methods?
25. Flow of remoting?
26. What is the use of trace utility?
    Using the SOAP Trace Utility
    The Microsoft® Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) Toolkit 2.0 includes a TCP/IP trace utility, MSSOAPT.EXE. You use this trace utility to view the SOAP messages sent by HTTP between a SOAP client and a service on the server.

Using the Trace Utility on the Server
To see all of a service's messages received from and sent to all clients, perform the following steps on the server.

0. On the server, open the Web Services Description Language (WSDL) file.
1. In the WSDL file, locate the element that corresponds to the service and change the location attribute for this element to port 8080. For example, if the location attribute specifies change this attribute to .
2. Run MSSOAPT.exe.
3. On the File menu, point to New, and either click Formatted Trace (if you don't want to see HTTP headers) or click Unformatted Trace (if you do want to see HTTP headers).
4. In the Trace Setup dialog box, click OK to accept the default values.

Using the Trace Utility on the Client
To see all messages sent to and received from a service, do the following steps on the client.

5. Copy the WSDL file from the server to the client.
6. Modify location attribute of the element in the local copy of the WSDL document to direct the client to localhost:8080 and make a note of the current host and port. For example, if the WSDL contains , change it to and make note of "MyServer".
7. On the client, run MSSOPT.exe.
8. On the File menu, point to New, and either click Formatted Trace (if you don't want to see HTTP headers) or click Unformatted Trace (if you do want to see HTTP headers).
9. In the Destination host box, enter the host specified in Step 2.
10. In the Destination port box, enter the port specified in Step 2.
11. Click OK.

ASP.net Interview Questions

1. Asp.net and asp – differences?
Code Render Block Code Declaration Block
Compiled
Request/Response Event Driven
Object Oriented - Constructors/Destructors, Inheritance, overloading..
Exception Handling - Try, Catch, Finally
Down-level Support
Cultures
User Controls
In-built client side validation
Session - weren't transferable across servers It can span across servers, It can survive server crashes, can work with browsers that don't support cookies
built on top of the window & IIS, it was always a separate entity & its functionality was limited. its an integral part of OS under the .net framework. It shares many of the same objects that traditional applications would use, and all .net objects are available for asp.net's consumption.
Garbage Collection
Declare variable with datatype
In built graphics support
Cultures

2. How ASP and ASP.NET page works? Explain about asp.net page life cycle?
**
3. Order of events in an asp.net page? Control Execution Lifecycle?
Phase What a control needs to do Method or event to override
Initialize Initialize settings needed during the lifetime of the incoming Web request. Init event (OnInit method)
Load view state At the end of this phase, the ViewState property of a control is automatically populated as described in Maintaining State in a Control. A control can override the default implementation of the LoadViewState method to customize state restoration. LoadViewState method
Process postback data Process incoming form data and update properties accordingly. LoadPostData method (if IPostBackDataHandler is implemented)
Load Perform actions common to all requests, such as setting up a database query. At this point, server controls in the tree are created and initialized, the state is restored, and form controls reflect client-side data. Load event
(OnLoad method)
Send postback change notifications Raise change events in response to state changes between the current and previous postbacks. RaisePostDataChangedEvent method (if IPostBackDataHandler is implemented)
Handle postback events Handle the client-side event that caused the postback and raise appropriate events on the server. RaisePostBackEvent method(if IPostBackEventHandler is implemented)
Prerender Perform any updates before the output is rendered. Any changes made to the state of the control in the prerender phase can be saved, while changes made in the rendering phase are lost. PreRender event
(OnPreRender method)
Save state The ViewState property of a control is automatically persisted to a string object after this stage. This string object is sent to the client and back as a hidden variable. For improving efficiency, a control can override the SaveViewState method to modify the ViewState property. SaveViewState method
Render Generate output to be rendered to the client. Render method
Dispose Perform any final cleanup before the control is torn down. References to expensive resources such as database connections must be released in this phase. Dispose method
Unload Perform any final cleanup before the control is torn down. Control authors generally perform cleanup in Dispose and do not handle this event. UnLoad event (On UnLoad method)
4. Note To override an EventName event, override the OnEventName method (and call base. OnEventName).

5. What are server controls?
ASP.NET server controls are components that run on the server and encapsulate user-interface and other related functionality. They are used in ASP.NET pages and in ASP.NET code-behind classes.
6. What is the difference between Web User Control and Web Custom Control?
Custom Controls
Web custom controls are compiled components that run on the server and that encapsulate user-interface and other related functionality into reusable packages. They can include all the design-time features of standard ASP.NET server controls, including full support for Visual Studio design features such as the Properties window, the visual designer, and the Toolbox.
There are several ways that you can create Web custom controls:
• You can compile a control that combines the functionality of two or more existing controls. For example, if you need a control that encapsulates a button and a text box, you can create it by compiling the existing controls together.
• If an existing server control almost meets your requirements but lacks some required features, you can customize the control by deriving from it and overriding its properties, methods, and events.
• If none of the existing Web server controls (or their combinations) meet your requirements, you can create a custom control by deriving from one of the base control classes. These classes provide all the basic functionality of Web server controls, so you can focus on programming the features you need.
If none of the existing ASP.NET server controls meet the specific requirements of your applications, you can create either a Web user control or a Web custom control that encapsulates the functionality you need. The main difference between the two controls lies in ease of creation vs. ease of use at design time.
Web user controls are easy to make, but they can be less convenient to use in advanced scenarios. You develop Web user controls almost exactly the same way that you develop Web Forms pages. Like Web Forms, user controls can be created in the visual designer, they can be written with code separated from the HTML, and they can handle execution events. However, because Web user controls are compiled dynamically at run time they cannot be added to the Toolbox, and they are represented by a simple placeholder glyph when added to a page. This makes Web user controls harder to use if you are accustomed to full Visual Studio .NET design-time support, including the Properties window and Design view previews. Also, the only way to share the user control between applications is to put a separate copy in each application, which takes more maintenance if you make changes to the control.
Web custom controls are compiled code, which makes them easier to use but more difficult to create; Web custom controls must be authored in code. Once you have created the control, however, you can add it to the Toolbox and display it in a visual designer with full Properties window support and all the other design-time features of ASP.NET server controls. In addition, you can install a single copy of the Web custom control in the global assembly cache and share it between applications, which makes maintenance easier.
Web user controls Web custom controls
Easier to create Harder to create
Limited support for consumers who use a visual design tool Full visual design tool support for consumers
A separate copy of the control is required in each application Only a single copy of the control is required, in the global assembly cache
Cannot be added to the Toolbox in Visual Studio Can be added to the Toolbox in Visual Studio
Good for static layout Good for dynamic layout

(Session/State)
7. Application and Session Events
The ASP.NET page framework provides ways for you to work with events that can be raised when your application starts or stops or when an individual user's session starts or stops:
• Application events are raised for all requests to an application. For example, Application_BeginRequest is raised when any Web Forms page or XML Web service in your application is requested. This event allows you to initialize resources that will be used for each request to the application. A corresponding event, Application_EndRequest, provides you with an opportunity to close or otherwise dispose of resources used for the request.
• Session events are similar to application events (there is a Session_OnStart and a Session_OnEnd event), but are raised with each unique session within the application. A session begins when a user requests a page for the first time from your application and ends either when your application explicitly closes the session or when the session times out.
You can create handlers for these types of events in the Global.asax file.
8. Difference between ASP Session and ASP.NET Session?
asp.net session supports cookie less session & it can span across multiple servers.
9. What is cookie less session? How it works?
By default, ASP.NET will store the session state in the same process that processes the request, just as ASP does. If cookies are not available, a session can be tracked by adding a session identifier to the URL. This can be enabled by setting the following:

http://samples.gotdotnet.com/quickstart/aspplus/doc/stateoverview.aspx
10. How you will handle session when deploying application in more than a server? Describe session handling in a webfarm, how does it work and what are the limits?
By default, ASP.NET will store the session state in the same process that processes the request, just as ASP does. Additionally, ASP.NET can store session data in an external process, which can even reside on another machine. To enable this feature:
• Start the ASP.NET state service, either using the Services snap-in or by executing "net start aspnet_state" on the command line. The state service will by default listen on port 42424. To change the port, modify the registry key for the service: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\aspnet_state\Parameters\Port
• Set the mode attribute of the section to "StateServer".
• Configure the stateConnectionString attribute with the values of the machine on which you started aspnet_state.
The following sample assumes that the state service is running on the same machine as the Web server ("localhost") and uses the default port (42424):


Note that if you try the sample above with this setting, you can reset the Web server (enter iisreset on the command line) and the session state value will persist.
**
11. What method do you use to explicitly kill a users session?
Abandon()
12. What are the different ways you would consider sending data across pages in ASP (i.e between 1.asp to 2.asp)?
Session
public properties
13. What is State Management in .Net and how many ways are there to maintain a state in .Net? What is view state?
Web pages are recreated each time the page is posted to the server. In traditional Web programming, this would ordinarily mean that all information associated with the page and the controls on the page would be lost with each round trip.
To overcome this inherent limitation of traditional Web programming, the ASP.NET page framework includes various options to help you preserve changes — that is, for managing state. The page framework includes a facility called view state that automatically preserves property values of the page and all the controls on it between round trips.
However, you will probably also have application-specific values that you want to preserve. To do so, you can use one of the state management options.
Client-Based State Management Options:
View State
Hidden Form Fields
Cookies
Query Strings
Server-Based State Management Options
Application State
Session State
Database Support
14. What are the disadvantages of view state / what are the benefits?
Automatic view-state management is a feature of server controls that enables them to repopulate their property values on a round trip (without you having to write any code). This feature does impact performance, however, since a server control's view state is passed to and from the server in a hidden form field. You should be aware of when view state helps you and when it hinders your page's performance.
15. When maintaining session through Sql server, what is the impact of Read and Write operation on Session objects? will performance degrade?
Maintaining state using database technology is a common practice when storing user-specific information where the information store is large. Database storage is particularly useful for maintaining long-term state or state that must be preserved even if the server must be restarted.
**
16. What are the contents of cookie?
**
17. How do you create a permanent cookie?
**
18. What is ViewState? What does the "EnableViewState" property do? Why would I want it on or off?
**
19. Explain the differences between Server-side and Client-side code?
Server side code will process at server side & it will send the result to client. Client side code (javascript) will execute only at client side.
20. Can you give an example of what might be best suited to place in the Application_Start and Session_Start subroutines?
**
21. Which ASP.NET configuration options are supported in the ASP.NET implementation on the shared web hosting platform?
A: Many of the ASP.NET configuration options are not configurable at the site, application or subdirectory level on the shared hosting platform. Certain options can affect the security, performance and stability of the server and, therefore cannot be changed. The following settings are the only ones that can be changed in your site’s web.config file (s):
browserCaps
clientTarget
pages
customErrors
globalization
authorization
authentication
webControls
webServices
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpguide/html/cpconaspnetconfiguration.asp
22. Briefly describe the role of global.asax?
23. How can u debug your .net application?
24. How do u deploy your asp.net application?
25. Where do we store our connection string in asp.net application?
26. Various steps taken to optimize a web based application (caching, stored procedure etc.)
27. How does ASP.NET framework maps client side events to Server side events.

(Security)
28. Security types in ASP/ASP.NET? Different Authentication modes?
29. How .Net has implemented security for web applications?
30. How to do Forms authentication in asp.net?
31. Explain authentication levels in .net ?
32. Explain autherization levels in .net ?
33. What is Role-Based security?
A role is a named set of principals that have the same privileges with respect to security (such as a teller or a manager). A principal can be a member of one or more roles. Therefore, applications can use role membership to determine whether a principal is authorized to perform a requested action.
**
34. How will you do windows authentication and what is the namespace? If a user is logged under integrated windows authentication mode, but he is still not able to logon, what might be the possible cause for this? In ASP.Net application how do you find the name of the logged in person under windows authentication?
35. What are the different authentication modes in the .NET environment?
36.
37.
38. loginUrl="url"
39. protection="All|None|Encryption|Validation"
40. timeout="30" path="/" >
41. requireSSL="true|false"
42. slidingExpiration="true|false">
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.

Attribute Option Description
mode Controls the default authentication mode for an application.
Windows Specifies Windows authentication as the default authentication mode. Use this mode when using any form of Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) authentication: Basic, Digest, Integrated Windows authentication (NTLM/Kerberos), or certificates.
Forms Specifies ASP.NET forms-based authentication as the default authentication mode.
Passport Specifies Microsoft Passport authentication as the default authentication mode.
None Specifies no authentication. Only anonymous users are expected or applications can handle events to provide their own authentication.
48. How do you specify whether your data should be passed as Query string and Forms (Mainly about POST and GET)
Through attribute tag of form tag.
49. What is the other method, other than GET and POST, in ASP.NET?
50. What are validator? Name the Validation controls in asp.net? How do u disable them? Will the asp.net validators run in server side or client side? How do you do Client-side validation in .Net? How to disable validator control by client side JavaScript?
A set of server controls included with ASP.NET that test user input in HTML and Web server controls for programmer-defined requirements. Validation controls perform input checking in server code. If the user is working with a browser that supports DHTML, the validation controls can also perform validation ("EnableClientScript" property set to true/false) using client script.
The following validation controls are available in asp.net:
RequiredFieldValidator Control, CompareValidator Control, RangeValidator Control, RegularExpressionValidator Control, CustomValidator Control, ValidationSummary Control.
51. Which two properties are there on every validation control?
ControlToValidate, ErrorMessage
52. How do you use css in asp.net?
Within the section of an HTML document that will use these styles, add a link to this external CSS style sheet that
follows this form:

MyStyles.css is the name of your external CSS style sheet.
53. How do you implement postback with a text box? What is postback and usestate?
Make AutoPostBack property to true
54. How can you debug an ASP page, without touching the code?
55. What is SQL injection?
An SQL injection attack "injects" or manipulates SQL code by adding unexpected SQL to a query.
Many web pages take parameters from web user, and make SQL query to the database. Take for instance when a user login, web page that user name and password and make SQL query to the database to check if a user has valid name and password.
Username: ' or 1=1 ---
Password: [Empty]
This would execute the following query against the users table:
select count(*) from users where userName='' or 1=1 --' and userPass=''
56. How can u handle Exceptions in Asp.Net?
57. How can u handle Un Managed Code Exceptions in ASP.Net?
58. Asp.net - How to find last error which occurred?
A: Server.GetLastError();
[C#]
Exception LastError;
String ErrMessage;
LastError = Server.GetLastError();
if (LastError != null)
ErrMessage = LastError.Message;
else
ErrMessage = "No Errors";
Response.Write("Last Error = " + ErrMessage);
59. How to do Caching in ASP?
A: <%@ OutputCache Duration="60" VaryByParam="None" %>
VaryByParam value Description
none One version of page cached (only raw GET)
* n versions of page cached based on query string and/or POST body
v1 n versions of page cached based on value of v1 variable in query string or POST body
v1;v2 n versions of page cached based on value of v1 and v2 variables in query string or POST body
60. <%@ OutputCache Duration="60" VaryByParam="none" %>
<%@ OutputCache Duration="60" VaryByParam="*" %>
<%@ OutputCache Duration="60" VaryByParam="name;age" %>
The OutputCache directive supports several other cache varying options
• VaryByHeader - maintain separate cache entry for header string changes (UserAgent, UserLanguage, etc.)
• VaryByControl - for user controls, maintain separate cache entry for properties of a user control
• VaryByCustom - can specify separate cache entries for browser types and version or provide a custom GetVaryByCustomString method in HttpApplicationderived class
61. What is the Global ASA(X) File?
62. Any alternative to avoid name collisions other then Namespaces.
A scenario that two namespaces named N1 and N2 are there both having the same class say A. now in another class i ve written
using N1;using N2;
and i am instantiating class A in this class. Then how will u avoid name collisions?
Ans: using alias
Eg: using MyAlias = MyCompany.Proj.Nested;
63. Which is the namespace used to write error message in event Log File?
64. What are the page level transaction and class level transaction?
65. What are different transaction options?
66. What is the namespace for encryption?
67. What is the difference between application and cache variables?
68. What is the difference between control and component?
69. You ve defined one page_load event in aspx page and same page_load event in code behind how will prog run?
70. Where would you use an IHttpModule, and what are the limitations of any approach you might take in implementing one?
71. Can you edit data in the Repeater control? Which template must you provide, in order to display data in a Repeater control? How can you provide an alternating color scheme in a Repeater control? What property must you set, and what method must you call in your code, in order to bind the data from some data source to the Repeater control?
72. What is the use of web.config? Difference between machine.config and Web.config?
ASP.NET configuration files are XML-based text files--each named web.config--that can appear in any directory on an ASP.NET
Web application server. Each web.config file applies configuration settings to the directory it is located in and to all
virtual child directories beneath it. Settings in child directories can optionally override or modify settings specified in
parent directories. The root configuration file--WinNT\Microsoft.NET\Framework\\config\machine.config--provides
default configuration settings for the entire machine. ASP.NET configures IIS to prevent direct browser access to web.config
files to ensure that their values cannot become public (attempts to access them will cause ASP.NET to return 403: Access
Forbidden).
At run time ASP.NET uses these web.config configuration files to hierarchically compute a unique collection of settings for
each incoming URL target request (these settings are calculated only once and then cached across subsequent requests; ASP.NET
automatically watches for file changes and will invalidate the cache if any of the configuration files change).
http://samples.gotdotnet.com/quickstart/aspplus/doc/configformat.aspx
73. What is the use of sessionstate tag in the web.config file?
Configuring session state: Session state features can be configured via the section in a web.config file. To double the default timeout of 20 minutes, you can add the following to the web.config file of an application:

timeout="40"
/>
74. What are the different modes for the sessionstates in the web.config file?
Off Indicates that session state is not enabled.
Inproc Indicates that session state is stored locally.
StateServer Indicates that session state is stored on a remote server.
SQLServer Indicates that session state is stored on the SQL Server.
75. What is smart navigation?
When a page is requested by an Internet Explorer 5 browser, or later, smart navigation enhances the user's experience of the page by performing the following:
• eliminating the flash caused by navigation.
• persisting the scroll position when moving from page to page.
• persisting element focus between navigations.
• retaining only the last page state in the browser's history.
Smart navigation is best used with ASP.NET pages that require frequent postbacks but with visual content that does not change dramatically on return. Consider this carefully when deciding whether to set this property to true.
Set the SmartNavigation attribute to true in the @ Page directive in the .aspx file. When the page is requested, the dynamically generated class sets this property.
76. In what order do the events of an ASPX page execute. As a developer is it important to undertsand these events?
77. How would you get ASP.NET running in Apache web servers - why would you even do this?
78. What tags do you need to add within the asp:datagrid tags to bind columns manually
79. What base class do all Web Forms inherit from?
System.Web.UI.Page
80. How can we create pie chart in asp.net?
81. Is it possible for me to change my aspx file extension to some other name?
Yes.
Open IIS->Default Website -> Properties
Select HomeDirectory tab
Click on configuration button
Click on add. Enter aspnet_isapi details (C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.0.3705\aspnet_isapi.dll | GET,HEAD,POST,DEBUG)

Open machine.config(C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.0.3705\CONFIG) & add new extension under tag

What is AutoEventWireup attribute for ?

ADO.net Interview Questions

ADO.NET
1. Advantage of ADO.Net?
o ADO.NET Does Not Depend On Continuously Live Connections
o Database Interactions Are Performed Using Data Commands
o Data Can Be Cached in Datasets
o Datasets Are Independent of Data Sources
o Data Is Persisted as XML
o Schemas Define Data Structures
2. How would u connect to database using .NET?
SqlConnection nwindConn = new SqlConnection("Data Source=localhost; Integrated Security=SSPI;" +
"Initial Catalog=northwind");
nwindConn.Open();
3. What are relation objects in dataset and how & where to use them?
In a DataSet that contains multiple DataTable objects, you can use DataRelation objects to relate one table to another, to navigate through the tables, and to return child or parent rows from a related table. Adding a DataRelation to a DataSet adds, by default, a UniqueConstraint to the parent table and a ForeignKeyConstraint to the child table.
The following code example creates a DataRelation using two DataTable objects in a DataSet. Each DataTable contains a column named CustID, which serves as a link between the two DataTable objects. The example adds a single DataRelation to the Relations collection of the DataSet. The first argument in the example specifies the name of the DataRelation being created. The second argument sets the parent DataColumn and the third argument sets the child DataColumn.
custDS.Relations.Add("CustOrders",
custDS.Tables["Customers"].Columns["CustID"],
custDS.Tables["Orders"].Columns["CustID"]);

OR

private void CreateRelation()
{
// Get the DataColumn objects from two DataTable objects in a DataSet.
DataColumn parentCol;
DataColumn childCol;
// Code to get the DataSet not shown here.
parentCol = DataSet1.Tables["Customers"].Columns["CustID"];
childCol = DataSet1.Tables["Orders"].Columns["CustID"];
// Create DataRelation.
DataRelation relCustOrder;
relCustOrder = new DataRelation("CustomersOrders", parentCol, childCol);
// Add the relation to the DataSet.
DataSet1.Relations.Add(relCustOrder);
}
4. Difference between OLEDB Provider and SqlClient ?
Ans: SQLClient .NET classes are highly optimized for the .net / sqlserver combination and achieve optimal results. The SqlClient data provider is fast. It's faster than the Oracle provider, and faster than accessing database via the OleDb layer. It's faster because it accesses the native library (which automatically gives you better performance), and it was written with lots of help from the SQL Server team.
5. What are the different namespaces used in the project to connect the database? What data providers available in .net to connect to database?
• System.Data.OleDb – classes that make up the .NET Framework Data Provider for OLE DB-compatible data sources. These classes allow you to connect to an OLE DB data source, execute commands against the source, and read the results.
• System.Data.SqlClient – classes that make up the .NET Framework Data Provider for SQL Server, which allows you to connect to SQL Server 7.0, execute commands, and read results. The System.Data.SqlClient namespace is similar to the System.Data.OleDb namespace, but is optimized for access to SQL Server 7.0 and later.
• System.Data.Odbc - classes that make up the .NET Framework Data Provider for ODBC. These classes allow you to access ODBC data source in the managed space.
• System.Data.OracleClient - classes that make up the .NET Framework Data Provider for Oracle. These classes allow you to access an Oracle data source in the managed space.
6. Difference between DataReader and DataAdapter / DataSet and DataAdapter?
You can use the ADO.NET DataReader to retrieve a read-only, forward-only stream of data from a database. Using the DataReader can increase application performance and reduce system overhead because only one row at a time is ever in memory.
After creating an instance of the Command object, you create a DataReader by calling Command.ExecuteReader to retrieve rows from a data source, as shown in the following example.
SqlDataReader myReader = myCommand.ExecuteReader();
You use the Read method of the DataReader object to obtain a row from the results of the query.
while (myReader.Read())
Console.WriteLine("\t{0}\t{1}", myReader.GetInt32(0), myReader.GetString(1));
myReader.Close();
The DataSet is a memory-resident representation of data that provides a consistent relational programming model regardless of the data source. It can be used with multiple and differing data sources, used with XML data, or used to manage data local to the application. The DataSet represents a complete set of data including related tables, constraints, and relationships among the tables. The methods and objects in a DataSet are consistent with those in the relational database model. The DataSet can also persist and reload its contents as XML and its schema as XML Schema definition language (XSD) schema.
The DataAdapter serves as a bridge between a DataSet and a data source for retrieving and saving data. The DataAdapter provides this bridge by mapping Fill, which changes the data in the DataSet to match the data in the data source, and Update, which changes the data in the data source to match the data in the DataSet. If you are connecting to a Microsoft SQL Server database, you can increase overall performance by using the SqlDataAdapter along with its associated SqlCommand and SqlConnection. For other OLE DB-supported databases, use the DataAdapter with its associated OleDbCommand and OleDbConnection objects.
7. Which method do you invoke on the DataAdapter control to load your generated dataset with data?
Fill()
8. Explain different methods and Properties of DataReader which you have used in your project?
Read
GetString
GetInt32
while (myReader.Read())
Console.WriteLine("\t{0}\t{1}", myReader.GetInt32(0), myReader.GetString(1));
myReader.Close();
9. What happens when we issue Dataset.ReadXml command?
Reads XML schema and data into the DataSet.
10. In how many ways we can retrieve table records count? How to find the count of records in a dataset?
foreach(DataTable thisTable in myDataSet.Tables){
// For each row, print the values of each column.
foreach(DataRow myRow in thisTable.Rows){
11. How to check if a datareader is closed or opened?
IsClosed()
12. What happens when u try to update data in a dataset in .NET while the record is already deleted in SQL SERVER as backend?
OR What is concurrency? How will you avoid concurrency when dealing with dataset? (One user deleted one row after that another user through his dataset was trying to update same row. What will happen? How will you avoid the problem?)
**
13. How do you merge 2 datasets into the third dataset in a simple manner? OR If you are executing these statements in commandObject. "Select * from Table1;Select * from Table2” how you will deal result set?
**
14. How do you sort a dataset?
**
15. If a dataset contains 100 rows, how to fetch rows between 5 and 15 only?
**
16. Differences between dataset.clone and dataset.copy?
Clone - Copies the structure of the DataSet, including all DataTable schemas, relations, and constraints. Does not copy any data.
Copy - Copies both the structure and data for this DataSet.
17. What is the use of parameter object?
**
18. How to generate XML from a dataset and vice versa?
**
19. What is method to get XML and schema from Dataset?
ans: getXML () and get Schema ()
How do u implement locking concept for dataset?

.net Constructors Interview Questions

CONSTRUCTORS
1. Difference between type constructor and instance constructor? What is static constructor, when it will be fired? And what is its use?
(Class constructor method is also known as type constructor or type initializer)
Instance constructor is executed when a new instance of type is created and the class constructor is executed after the type is loaded and before any one of the type members is accessed. (It will get executed only 1st time, when we call any static methods/fields in the same class.) Class constructors are used for static field initialization. Only one class constructor per type is permitted, and it cannot use the vararg (variable argument) calling convention.
A static constructor is used to initialize a class. It is called automatically to initialize the class before the first instance is created or any static members are referenced.
2. What is Private Constructor? and it’s use? Can you create instance of a class which has Private Constructor?
A: When a class declares only private instance constructors, it is not possible for classes outside the program to derive from the class or to directly create instances of it. (Except Nested classes)
Make a constructor private if:
- You want it to be available only to the class itself. For example, you might have a special constructor used only in the implementation of your class' Clone method.
- You do not want instances of your component to be created. For example, you may have a class containing nothing but Shared utility functions, and no instance data. Creating instances of the class would waste memory.
3. I have 3 overloaded constructors in my class. In order to avoid making instance of the class do I need to make all constructors to private?
(yes)
4. Overloaded constructor will call default constructor internally?
(no)
5. What are virtual destructors?
6. Destructor and finalize
Generally in C++ the destructor is called when objects gets destroyed. And one can explicitly call the destructors in C++. And also the objects are destroyed in reverse order that they are created in. So in C++ you have control over the destructors.
In C# you can never call them, the reason is one cannot destroy an object. So who has the control over the destructor (in C#)? it's the .Net frameworks Garbage Collector (GC). GC destroys the objects only when necessary. Some situations of necessity are memory is exhausted or user explicitly calls System.GC.Collect() method.
Points to remember:
1. Destructors are invoked automatically, and cannot be invoked explicitly.
2. Destructors cannot be overloaded. Thus, a class can have, at most, one destructor.
3. Destructors are not inherited. Thus, a class has no destructors other than the one, which may be declared in it.
4. Destructors cannot be used with structs. They are only used with classes.
5. An instance becomes eligible for destruction when it is no longer possible for any code to use the instance.
6. Execution of the destructor for the instance may occur at any time after the instance becomes eligible for destruction.
7. When an instance is destructed, the destructors in its inheritance chain are called, in order, from most derived to least derived.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpguide/html/cpconfinalizemethodscdestructors.asp
7. What is the difference between Finalize and Dispose (Garbage collection)
Class instances often encapsulate control over resources that are not managed by the runtime, such as window handles (HWND), database connections, and so on. Therefore, you should provide both an explicit and an implicit way to free those resources. Provide implicit control by implementing the protected Finalize Method on an object (destructor syntax in C# and the Managed Extensions for C++). The garbage collector calls this method at some point after there are no longer any valid references to the object.
In some cases, you might want to provide programmers using an object with the ability to explicitly release these external resources before the garbage collector frees the object. If an external resource is scarce or expensive, better performance can be achieved if the programmer explicitly releases resources when they are no longer being used. To provide explicit control, implement the Dispose method provided by the IDisposable Interface. The consumer of the object should call this method when it is done using the object. Dispose can be called even if other references to the object are alive.
Note that even when you provide explicit control by way of Dispose, you should provide implicit cleanup using the Finalize method. Finalize provides a backup to prevent resources from permanently leaking if the programmer fails to call Dispose.
8. What is close method? How its different from Finalize & Dispose?
**
9. What is boxing & unboxing?
10. What is check/uncheck?
11. What is the use of base keyword? Tell me a practical example for base keyword’s usage?
12. What are the different .net tools which u used in projects?
13. What will do to avoid prior case?

14. Will it go to finally block if there is no exception happened?
Ans: Yes. The finally block is useful for cleaning up any resources allocated in the try block. Control is always passed to the finally block regardless of how the try block exits.
15. Is goto statement supported in C#? How about Java?
Gotos are supported in C#to the fullest. In Java goto is a reserved keyword that provides absolutely no functionality.
16. What’s different about switch statements in C#?
No fall-throughs allowed. Unlike the C++ switch statement, C# does not support an explicit fall through from one case label to another. If you want, you can use goto a switch-case, or goto default.
case 1:
cost += 25;
break;
case 2:
cost += 25;
goto case 1;

.net Framework OOPS

1. What are the OOPS concepts?
1) Encapsulation: It is the mechanism that binds together code and data in manipulates, and keeps both safe from outside interference and misuse. In short it isolates a particular code and data from all other codes and data. A well-defined interface controls the access to that particular code and data.
2) Inheritance: It is the process by which one object acquires the properties of another object. This supports the hierarchical classification. Without the use of hierarchies, each object would need to define all its characteristics explicitly. However, by use of inheritance, an object need only define those qualities that make it unique within its class. It can inherit its general attributes from its parent. A new sub-class inherits all of the attributes of all of its ancestors.
3) Polymorphism: It is a feature that allows one interface to be used for general class of actions. The specific action is determined by the exact nature of the situation. In general polymorphism means "one interface, multiple methods", This means that it is possible to design a generic interface to a group of related activities. This helps reduce complexity by allowing the same interface to be used to specify a general class of action. It is the compiler's job to select the specific action (that is, method) as it applies to each situation.
2. What is the difference between a Struct and a Class?
o The struct type is suitable for representing lightweight objects such as Point, Rectangle, and Color. Although it is possible to represent a point as a class, a struct is more efficient in some scenarios. For example, if you declare an array of 1000 Point objects, you will allocate additional memory for referencing each object. In this case, the struct is less expensive.
o When you create a struct object using the new operator, it gets created and the appropriate constructor is called. Unlike classes, structs can be instantiated without using the new operator. If you do not use new, the fields will remain unassigned and the object cannot be used until all of the fields are initialized.
o It is an error to declare a default (parameterless) constructor for a struct. A default constructor is always provided to initialize the struct members to their default values.
o It is an error to initialize an instance field in a struct.
o There is no inheritance for structs as there is for classes. A struct cannot inherit from another struct or class, and it cannot be the base of a class. Structs, however, inherit from the base class Object. A struct can implement interfaces, and it does that exactly as classes do.
o A struct is a value type, while a class is a reference type.
3. Value type & reference types difference? Example from .NET. Integer & struct are value types or reference types in .NET?
Most programming languages provide built-in data types, such as integers and floating-point numbers, that are copied when they are passed as arguments (that is, they are passed by value). In the .NET Framework, these are called value types. The runtime supports two kinds of value types:
• Built-in value types
The .NET Framework defines built-in value types, such as System.Int32 and System.Boolean, which correspond and are identical to primitive data types used by programming languages.
• User-defined value types
Your language will provide ways to define your own value types, which derive from System.ValueType. If you want to define a type representing a value that is small, such as a complex number (using two floating-point numbers), you might choose to define it as a value type because you can pass the value type efficiently by value. If the type you are defining would be more efficiently passed by reference, you should define it as a class instead.
Variables of reference types, referred to as objects, store references to the actual data. This following are the reference types:
• class
• interface
• delegate
This following are the built-in reference types:
• object
• string
4. What is Inheritance, Multiple Inheritance, Shared and Repeatable Inheritance?
**
5. What is Method overloading?
Method overloading occurs when a class contains two methods with the same name, but different signatures.
6. What is Method Overriding? How to override a function in C#?
Use the override modifier to modify a method, a property, an indexer, or an event. An override method provides a new implementation of a member inherited from a base class. The method overridden by an override declaration is known as the overridden base method. The overridden base method must have the same signature as the override method.
You cannot override a non-virtual or static method. The overridden base method must be virtual, abstract, or override.
7. Can we call a base class method without creating instance?
Its possible If its a static method.
Its possible by inheriting from that class also.
Its possible from derived classes using base keyword.
8. You have one base class virtual function how will call that function from derived class?
Ans:

9. class a
10. {
11. public virtual int m()
12. {
13. return 1;
14. }
15. }
16. class b:a
17. {
18. public int j()
19. {
20. return m();
21. }
}
22. In which cases you use override and new base?
Use the new modifier to explicitly hide a member inherited from a base class. To hide an inherited member, declare it in the derived class using the same name, and modify it with the new modifier.
C# Language features
23. What are Sealed Classes in C#?
The sealed modifier is used to prevent derivation from a class. A compile-time error occurs if a sealed class is specified as the base class of another class. (A sealed class cannot also be an abstract class)
24. What is Polymorphism? How does VB.NET/C# achieve polymorphism?
**
25. class Token
26. {
27. public string Display()
28. {
29. //Implementation goes here
30. return "base";
31. }
32. }
33. class IdentifierToken:Token
34. {
35. public new string Display() //What is the use of new keyword
36. {
37. //Implementation goes here
38. return "derive";
39. }
40. }
41. static void Method(Token t)
42. {
43. Console.Write(t.Display());
44. }
45. public static void Main()
46. {
47. IdentifierToken Variable=new IdentifierToken();
48. Method(Variable); //Which Class Method is called here
49. Console.ReadLine();
50. }
51. For the above code What is the "new" keyword and Which Class Method is
52. called here
A: it will call base class Display method
53. class Token
54. {
55. public virtual string Display()
56. {
57. //Implementation goes here
58. return "base";
59. }
60. }
61. class IdentifierToken:Token
62. {
63. public override string Display() //What is the use of new keyword
64. {
65. //Implementation goes here
66. return "derive";
67. }
68. }
69. static void Method(Token t)
70. {
71. Console.Write(t.Display());
72. }
73. public static void Main()
74. {
75. IdentifierToken Variable=new IdentifierToken();
76. Method(Variable); //Which Class Method is called here
77. Console.ReadLine();
78. }
79. A: Derive
80. In which Scenario you will go for Interface or Abstract Class?
Interfaces, like classes, define a set of properties, methods, and events. But unlike classes, interfaces do not provide implementation. They are implemented by classes, and defined as separate entities from classes. Even though class inheritance allows your classes to inherit implementation from a base class, it also forces you to make most of your design decisions when the class is first published.
Abstract classes are useful when creating components because they allow you specify an invariant level of functionality in some methods, but leave the implementation of other methods until a specific implementation of that class is needed. They also version well, because if additional functionality is needed in derived classes, it can be added to the base class without breaking code.
Interfaces vs. Abstract Classes
Feature Interface Abstract class
Multiple inheritance A class may implement several interfaces. A class may extend only one abstract class.
Default implementation An interface cannot provide any code at all, much less default code. An abstract class can provide complete code, default code, and/or just stubs that have to be overridden.
Constants Static final constants only, can use them without qualification in classes that implement the interface. On the other paw, these unqualified names pollute the namespace. You can use them and it is not obvious where they are coming from since the qualification is optional. Both instance and static constants are possible. Both static and instance intialiser code are also possible to compute the constants.
Third party convenience An interface implementation may be added to any existing third party class. A third party class must be rewritten to extend only from the abstract class.
is-a vs -able or can-do Interfaces are often used to describe the peripheral abilities of a class, not its central identity, e.g. an Automobile class might implement the Recyclable interface, which could apply to many otherwise totally unrelated objects. An abstract class defines the core identity of its descendants. If you defined a Dog abstract class then Damamation descendants are Dogs, they are not merely dogable. Implemented interfaces enumerate the general things a class can do, not the things a class is.
Plug-in You can write a new replacement module for an interface that contains not one stick of code in common with the existing implementations. When you implement the interface, you start from scratch without any default implementation. You have to obtain your tools from other classes; nothing comes with the interface other than a few constants. This gives you freedom to implement a radically different internal design. You must use the abstract class as-is for the code base, with all its attendant baggage, good or bad. The abstract class author has imposed structure on you. Depending on the cleverness of the author of the abstract class, this may be good or bad. Another issue that's important is what I call "heterogeneous vs. homogeneous." If implementors/subclasses are homogeneous, tend towards an abstract base class. If they are heterogeneous, use an interface. (Now all I have to do is come up with a good definition of hetero/homogeneous in this context.) If the various objects are all of-a-kind, and share a common state and behavior, then tend towards a common base class. If all they share is a set of method signatures, then tend towards an interface.
Homogeneity If all the various implementations share is the method signatures, then an interface works best. If the various implementations are all of a kind and share a common status and behavior, usually an abstract class works best.
Maintenance If your client code talks only in terms of an interface, you can easily change the concrete implementation behind it, using a factory method. Just like an interface, if your client code talks only in terms of an abstract class, you can easily change the concrete implementation behind it, using a factory method.
Speed Slow, requires extra indirection to find the corresponding method in the actual class. Modern JVMs are discovering ways to reduce this speed penalty. Fast
Terseness The constant declarations in an interface are all presumed public static final, so you may leave that part out. You can't call any methods to compute the initial values of your constants. You need not declare individual methods of an interface abstract. They are all presumed so. You can put shared code into an abstract class, where you cannot into an interface. If interfaces want to share code, you will have to write other bubblegum to arrange that. You may use methods to compute the initial values of your constants and variables, both instance and static. You must declare all the individual methods of an abstract class abstract.
Adding functionality If you add a new method to an interface, you must track down all implementations of that interface in the universe and provide them with a concrete implementation of that method. If you add a new method to an abstract class, you have the option of providing a default implementation of it. Then all existing code will continue to work without change.
81. see the code
82. interface ICommon
83. {
84. int getCommon();
85. }
86. interface ICommonImplements1:ICommon
87. {
88. }
89. interface ICommonImplements2:ICommon
90. {
91. }
92. public class a:ICommonImplements1,ICommonImplements2
93. {
}
How to implement getCommon method in class a? Are you seeing any problem in the implementation?
Ans:
public class a:ICommonImplements1,ICommonImplements2
{
public int getCommon()
{
return 1;
}
}
94. interface IWeather
95. {
96. void display();
97. }
98. public class A:IWeather
99. {
100. public void display()
101. {
102. MessageBox.Show("A");
103. }
104. }
105. public class B:A
106. {
107. }
108. public class C:B,IWeather
109. {
110. public void display()
111. {
112. MessageBox.Show("C");
113. }
114. }
115. When I instantiate C.display(), will it work?
116. interface IPrint
117. {
118. string Display();
119. }
120. interface IWrite
121. {
122. string Display();
123. }
124. class PrintDoc:IPrint,IWrite
125. {
126. //Here is implementation
127. }
how to implement the Display in the class printDoc (How to resolve the naming Conflict) A: no naming conflicts
class PrintDoc:IPrint,IWrite
{
public string Display()
{
return "s";
}
}
128. interface IList
129. {
130. int Count { get; set; }
131. }
132. interface ICounter
133. {
134. void Count(int i);
135. }
136. interface IListCounter: IList, ICounter {}
137. class C
138. {
139. void Test(IListCounter x)
140. {
141. x.Count(1); // Error
142. x.Count = 1; // Error
143. ((IList)x).Count = 1; // Ok, invokes IList.Count.set
144. ((ICounter)x).Count(1); // Ok, invokes ICounter.Count
145. }
146. }
147. Write one code example for compile time binding and one for run time binding? What is early/late binding?
An object is early bound when it is assigned to a variable declared to be of a specific object type. Early bound objects allow the compiler to allocate memory and perform other optimizations before an application executes.
' Create a variable to hold a new object.
Dim FS As FileStream
' Assign a new object to the variable.
FS = New FileStream("C:\tmp.txt", FileMode.Open)
By contrast, an object is late bound when it is assigned to a variable declared to be of type Object. Objects of this type can hold references to any object, but lack many of the advantages of early-bound objects.
Dim xlApp As Object
xlApp = CreateObject("Excel.Application")
148. Can you explain what inheritance is and an example of when you might use it?
149. How can you write a class to restrict that only one object of this class can be created (Singleton class)?
150. What are the access-specifiers available in c#?
Private, Protected, Public, Internal, Protected Internal.
151. Explain about Protected and protected internal, “internal” access-specifier?
protected - Access is limited to the containing class or types derived from the containing class.
internal - Access is limited to the current assembly.
protected internal - Access is limited to the current assembly or types derived from the containing class.

.net Framework Interview Questions

1. What is .NET Framework?
The .NET Framework has two main components: the common language runtime and the .NET Framework class library.
You can think of the runtime as an agent that manages code at execution time, providing core services such as memory management, thread management, and remoting, while also enforcing strict type safety and other forms of code accuracy that ensure security and robustness.
The class library, is a comprehensive, object-oriented collection of reusable types that you can use to develop applications ranging from traditional command-line or graphical user interface (GUI) applications to applications based on the latest innovations provided by ASP.NET, such as Web Forms and XML Web services.
2. What is CLR, CTS, CLS?
The .NET Framework provides a runtime environment called the Common Language Runtime or CLR (similar to the Java Virtual Machine or JVM in Java), which handles the execution of code and provides useful services for the implementation of the program. CLR takes care of code management at program execution and provides various beneficial services such as memory management, thread management, security management, code verification, compilation, and other system services. The managed code that targets CLR benefits from useful features such as cross-language integration, cross-language exception handling, versioning, enhanced security, deployment support, and debugging.
Common Type System (CTS) describes how types are declared, used and managed in the runtime and facilitates cross-language integration, type safety, and high performance code execution.
The CLS is simply a specification that defines the rules to support language integration in such a way that programs written in any language, yet can interoperate with one another, taking full advantage of inheritance, polymorphism, exceptions, and other features. These rules and the specification are documented in the ECMA proposed standard document, "Partition I Architecture", http://msdn.microsoft.com/net/ecma/
3. What are the new features of Framework 1.1 ?
1. Native Support for Developing Mobile Web Applications
2. Enable Execution of Windows Forms Assemblies Originating from the Internet
Assemblies originating from the Internet zone—for example, Microsoft Windows® Forms controls embedded in an Internet-based Web page or Windows Forms assemblies hosted on an Internet Web server and loaded either through the Web browser or programmatically using the System.Reflection.Assembly.LoadFrom() method—now receive sufficient permission to execute in a semi-trusted manner. Default security policy has been changed so that assemblies assigned by the common language runtime (CLR) to the Internet zone code group now receive the constrained permissions associated with the Internet permission set. In the .NET Framework 1.0 Service Pack 1 and Service Pack 2, such applications received the permissions associated with the Nothing permission set and could not execute.
3. Enable Code Access Security for ASP.NET Applications
Systems administrators can now use code access security to further lock down the permissions granted to ASP.NET Web applications and Web services. Although the operating system account under which an application runs imposes security restrictions on the application, the code access security system of the CLR can enforce additional restrictions on selected application resources based on policies specified by systems administrators. You can use this feature in a shared server environment (such as an Internet service provider (ISP) hosting multiple Web applications on one server) to isolate separate applications from one another, as well as with stand-alone servers where you want applications to run with the minimum necessary privileges.
4. Native Support for Communicating with ODBC and Oracle Databases
5. Unified Programming Model for Smart Client Application Development
The Microsoft .NET Compact Framework brings the CLR, Windows Forms controls, and other .NET Framework features to small devices. The .NET Compact Framework supports a large subset of the .NET Framework class library optimized for small devices.
6. Support for IPv6
The .NET Framework 1.1 supports the emerging update to the Internet Protocol, commonly referred to as IP version 6, or simply IPv6. This protocol is designed to significantly increase the address space used to identify communication endpoints in the Internet to accommodate its ongoing growth.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/technologyinfo/Overview/whatsnew.aspx
4. Is .NET a runtime service or a development platform?
Ans: It's both and actually a lot more. Microsoft .NET includes a new way of delivering software and services to businesses and consumers. A part of Microsoft.NET is the .NET Frameworks. The .NET frameworks SDK consists of two parts: the .NET common language runtime and the .NET class library. In addition, the SDK also includes command-line compilers for C#, C++, JScript, and VB. You use these compilers to build applications and components. These components require the runtime to execute so this is a development platform.
5. What is MSIL, IL?
When compiling to managed code, the compiler translates your source code into Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL), which is a CPU-independent set of instructions that can be efficiently converted to native code. MSIL includes instructions for loading, storing, initializing, and calling methods on objects, as well as instructions for arithmetic and logical operations, control flow, direct memory access, exception handling, and other operations. Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL) is a language used as the output of a number of compilers and as the input to a just-in-time (JIT) compiler. The common language runtime includes a JIT compiler for converting MSIL to native code.
6. Can I write IL programs directly?
Yes. Peter Drayton posted this simple example to the DOTNET mailing list:
.assembly MyAssembly {}
.class MyApp {
.method static void Main() {
.entrypoint
ldstr "Hello, IL!"
call void System.Console::WriteLine(class System.Object)
ret
}
}
Just put this into a file called hello.il, and then run ilasm hello.il. An exe assembly will be generated.
Can I do things in IL that I can't do in C#?
Yes. A couple of simple examples are that you can throw exceptions that are not derived from System.Exception, and you can have non-zero-based arrays.
7. What is JIT (just in time)? how it works?
Before Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL) can be executed, it must be converted by a .NET Framework just-in-time (JIT) compiler to native code, which is CPU-specific code that runs on the same computer architecture as the JIT compiler.
Rather than using time and memory to convert all the MSIL in a portable executable (PE) file to native code, it converts the MSIL as it is needed during execution and stores the resulting native code so that it is accessible for subsequent calls.
The runtime supplies another mode of compilation called install-time code generation. The install-time code generation mode converts MSIL to native code just as the regular JIT compiler does, but it converts larger units of code at a time, storing the resulting native code for use when the assembly is subsequently loaded and executed.
As part of compiling MSIL to native code, code must pass a verification process unless an administrator has established a security policy that allows code to bypass verification. Verification examines MSIL and metadata to find out whether the code can be determined to be type safe, which means that it is known to access only the memory locations it is authorized to access.
8. What is strong name?
A name that consists of an assembly's identity—its simple text name, version number, and culture information (if provided)—strengthened by a public key and a digital signature generated over the assembly.
9. What is portable executable (PE)?
The file format defining the structure that all executable files (EXE) and Dynamic Link Libraries (DLL) must use to allow them to be loaded and executed by Windows. PE is derived from the Microsoft Common Object File Format (COFF). The EXE and DLL files created using the .NET Framework obey the PE/COFF formats and also add additional header and data sections to the files that are only used by the CLR. The specification for the PE/COFF file formats is available at http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hwdev/hardware/pecoffdown.mspx
10. What is Event - Delegate? clear syntax for writing a event delegate
The event keyword lets you specify a delegate that will be called upon the occurrence of some "event" in your code. The delegate can have one or more associated methods that will be called when your code indicates that the event has occurred. An event in one program can be made available to other programs that target the .NET Framework Common Language Runtime.
// keyword_delegate.cs
// delegate declaration
delegate void MyDelegate(int i);
11. class Program
12. {
13. public static void Main()
14. {
15. TakesADelegate(new MyDelegate(DelegateFunction));
16. }
17. public static void TakesADelegate(MyDelegate SomeFunction)
18. {
19. SomeFunction(21);
20. }
21. public static void DelegateFunction(int i)
22. {
23. System.Console.WriteLine("Called by delegate with number: {0}.", i);
24. }
}
25. What is Code Access Security (CAS)?
CAS is the part of the .NET security model that determines whether or not a piece of code is allowed to run, and what resources it can use when it is running. For example, it is CAS that will prevent a .NET web applet from formatting your hard disk.
How does CAS work?
The CAS security policy revolves around two key concepts - code groups and permissions. Each .NET assembly is a member of a particular code group, and each code group is granted the permissions specified in a named permission set.
For example, using the default security policy, a control downloaded from a web site belongs to the 'Zone - Internet' code group, which adheres to the permissions defined by the 'Internet' named permission set. (Naturally the 'Internet' named permission set represents a very restrictive range of permissions.)
Who defines the CAS code groups?
Microsoft defines some default ones, but you can modify these and even create your own. To see the code groups defined on your system, run 'caspol -lg' from the command-line. On my syystem it looks like this:
26. Level = Machine
27. Code Groups:
28.
29. 1. All code: Nothing
30. 1.1. Zone - MyComputer: FullTrust
31. 1.1.1. Honor SkipVerification requests: SkipVerification
32. 1.2. Zone - Intranet: LocalIntranet
33. 1.3. Zone - Internet: Internet
34. 1.4. Zone - Untrusted: Nothing
35. 1.5. Zone - Trusted: Internet
36. 1.6. StrongName - 0024000004800000940000000602000000240000525341310004000003
37. 000000CFCB3291AA715FE99D40D49040336F9056D7886FED46775BC7BB5430BA4444FEF8348EBD06
38. F962F39776AE4DC3B7B04A7FE6F49F25F740423EBF2C0B89698D8D08AC48D69CED0FC8F83B465E08
39. 07AC11EC1DCC7D054E807A43336DDE408A5393A48556123272CEEEE72F1660B71927D38561AABF5C
AC1DF1734633C602F8F2D5: Everything
Note the hierarchy of code groups - the top of the hierarchy is the most general ('All code'), which is then sub-divided into several groups, each of which in turn can be sub-divided. Also note that (somewhat counter-intuitively) a sub-group can be associated with a more permissive permission set than its parent.
How do I define my own code group?
Use caspol. For example, suppose you trust code from www.mydomain.com and you want it have full access to your system, but you want to keep the default restrictions for all other internet sites. To achieve this, you would add a new code group as a sub-group of the 'Zone - Internet' group, like this:
caspol -ag 1.3 -site www.mydomain.com FullTrust
Now if you run caspol -lg you will see that the new group has been added as group 1.3.1:
...
1.3. Zone - Internet: Internet
1.3.1. Site - www.mydomain.com: FullTrust
...
Note that the numeric label (1.3.1) is just a caspol invention to make the code groups easy to manipulate from the command-line. The underlying runtime never sees it.
How do I change the permission set for a code group?
Use caspol. If you are the machine administrator, you can operate at the 'machine' level - which means not only that the changes you make become the default for the machine, but also that users cannot change the permissions to be more permissive. If you are a normal (non-admin) user you can still modify the permissions, but only to make them more restrictive. For example, to allow intranet code to do what it likes you might do this:
caspol -cg 1.2 FullTrust
Note that because this is more permissive than the default policy (on a standard system), you should only do this at the machine level - doing it at the user level will have no effect.
Can I create my own permission set?
Yes. Use caspol -ap, specifying an XML file containing the permissions in the permission set. To save you some time, here is a sample file corresponding to the 'Everything' permission set - just edit to suit your needs. When you have edited the sample, add it to the range of available permission sets like this:
caspol -ap samplepermset.xml
Then, to apply the permission set to a code group, do something like this:
caspol -cg 1.3 SamplePermSet (By default, 1.3 is the 'Internet' code group)
I'm having some trouble with CAS. How can I diagnose my problem?
Caspol has a couple of options that might help. First, you can ask caspol to tell you what code group an assembly belongs to, using caspol -rsg. Similarly, you can ask what permissions are being applied to a particular assembly using caspol -rsp.

I can't be bothered with all this CAS stuff. Can I turn it off?
Yes, as long as you are an administrator. Just run:
caspol -s off
http://www.codeproject.com/dotnet/UB_CAS_NET.asp
40. Which namespace is the base class for .net Class library?
Ans: system.object
41. What are object pooling and connection pooling and difference? Where do we set the Min and Max Pool size for connection pooling?
Object pooling is a COM+ service that enables you to reduce the overhead of creating each object from scratch. When an object is activated, it is pulled from the pool. When the object is deactivated, it is placed back into the pool to await the next request. You can configure object pooling by applying the ObjectPoolingAttribute attribute to a class that derives from the System.EnterpriseServices.ServicedComponent class.
Object pooling lets you control the number of connections you use, as opposed to connection pooling, where you control the maximum number reached.
Following are important differences between object pooling and connection pooling:
• Creation. When using connection pooling, creation is on the same thread, so if there is nothing in the pool, a connection is created on your behalf. With object pooling, the pool might decide to create a new object. However, if you have already reached your maximum, it instead gives you the next available object. This is crucial behavior when it takes a long time to create an object, but you do not use it for very long.
• Enforcement of minimums and maximums. This is not done in connection pooling. The maximum value in object pooling is very important when trying to scale your application. You might need to multiplex thousands of requests to just a few objects. (TPC/C benchmarks rely on this.)
COM+ object pooling is identical to what is used in .NET Framework managed SQL Client connection pooling. For example, creation is on a different thread and minimums and maximums are enforced.
42. What is Application Domain?
The primary purpose of the AppDomain is to isolate an application from other applications. Win32 processes provide isolation by having distinct memory address spaces. This is effective, but it is expensive and doesn't scale well. The .NET runtime enforces AppDomain isolation by keeping control over the use of memory - all memory in the AppDomain is managed by the .NET runtime, so the runtime can ensure that AppDomains do not access each other's memory.
Objects in different application domains communicate either by transporting copies of objects across application domain boundaries, or by using a proxy to exchange messages.
MarshalByRefObject is the base class for objects that communicate across application domain boundaries by exchanging messages using a proxy. Objects that do not inherit from MarshalByRefObject are implicitly marshal by value. When a remote application references a marshal by value object, a copy of the object is passed across application domain boundaries.
How does an AppDomain get created?
AppDomains are usually created by hosts. Examples of hosts are the Windows Shell, ASP.NET and IE. When you run a .NET application from the command-line, the host is the Shell. The Shell creates a new AppDomain for every application.
AppDomains can also be explicitly created by .NET applications. Here is a C# sample which creates an AppDomain, creates an instance of an object inside it, and then executes one of the object's methods. Note that you must name the executable 'appdomaintest.exe' for this code to work as-is.
43. using System;
44. using System.Runtime.Remoting;
45.
46. public class CAppDomainInfo : MarshalByRefObject
47. {
48. public string GetAppDomainInfo()
49. {
50. return "AppDomain = " + AppDomain.CurrentDomain.FriendlyName;
51. }
52. }
53. public class App
54. {
55. public static int Main()
56. {
57. AppDomain ad = AppDomain.CreateDomain( "Andy's new domain", null, null );
58. ObjectHandle oh = ad.CreateInstance( "appdomaintest", "CAppDomainInfo" );
59. CAppDomainInfo adInfo = (CAppDomainInfo)(oh.Unwrap());
60. string info = adInfo.GetAppDomainInfo();
61. Console.WriteLine( "AppDomain info: " + info );
62. return 0;
63. }
}
64. What is serialization in .NET? What are the ways to control serialization?
Serialization is the process of converting an object into a stream of bytes. Deserialization is the opposite process of creating an object from a stream of bytes. Serialization/Deserialization is mostly used to transport objects (e.g. during remoting), or to persist objects (e.g. to a file or database).Serialization can be defined as the process of storing the state of an object to a storage medium. During this process, the public and private fields of the object and the name of the class, including the assembly containing the class, are converted to a stream of bytes, which is then written to a data stream. When the object is subsequently deserialized, an exact clone of the original object is created.
• Binary serialization preserves type fidelity, which is useful for preserving the state of an object between different invocations of an application. For example, you can share an object between different applications by serializing it to the clipboard. You can serialize an object to a stream, disk, memory, over the network, and so forth. Remoting uses serialization to pass objects "by value" from one computer or application domain to another.
• XML serialization serializes only public properties and fields and does not preserve type fidelity. This is useful when you want to provide or consume data without restricting the application that uses the data. Because XML is an open standard, it is an attractive choice for sharing data across the Web. SOAP is an open standard, which makes it an attractive choice.
There are two separate mechanisms provided by the .NET class library - XmlSerializer and SoapFormatter/BinaryFormatter. Microsoft uses XmlSerializer for Web Services, and uses SoapFormatter/BinaryFormatter for remoting. Both are available for use in your own code.
Why do I get errors when I try to serialize a Hashtable?
XmlSerializer will refuse to serialize instances of any class that implements IDictionary, e.g. Hashtable. SoapFormatter and BinaryFormatter do not have this restriction.
65. What is exception handling?
When an exception occurs, the system searches for the nearest catch clause that can handle the exception, as determined by the run-time type of the exception. First, the current method is searched for a lexically enclosing try statement, and the associated catch clauses of the try statement are considered in order. If that fails, the method that called the current method is searched for a lexically enclosing try statement that encloses the point of the call to the current method. This search continues until a catch clause is found that can handle the current exception, by naming an exception class that is of the same class, or a base class, of the run-time type of the exception being thrown. A catch clause that doesn't name an exception class can handle any exception.
Once a matching catch clause is found, the system prepares to transfer control to the first statement of the catch clause. Before execution of the catch clause begins, the system first executes, in order, any finally clauses that were associated with try statements more nested that than the one that caught the exception.
Exceptions that occur during destructor execution are worth special mention. If an exception occurs during destructor execution, and that exception is not caught, then the execution of that destructor is terminated and the destructor of the base class (if any) is called. If there is no base class (as in the case of the object type) or if there is no base class destructor, then the exception is discarded.
66. What is Assembly?
Assemblies are the building blocks of .NET Framework applications; they form the fundamental unit of deployment, version control, reuse, activation scoping, and security permissions. An assembly is a collection of types and resources that are built to work together and form a logical unit of functionality. An assembly provides the common language runtime with the information it needs to be aware of type implementations. To the runtime, a type does not exist outside the context of an assembly.
Assemblies are a fundamental part of programming with the .NET Framework. An assembly performs the following functions:
• It contains code that the common language runtime executes. Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL) code in a portable executable (PE) file will not be executed if it does not have an associated assembly manifest. Note that each assembly can have only one entry point (that is, DllMain, WinMain, or Main).
• It forms a security boundary. An assembly is the unit at which permissions are requested and granted.
• It forms a type boundary. Every type's identity includes the name of the assembly in which it resides. A type called MyType loaded in the scope of one assembly is not the same as a type called MyType loaded in the scope of another assembly.
• It forms a reference scope boundary. The assembly's manifest contains assembly metadata that is used for resolving types and satisfying resource requests. It specifies the types and resources that are exposed outside the assembly. The manifest also enumerates other assemblies on which it depends.
• It forms a version boundary. The assembly is the smallest versionable unit in the common language runtime; all types and resources in the same assembly are versioned as a unit. The assembly's manifest describes the version dependencies you specify for any dependent assemblies.
• It forms a deployment unit. When an application starts, only the assemblies that the application initially calls must be present. Other assemblies, such as localization resources or assemblies containing utility classes, can be retrieved on demand. This allows applications to be kept simple and thin when first downloaded.
• It is the unit at which side-by-side execution is supported.
Assemblies can be static or dynamic. Static assemblies can include .NET Framework types (interfaces and classes), as well as resources for the assembly (bitmaps, JPEG files, resource files, and so on). Static assemblies are stored on disk in PE files. You can also use the .NET Framework to create dynamic assemblies, which are run directly from memory and are not saved to disk before execution. You can save dynamic assemblies to disk after they have executed.
There are several ways to create assemblies. You can use development tools, such as Visual Studio .NET, that you have used in the past to create .dll or .exe files. You can use tools provided in the .NET Framework SDK to create assemblies with modules created in other development environments. You can also use common language runtime APIs, such as Reflection.Emit, to create dynamic assemblies.
67. What are the contents of assembly?
In general, a static assembly can consist of four elements:
• The assembly manifest, which contains assembly metadata.
• Type metadata.
• Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL) code that implements the types.
• A set of resources.
68. What are the different types of assemblies?
Private, Public/Shared, Satellite
69. What is the difference between a private assembly and a shared assembly?
0. Location and visibility: A private assembly is normally used by a single application, and is stored in the application's directory, or a sub-directory beneath. A shared assembly is normally stored in the global assembly cache, which is a repository of assemblies maintained by the .NET runtime. Shared assemblies are usually libraries of code which many applications will find useful, e.g. the .NET framework classes.

1. Versioning: The runtime enforces versioning constraints only on shared assemblies, not on private assemblies.
70. What are Satellite Assemblies? How you will create this? How will you get the different language strings?
Satellite assemblies are often used to deploy language-specific resources for an application. These language-specific assemblies work in side-by-side execution because the application has a separate product ID for each language and installs satellite assemblies in a language-specific subdirectory for each language. When uninstalling, the application removes only the satellite assemblies associated with a given language and .NET Framework version. No core .NET Framework files are removed unless the last language for that .NET Framework version is being removed.
(For example, English and Japanese editions of the .NET Framework version 1.1 share the same core files. The Japanese .NET Framework version 1.1 adds satellite assemblies with localized resources in a \ja subdirectory. An application that supports the .NET Framework version 1.1, regardless of its language, always uses the same core runtime files.)
http://www.ondotnet.com/lpt/a/2637
**
71. How will u load dynamic assembly? How will create assemblies at run time?
**
72. What is Assembly manifest? what all details the assembly manifest will contain?
Every assembly, whether static or dynamic, contains a collection of data that describes how the elements in the assembly relate to each other. The assembly manifest contains this assembly metadata. An assembly manifest contains all the metadata needed to specify the assembly's version requirements and security identity, and all metadata needed to define the scope of the assembly and resolve references to resources and classes. The assembly manifest can be stored in either a PE file (an .exe or .dll) with Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL) code or in a standalone PE file that contains only assembly manifest information.
It contains Assembly name, Version number, Culture, Strong name information, List of all files in the assembly, Type reference information, Information on referenced assemblies.
73. Difference between assembly manifest & metadata?
assembly manifest - An integral part of every assembly that renders the assembly self-describing. The assembly manifest contains the assembly's metadata. The manifest establishes the assembly identity, specifies the files that make up the assembly implementation, specifies the types and resources that make up the assembly, itemizes the compile-time dependencies on other assemblies, and specifies the set of permissions required for the assembly to run properly. This information is used at run time to resolve references, enforce version binding policy, and validate the integrity of loaded assemblies. The self-describing nature of assemblies also helps makes zero-impact install and XCOPY deployment feasible.
metadata - Information that describes every element managed by the common language runtime: an assembly, loadable file, type, method, and so on. This can include information required for debugging and garbage collection, as well as security attributes, marshaling data, extended class and member definitions, version binding, and other information required by the runtime.
74. What is Global Assembly Cache (GAC) and what is the purpose of it? (How to make an assembly to public? Steps) How more than one version of an assembly can keep in same place?
Each computer where the common language runtime is installed has a machine-wide code cache called the global assembly cache. The global assembly cache stores assemblies specifically designated to be shared by several applications on the computer. You should share assemblies by installing them into the global assembly cache only when you need to.
Steps
- Create a strong name using sn.exe tool
eg: sn -k keyPair.snk
- with in AssemblyInfo.cs add the generated file name
eg: [assembly: AssemblyKeyFile("abc.snk")]
- recompile project, then install it to GAC by either
drag & drop it to assembly folder (C:\WINDOWS\assembly OR C:\WINNT\assembly) (shfusion.dll tool)
or
gacutil -i abc.dll
75. If I have more than one version of one assemblies, then how'll I use old version (how/where to specify version number?)in my application?
**
76. How to find methods of a assembly file (not using ILDASM)
Reflection
77. What is Garbage Collection in .Net? Garbage collection process?
The process of transitively tracing through all pointers to actively used objects in order to locate all objects that can be referenced, and then arranging to reuse any heap memory that was not found during this trace. The common language runtime garbage collector also compacts the memory that is in use to reduce the working space needed for the heap.
78. What is Reflection in .NET? Namespace? How will you load an assembly which is not referenced by current assembly?
All .NET compilers produce metadata about the types defined in the modules they produce. This metadata is packaged along with the module (modules in turn are packaged together in assemblies), and can be accessed by a mechanism called reflection. The System.Reflection namespace contains classes that can be used to interrogate the types for a module/assembly.
Using reflection to access .NET metadata is very similar to using ITypeLib/ITypeInfo to access type library data in COM, and it is used for similar purposes - e.g. determining data type sizes for marshaling data across context/process/machine boundaries.
Reflection can also be used to dynamically invoke methods (see System.Type.InvokeMember), or even create types dynamically at run-time (see System.Reflection.Emit.TypeBuilder).
79. What is Custom attribute? How to create? If I'm having custom attribute in an assembly, how to say that name in the code?
A: The primary steps to properly design custom attribute classes are as follows:
. Applying the AttributeUsageAttribute ([AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.All, Inherited = false, AllowMultiple = true)])
a. Declaring the attribute. (class public class MyAttribute : System.Attribute { // . . . })
b. Declaring constructors (public MyAttribute(bool myvalue) { this.myvalue = myvalue; })
c. Declaring properties
public bool MyProperty
{
get {return this.myvalue;}
set {this.myvalue = value;}
}
The following example demonstrates the basic way of using reflection to get access to custom attributes.
class MainClass
{
public static void Main()
{
System.Reflection.MemberInfo info = typeof(MyClass);
object[] attributes = info.GetCustomAttributes();
for (int i = 0; i <>
{
System.Console.WriteLine(attributes[i]);
}
}
}
80. What is the managed and unmanaged code in .net?
The .NET Framework provides a run-time environment called the Common Language Runtime, which manages the execution of code and provides services that make the development process easier. Compilers and tools expose the runtime's functionality and enable you to write code that benefits from this managed execution environment. Code that you develop with a language compiler that targets the runtime is called managed code; it benefits from features such as cross-language integration, cross-language exception handling, enhanced security, versioning and deployment support, a simplified model for component interaction, and debugging and profiling services.
81. How do you create threading in .NET? What is the namespace for that?
**
System.Threading.Thread
82. Serialize and MarshalByRef?
83. using directive vs using statement
You create an instance in a using statement to ensure that Dispose is called on the object when the using statement is exited. A using statement can be exited either when the end of the using statement is reached or if, for example, an exception is thrown and control leaves the statement block before the end of the statement.
The using directive has two uses:
• Create an alias for a namespace (a using alias).
• Permit the use of types in a namespace, such that, you do not have to qualify the use of a type in that namespace (a using directive).
84. Describe the Managed Execution Process?
The managed execution process includes the following steps:
0. Choosing a compiler.
To obtain the benefits provided by the common language runtime, you must use one or more language compilers that target the runtime.
1. Compiling your code to Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL).
Compiling translates your source code into MSIL and generates the required metadata.
2. Compiling MSIL to native code.
At execution time, a just-in-time (JIT) compiler translates the MSIL into native code. During this compilation, code must pass a verification process that examines the MSIL and metadata to find out whether the code can be determined to be type safe.
3. Executing your code.
The common language runtime provides the infrastructure that enables execution to take place as well as a variety of services that can be used during execution.
85. What is Active Directory? What is the namespace used to access the Microsoft Active Directories? What are ADSI Directories?
Active Directory Service Interfaces (ADSI) is a programmatic interface for Microsoft Windows Active Directory. It enables your applications to interact with diverse directories on a network, using a single interface. Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework make it easy to add ADSI functionality with the DirectoryEntry and DirectorySearcher components.
Using ADSI, you can create applications that perform common administrative tasks, such as backing up databases, accessing printers, and administering user accounts. ADSI makes it possible for you to:
• Log on once to work with diverse directories. The DirectoryEntry component class provides username and password properties that can be entered at runtime and communicated to the Active Directory object you are binding to.
• Use a single application programming interface (API) to perform tasks on multiple directory systems by offering the user a variety of protocols to use. The DirectoryServices namespace provides the classes to perform most administrative functions.
• Perform "rich querying" on directory systems. ADSI technology allows for searching for an object by specifying two query dialects: SQL and LDAP.
• Access and use a single, hierarchical structure for administering and maintaining diverse and complicated network configurations by accessing an Active Directory tree.
• Integrate directory information with databases such as SQL Server. The DirectoryEntry path may be used as an ADO.NET connection string provided that it is using the LDAP provider.
using System.DirectoryServices;
86. How Garbage Collector (GC) Works?
The methods in this class influence when an object is garbage collected and when resources allocated by an object are released. Properties in this class provide information about the total amount of memory available in the system and the age category, or generation, of memory allocated to an object. Periodically, the garbage collector performs garbage collection to reclaim memory allocated to objects for which there are no valid references. Garbage collection happens automatically when a request for memory cannot be satisfied using available free memory. Alternatively, an application can force garbage collection using the Collect method.
Garbage collection consists of the following steps:
0. The garbage collector searches for managed objects that are referenced in managed code.
1. The garbage collector attempts to finalize objects that are not referenced.
2. The garbage collector frees objects that are not referenced and reclaims their memory.
87. Why do we need to call CG.SupressFinalize?
Requests that the system not call the finalizer method for the specified object.
public static void SuppressFinalize(
object obj
); The method removes obj from the set of objects that require finalization. The obj parameter is required to be the caller of this method.
Objects that implement the IDisposable interface can call this method from the IDisposable.Dispose method to prevent the garbage collector from calling Object.Finalize on an object that does not require it.
88. What is nmake tool?
The Nmake tool (Nmake.exe) is a 32-bit tool that you use to build projects based on commands contained in a .mak file.
usage : nmake -a all
89. What are Namespaces?
The namespace keyword is used to declare a scope. This namespace scope lets you organize code and gives you a way to create globally-unique types. Even if you do not explicitly declare one, a default namespace is created. This unnamed namespace, sometimes called the global namespace, is present in every file. Any identifier in the global namespace is available for use in a named namespace. Namespaces implicitly have public access and this is not modifiable.
90. What is the difference between CONST and READONLY?
Both are meant for constant values. A const field can only be initialized at the declaration of the field. A readonly field can be initialized either at the declaration or in a constructor. Therefore, readonly fields can have different values depending on the constructor used.
readonly int b;
public X()
{
b=1;
}
public X(string s)
{
b=5;
}
public X(string s, int i)
{
b=i;
}
Also, while a const field is a compile-time constant, the readonly field can be used for runtime constants, as in the following example:
public static readonly uint l1 = (uint) DateTime.Now.Ticks; (this can't be possible with const)
91. What is the difference between ref & out parameters?
An argument passed to a ref parameter must first be initialized. Compare this to an out parameter, whose argument does not have to be explicitly initialized before being passed to an out parameter.
92. What is the difference between Array and LinkedList?
93. What is the difference between Array and Arraylist?
As elements are added to an ArrayList, the capacity is automatically increased as required through reallocation. The capacity can be decreased by calling TrimToSize or by setting the Capacity property explicitly.
94. What is Jagged Arrays?
A jagged array is an array whose elements are arrays. The elements of a jagged array can be of different dimensions and sizes. A jagged array is sometimes called an "array-of-arrays."
95. What are indexers?
Indexers are similar to properties, except that the get and set accessors of indexers take parameters, while property accessors do not.
96. What is Asynchronous call and how it can be implemented using delegates?
97. How to create events for a control? What is custom events? How to create it?
98. If you want to write your own dot net language, what steps you will u take care?
99. Describe the difference between inline and code behind - which is best in a loosely coupled solution?
100. how dot net compiled code will become platform independent?
101. without modifying source code if we compile again, will it be generated MSIL again?
102. C++ & C# differences

Sharepoint Portal Interview Questions

what is SharePoint?
Portal Collaboration Software.
what is the difference between SharePoint Portal Server and Windows SharePoint Services?
SharePoint Portal Server is the global portal offering features like global navigation and searching.
Windows SharePoint Services is more content management based with document libraries and
lists. You apply information to certain areas within your portal from Windows SharePoint
Services or directly to portal areas.
what is a document library?
A document library is where you upload your core documents. They consist of a row and column
view with links to the documents. When the document is updated so is the link on your site. You
can also track metadata on your documents. Metadata would consist of document properties.
what is a meeting workspace?
A meeting workspace is a place to store information, attendees, and tasks related to a specific
meeting.
what is a document workspace?
Document workspaces consist of information surrounding a single or multiple documents.
what is a web part?
Web parts consist of xml queries to full SharePoint lists or document libraries. You can also
develop your own web parts and web part pages.
what is the difference between a document library and a form library?
Document libraries consist of your core documents. An example would be a word document,
excel, powerpoint, visio, pdf, etc… Form libraries consist of XML forms.
what is a web part zone?
Web part zones are what your web parts reside in and help categorize your web parts when
designing a page.
how is security managed in SharePoint?
Security can be handled at the machine, domain, or sharepoint level.
how are web parts developed?
Web parts are developed in Visual Studio .Net. VS.Net offers many web part and page templates
and can also be downloaded from the Microsoft site.
what is a site definition?
It’s a methods for providing prepackaged site and list content.
what is a template?
A template is a pre-defined set of functions or settings that can be used over time. There are many
templates within SharePoint, Site Templates, Document Templates, Document Library and List
Templates.
vabnix.page.tl
how do you install web parts?
Web Parts should be distributed as a .CAB (cabinet) file using the MSI Installer.
what is CAML?
CAML stands for Collaborative Application Markup Language and is an XML-based language
that is used in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services to define sites and lists, including, for
example, fields, views, or forms, but CAML is also used to define tables in the Windows
SharePoint Services database during site provisioning.
what is a DWP?
The file extension of a web part.
what is the GAC?
Global Assembly Cache folder on the server hosting SharePoint. You place your assemblies there
for web parts and services.
what are the differences between web part page gallery, site gallery, virtual server gallery
and online gallery?
Web Part Page Gallery is the default gallery that comes installed with SharePoint. Site Gallery is
specific to one site. Virtual Server gallery is specific to that virtual server and online gallery are
downloadable web parts from Microsoft.
what is the difference between a site and a web?
The pages in a Web site generally cover one or more topics and are interconnected through
hyperlinks. Most Web sites have a home page as their starting point. While a Web is simply a
blank site with SharePoint functionality built in; meaning you have to create the site from the
ground up.
What is Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services? How is it related to Microsoft Office
SharePoint Server 2007?
Windows SharePoint Services is the solution that enables you to create Web sites for information
sharing and document collaboration. Windows SharePoint Services — a key piece of the
information worker infrastructure delivered in Microsoft Windows Server 2003 — provides
additional functionality to the Microsoft Office system and other desktop applications, and it
serves as a platform for application development.
Office SharePoint Server 2007 builds on top of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 to provide
additional capabilities including collaboration, portal, search, enterprise content management,
business process and forms, and business intelligence.
What is Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server?
SharePoint Portal Server is a portal server that connects people, teams, and knowledge across
business processes. SharePoint Portal Server integrates information from various systems into one
secure solution through single sign-on and enterprise application integration capabilities. It
provides flexible deployment and management tools, and facilitates end-to-end collaboration
through data aggregation, organization, and searching. SharePoint Portal Server also enables users
to quickly find relevant information through customization and personalization of portal content
and layout as well as through audience targeting.
What is Microsoft Windows Services?
Microsoft Windows Services is the engine that allows administrators to create Web sites for
information sharing and document collaboration. Windows SharePoint Services provides
additional functionality to the Microsoft Office System and other desktop applications, as well as
serving as a plat form for application development. SharePoint sites provide communities for team

vabnix.page.tl
collaboration, enabling users to work together on documents, tasks, and projects. The environment
for easy and flexible deployment, administration, and application development.
What is the relationship between Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server and Microsoft
Windows Services?
Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies (including SharePoint Portal Server and
Windows SharePoint Services) deliver highly scalable collaboration solutions with flexible
deployment and management tools. Windows SharePoint Services provides sites for team
collaboration, while Share Point Portal Server connects these sites, people, and business processes
—facilitating knowledge sharing and smart organizations. SharePoint Portal Server also extends
the capabilities of Windows SharePoint Services by providing organizational and management
tools for SharePoint sites, and by enabling teams to publish information to the entire organization.
Who is Office SharePoint Server 2007 designed for?
Office SharePoint Server 2007 can be used by information workers, IT administrators, and
application developers.
is designed
What are the main benefits of Office SharePoint Server 2007?
Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides a single integrated platform to manage intranet, extranet,
and Internet applications across the enterprise.
* Business users gain greater control over the storage, security, distribution, and management of
their electronic content, with tools that are easy to use and tightly integrated into familiar,
everyday applications.
* Organizations can accelerate shared business processes with customers and partners across
organizational boundaries using InfoPath Forms Services–driven solutions.
* Information workers can find information and people efficiently and easily through the
facilitated information-sharing functionality and simplified content publishing. In addition, access
to back-end data is achieved easily through a browser, and views into this data can be
personalized.
* Administrators have powerful tools at their fingertips that ease deployment, management, and
system administration, so they can spend more time on strategic tasks.
* Developers have a rich platform to build a new class of applications, called Office Business
Applications, that combine powerful developer functionality with the flexibility and ease of
deployment of Office SharePoint Server 2007. Through the use of out-of-the-box application
services, developers can build richer applications with less code.
What is the difference between Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites
and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007?
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server
2007 have identical feature functionality. While the feature functionality is similar, the usage
rights are different.
If you are creating an Internet, or Extranet, facing website, it is recommended that you use
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites which does not require the purchase
client access licenses. Websites hosted using an “Internet sites” edition can only be used for
Internet facing websites and all content, information, and applications must be accessible to nonemployees.
Websites hosted using an “Internet sites” edition cannot be accessed by employees
creating, sharing, or collaborating on content which is solely for internal use only, such as an
Intranet Portal scenario. See the previous section on licensing for more information on the usage
scenarios.
What suites of the 2007 Microsoft Office system work with Office SharePoint Server 2007?
Office Outlook 2007 provides bidirectional offline synchronization with SharePoint document
libraries, discussion groups, contacts, calendars, and tasks.

vabnix.page.tl
Microsoft Office Groove 2007, included as part of Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007, will enable
bidirectional offline synchronization with SharePoint document libraries.
Features such as the document panel and the ability to publish to Excel Services will only be
enabled when using Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007or Office Enterprise 2007.
Excel Services will only work with documents saved in the new Office Excel 2007 file format
(XLSX).
How do I invite users to join a Windows SharePoint Services Site? Is the site secure?
SharePoint-based Web sites can be password-protected to restrict access to registered users, who
are invited to join via e-mail. In addition, the site administrator can restrict certain members' roles
by assigning different permission levels to view post and edit.
Can I post any kind of document?
You can post documents in many formats, including .pdf, .htm and .doc. In addition, if you are
using Microsoft Office XP, you can save documents directly to your Windows SharePoint
Services site.
Can I download information directly from a SharePoint site to a personal digital assistant
(PDA)?
No you cannot. However, you can exchange contact information lists with Microsoft Outlook.
How long does it take to set up the initial team Web site?
It only takes a few minutes to create a complete Web site. Preformatted forms let you and your
team members contribute to the site by filling out lists. Standard forms include announcements,
events, contacts, tasks, surveys, discussions and links.
Can I create custom templates?
Yes you can. You can have templates for business plans, doctor's office, lawyer's office etc.
How can I make my site public?
By default, all sites are created private.If you want your site to be a public Web site, enable
anonymous access for the entire site. Then you can give out your URL to anybody in your
business card, e-mail or any other marketing material. The URL for your Web site will be:
http:// yoursitename.wss.bcentral.com
Hence, please take special care to name your site.
These Web sites are ideal for information and knowledge intensive sites and/or sites where you
need to have shared Web workspace.
Remember: Under each parent Web site, you can create up to 10 sub-sites each with unique
permissions, settings and security rights
.
How do the sub sites work?
You can create a sub site for various categories. For example:
* Departments - finance, marketing, IT
* Products - electrical, mechanical, hydraulics
* Projects - Trey Research, Department of Transportation, FDA
* Team - Retention team, BPR team
* Clients - new clients, old clients
* Suppliers - Supplier 1, Supplier 2, Supplier 3
* Customers - Customer A, Customer B, Customer C
* Real estate - property A, property B
The URLs for each will be, for example:
* http://yoursitename.wss.bcentral.com/finance
* http://yoursitename.wss.bcentral.com/marketing
You can keep track of permissions for each team separately so that access is restricted while

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maintaining global access to the parent site.
How do I make my site non-restricted?
If you want your site to have anonymous access enabled (i.e., you want to treat it like any site on
the Internet that does not ask you to provide a user name and password to see the content of the
site), follow these simple steps:
# Login as an administrator
# Click on site settings
# Click on Go to Site Administration
# Click on Manage anonymous access
# Choose one of the three conditions on what Anonymous users can access:
** Entire Web site
** Lists and libraries
** Nothing
Default condition is nothing; your site has restricted access. The default conditions allow you to
create a secure site for your Web site.
Can I get domain name for my Web site?
Unfortunately, no. At this point, we don't offer domain names for SharePoint sites. But very soon
we will be making this available for all our SharePoint site customers. Please keep checking this
page for further update on this. Meanwhile, we suggest you go ahead and set up your site and
create content for it.
What are picture libraries?
Picture libraries allow you to access a photo album and view it as a slide show or thumbnails or a
film strip. You can have separate folder for each event, category, etc
What are the advantages of a hosted SharePoint vs. one that is on an in-house server?
* No hardware investment, i.e. lower costs
* No software to download - ready to start from the word go
* No IT resources - Anyone who has used a Web program like Hotmail can use it
* Faster deployment
Can I ask users outside of my organization to participate in my Windows SharePoint
Services site?
Yes. You can manage this process using the Administration Site Settings. Simply add users via
their e-mail alias and assign permissions such as Reader or Contributor.
Are there any IT requirements or downloads required to set up my SharePoint site?
No. You do not need to download any code or plan for any IT support. Simply complete the online
signup process and provide us your current and correct email address. Once you have
successfully signed up and your site has been provisioned, we will send a confirmation to the
email address you provided.
I am located outside of the United States. Are there any restrictions or requirements for
accessing the Windows SharePoint Services?
No. There are no system or bandwidth limitations for international trial users. Additionally
language packs have been installed which allow users to set up sub-webs in languages other than
English. These include: Arabic, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Italian,
Japanese, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish and Swedish.
Are there any browser recommendations?
Yes. Microsoft recommends using the following browsers for viewing and editing Windows
SharePoint Services sites: Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 with Service Pack 2, Microsoft
Internet Explorer 5.5 with Service Pack 2, Internet Explorer 6, Netscape Navigator 6.2 or later.

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What security levels are assigned to users?
Security levels are assigned by the administrator who is adding the user. There are four levels by
default and additional levels can be composed as necessary.
* Reader - Has read-only access to the Web site.
* Contributor - Can add content to existing document libraries and lists.
* Web Designer - Can create lists and document libraries and customize pages in the Web site.
* Administrator - Has full control of the Web site.
How secure are Windows SharePoint Services sites hosted by Microsoft?
Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Technical security measures provide firewall protection,
intrusion detection, and web-publishing rules. The Microsoft operation center team tests and
deploys software updates in order to maintain the highest level of security and software reliability.
Software hot-fixes and service packs are tested and deployed based on their priority and level of
risk. Security related hot-fixes are rapidly deployed into the environment to address current
threats. A comprehensive software validation activity ensures software stability through regression
testing prior to deployment.
What is the difference between an Internet and an intranet site?
An internet site is a normal site that anyone on the internet can access (e.g., www.msn.com, www.
microsoft.com, etc.). You can set up a site for your company that can be accessed by anyone
without any user name and password.
An intranet (or internal network), though hosted on the Web, can only be accessed by people who
are members of the network. They need to have a login and password that was assigned to them
when they were added to the site by the site administrator.
What is a workspace?
A site or workspace is when you want a new place for collaborating on Web pages, lists and
document libraries. For example, you might create a site to manage a new team or project,
collaborate on a document or prepare for a meeting.
What are the various kinds of roles the users can have?
A user can be assigned one of the following roles
* Reader - Has read-only access to the Web site.
* Contributor - Can add content to existing document libraries and lists.
* Web Designer - Can create lists and document libraries and customize pages in the Web site.
* Administrator - Has full control of the Web site.
Can more than one person use the same login?
If the users sharing that login will have the same permissions and there is no fear of them sharing a
password, then yes. Otherwise, this is discouraged.
How customizable is the user-to-user access?
User permissions apply to an entire Web, not to documents themselves. However, you can have
additional sub webs that can optionally have their own permissions. Each user can be given any of
four default roles. Additional roles can be defined by the administrator.
Can each user have access to their own calendar?
Yes there are two ways to do this,
* by creating a calendar for each user, or
* by creating a calendar with a view for each user
How many files can I upload?
There is no restriction in place except that any storage consumed beyond that provided by the base
offering may have an additional monthly charge associated with them.

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What types of files can I upload / post to the site?
The only files restricted are those ending with the following extensions: .asa, .asp, .ida, .idc, .idq.
Microsoft reserves the right to add additional file types to this listing at any time. Also, no content
that violates the terms of service may be uploaded or posted to the site.
Can SharePoint be linked to an external data source?
SharePoint data can be opened with Access and Excel as an external data source. Thus, SharePoint
can be referenced as an external data source. SharePoint itself cannot reference an external data
source.
Can SharePoint be linked to a SQL database?
This is possible via a custom application, but it not natively supported by SharePoint or SQL
Server.
Can I customize my Windows SharePoint Services site?
YES! Windows SharePoint Services makes updating sites and their content from the browser
easier then ever.
SharePoint includes tools that let you create custom lists, calendars, page views, etc. You can
apply a theme; add List, Survey and Document Library Web Parts to a page; create personal
views; change logos; connect Web Parts and more.
To fully customize your site, you can use Microsoft FrontPage 2003. Specifically, you can use
FrontPage themes and shared borders, and also use FrontPage to create photo galleries and top ten
lists, utilize standard usage reports, and integrate automatic Web content.
Will Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 run on a 64-bit version of Microsoft
Windows?
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Office SharePoint Server 2007, Office Forms Server 2007, and
Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Search will support 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003.
How Office SharePoint Server 2007 can help you?
Office SharePoint Server 2007 can help us:
Manage content and streamline processes. Comprehensively manage and control unstructured
content like Microsoft Office documents, Web pages, Portable Document Format file (PDF) files,
and e-mail messages. Streamline business processes that are a drain on organizational
productivity.
Improve business insight. Monitor your business, enable better-informed decisions, and respond
proactively to business events.
Find and share information more simply. Find information and expertise wherever they are
located. Share knowledge and simplify working with others within and across organizational
boundaries.
Empower IT to make a strategic impact. Increase responsiveness of IT to business needs and
reduce the number of platforms that have to be maintained by supporting all the intranet, extranet,
and Web applications across the enterprise with one integrated platform.
Office SharePoint Server 2007 capabilities can help improve organizational effectiveness by
connecting people, processes, and information.
Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides these capabilities in an integrated server offering, so your
organization doesn't have to integrate fragmented technology solutions itself.
What are the features that the portal components of Office SharePoint Server 2007 include?
The portal components of Office SharePoint Server 2007 include features that are especially
useful for designing, deploying, and managing enterprise intranet portals, corporate Internet Web
sites, and divisional portal sites. The portal components make it easier to connect to people within
the organization who have the right skills, knowledge, and project experience.

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What are the advanced features of MOSS 2007?
* User Interface (UI) and navigation enhancements
* Document management enhancements
* The new Workflow engine
* Office 2007 Integration
* New Web Parts
* New Site-type templates
* Enhancements to List technology
* Web Content Management
* Business Data Catalog
* Search enhancements
* Report Center
* Records Management
* Business Intelligence and Excel Server
* Forms Server and InfoPath
* The “Features” feature
* Alternate authentication providers and Forms-based authentication
What are the features of the new Content management in Office SharePoint 2007?
The new and enhanced content management features in Office SharePoint Server 2007 fall within
three areas:
* Document management
* Records management
* Web content management
Office SharePoint Server 2007 builds on the core document management functionality provided
by Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, including check in and check out, versioning, metadata, and
role-based granular access controls. Organizations can use this functionality to deliver enhanced
authoring, business document processing, Web content management and publishing, records
management, policy management, and support for multilingual publishing.
Does a SharePoint Web site include search functionality?
Yes. SharePoint Team Services provides a powerful text-based search feature that helps you find
documents and information fast.
Write the features of the search component of Office SharePoint Server 2007?
The search component of Office SharePoint Server 2007 has been significantly enhanced by this
release of SharePoint Products and Technologies. New features provide:
* A consistent and familiar search experience.
* Increased relevance of search results.
* New functions to search for people and expertise.
* Ability to index and search data in line-of-business applications and
* Improved manageability and extensibility.
What are the benefits of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007?
* Provide a simple, familiar, and consistent user experience.
* Boost employee productivity by simplifying everyday business activities.
* Help meet regulatory requirements through comprehensive control over content.
* Effectively manage and repurpose content to gain increased business value.
* Simplify organization-wide access to both structured and unstructured information across
disparate systems.
* Connect people with information and expertise.
* Accelerate shared business processes across organizational boundaries.
* Share business data without divulging sensitive information.

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* Enable people to make better-informed decisions by presenting business-critical information in
one central location.
* Provide a single, integrated platform to manage intranet, extranet, and Internet applications
across the enterprise.
Will SharePoint Portal Server and Team Services ever merge?
The products will come together because they are both developed by the Office team.
What does partial trust mean the Web Part developer?
If an assembly is installed into the BIN directory, the code must be ensured that provides error
handling in the event that required permissions are not available. Otherwise, unhandled security
exceptions may cause the Web Part to fail and may affect page rendering on the page where the
Web Part appears.
How can I raise the trust level for assemblies installed in the BIN directory?
Windows SharePoint Services can use any of the following three options from ASP.NET and the
CLR to provide assemblies installed in the BIN directory with sufficient permissions. The
following table outlines the implications and requirements for each option.
Option Pros Cons Increase the trust level for the entire virtual server. For more information, see
"Setting the trust level for a virtual server" Easy to implement. In a development environment,
increasing the trust level allows you to test an assembly with increased permissions while allowing
you to recompile assemblies directly into the BIN directory without resetting IIS. This option is
least secure. This option affects all assemblies used by the virtual server.
There is no guarantee the destination server has the required trust level. Therefore, Web Parts may
not work once installed on the destination server.
Create a custom policy file for your assemblies. For more information, see "How do I create a
custom policy file?" Recommended approach.
This option is most secure.
An assembly can operate with a unique policy that meets the minimum permission requirements
for the assembly.
By creating a custom security policy, you can ensure the destination server can run your Web
Parts.
Requires the most configuration of all three options.
Install your assemblies in the GAC
Easy to implement.
This grants Full trust to your assembly without affecting the trust level of assemblies installed in
the BIN directory.
This option is less secure.
Assemblies installed in the GAC are available to all virtual servers and applications on a server
running Windows SharePoint Services. This could represent a potential security risk as it
potentially grants a higher level of permission to your assembly across a larger scope than
necessary
In a development environment, you must reset IIS every time you recompile assemblies.
Licensing issues may arise due to the global availability of your assembly.
Does SharePoint work with NFS?
Yes and no. It can crawl documents on an NFS volume, but the sharepoint database or logs cannot
be stored there.
How is SharePoint Portal Server different from the Site Server?
Site Server has search capabilities but these are more advanced using SharePoint. SPS uses digital
dashboard technology which provides a nice interface for creating web parts and showing them on
dashboards (pages). SS doesn't have anything as advanced as that. The biggest difference would
be SPS document management features which also integrate with web folders and MS Office.

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What would you like to see in the next version of SharePoint?
A few suggestions:
# SPS and STS on same machine
# Tree view of Categories and Folders
# General Discussion Web Part
# Personalization of Dashboards
# Role Customization
# Email to say WHY a document has been rejected for Approval
# More ways to customize the interface
# Backup and restore an individual Workspaces
# Filter for Visio
# Better way to track activity on SPS
Why Sharepoint is not a viable solution for enterprise wide deployments?
Document management does not scale beyond a single server, but scales great within a single
server. For example, a quad Xeon machine with 4GB of RAM works great for a document
management server that has about 900,000 - 1,000,000 document, but if you need to store
50,000,000 document and want to have them all in one single workspace then it does not scale at
all. If you need a scenario like this, you need to plan your deployment right and it should scale for
you, it just does not right out of the box.
If you are using your server as a portal and search server most for the most part it scales great.
You can have many different servers crawl content sources and have separate servers searching
and serving the content.
If you have <>
50,000 users, SPS should scale just fine for your needs with the proper planning.
What are the actual advantages of SharePoint Portal Services (SPS) over SharePoint Team
Services (STS)?
SharePoint Portal Services (SPS) has MUCH better document management. It has check-in,
check-out, versioning, approval, publishing, subscriptions, categories, etc. STS does not have
these features, or they are very scaled back. SharePoint team Services (SPS) has a better search
engine, and can crawl multiple content sources. STS cannot. STS is easier to manage and much
better for a team environment where there is not much Document Management going on. SPS is
better for an organization, or where Document Management is crucial.
How Does SharePoint work?
The browser sends a DAV packet to IIS asking to perform a document check in. PKMDASL.DLL,
an ISAPI DLL, parses the packet and sees that it has the proprietary INVOKE command. Because
of the existence of this command, the packet is passed off to msdmserv.exe, who in turn processes
the packet and uses EXOLEDB to access the WSS, perform the operation and send the results
back to the user in the form of XML.

Java Interview Questions

Question: What if the main method is declared as private?

Question: What if the static modifier is removed from the signature of the main method?

Question: What if I write static public void instead of public static void?

Q:Question: What if I do not provide the String array as the argument to the method?

Question: What is the first argument of the String array in main method?

Question: If I do not provide any arguments on the command line, then the String array of Main method will be empty of null?

Question: How can one prove that the array is not null but empty?

Question: What environment variables do I need to set on my machine in order to be able to run Java programs?

Question: Can an application have multiple classes having main method?

Question: Can I have multiple main methods in the same class?

Question: Do I need to import java.lang package any time? Why ?

Question: Can I import same package/class twice? Will the JVM load the package twice at runtime?

Question: What are Checked and UnChecked Exception?

Question: What is Overriding?

Question: What are different types of inner classes?


Q: What if the main method is declared as private?
A: The program compiles properly but at runtime it will give "Main method not public." message.




Q: What if the static modifier is removed from the signature of the main method?
A: Program compiles. But at runtime throws an error "NoSuchMethodError".




Q: What if I write static public void instead of public static void?
A: Program compiles and runs properly.




Q: What if I do not provide the String array as the argument to the method?
A: Program compiles but throws a runtime error "NoSuchMethodError".




Q: What is the first argument of the String array in main method?
A: The String array is empty. It does not have any element. This is unlike C/C++ where the first element by default is the program name.




Q: If I do not provide any arguments on the command line, then the String array of Main method will be empty of null?
A: It is empty. But not null.




Q: How can one prove that the array is not null but empty?
A: Print args.length. It will print 0. That means it is empty. But if it would have been null then it would have thrown a NullPointerException on attempting to print args.length.




Q: What environment variables do I need to set on my machine in order to be able to run Java programs?
A: CLASSPATH and PATH are the two variables.




Q: Can an application have multiple classes having main method?
A: Yes it is possible. While starting the application we mention the class name to be run. The JVM will look for the Main method only in the class whose name you have mentioned. Hence there is not conflict amongst the multiple classes having main method.




Q: Can I have multiple main methods in the same class?
A: No the program fails to compile. The compiler says that the main method is already defined in the class.




Q: Do I need to import java.lang package any time? Why ?
A: No. It is by default loaded internally by the JVM.




Q: Can I import same package/class twice? Will the JVM load the package twice at runtime?
A: One can import the same package or same class multiple times. Neither compiler nor JVM complains abt it. And the JVM will internally load the class only once no matter how many times you import the same class.




Q: What are Checked and UnChecked Exception?
A: A checked exception is some subclass of Exception (or Exception itself), excluding class RuntimeException and its subclasses.
Making an exception checked forces client programmers to deal with the possibility that the exception will be thrown. eg, IOException thrown by java.io.FileInputStream's read() method•
Unchecked exceptions are RuntimeException and any of its subclasses. Class Error and its subclasses also are unchecked. With an unchecked exception, however, the compiler doesn't force client programmers either to catch the
exception or declare it in a throws clause. In fact, client programmers may not even know that the exception could be thrown. eg, StringIndexOutOfBoundsException thrown by String's charAt() method• Checked exceptions must be caught at compile time. Runtime exceptions do not need to be. Errors often cannot be.



Q: What is Overriding?
A: When a class defines a method using the same name, return type, and arguments as a method in its superclass, the method in the class overrides the method in the superclass.
When the method is invoked for an object of the class, it is the new definition of the method that is called, and not the method definition from superclass. Methods may be overridden to be more public, not more private.



Q: What are different types of inner classes?
A: Nested -level classes, Member classes, Local classes, Anonymous classes
Nested -level classes- If you declare a class within a class and specify the static modifier, the compiler treats the class just like any other -level class.
Any class outside the declaring class accesses the nested class with the declaring class name acting similarly to a package. eg, outer.inner. -level inner classes implicitly have access only to static variables.There can also be inner interfaces. All of these are of the nested -level variety.

Member classes - Member inner classes are just like other member methods and member variables and access to the member class is restricted, just like methods and variables. This means a public member class acts similarly to a nested -level class. The primary difference between member classes and nested -level classes is that member classes have access to the specific instance of the enclosing class.

Local classes - Local classes are like local variables, specific to a block of code. Their visibility is only within the block of their declaration. In order for the class to be useful beyond the declaration block, it would need to implement a
more publicly available interface.Because local classes are not members, the modifiers public, protected, private, and static are not usable.

Anonymous classes - Anonymous inner classes extend local inner classes one level further. As anonymous classes have no name, you cannot provide a constructor.

RDBMS Interview Questions

1. What is database?

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

2. What is DBMS?

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

3. What is a Database system?