RDBMS Concepts
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 an user to create and maintain a database. In other words it is general-purpose software that provides users with the processes of defining, constructing and manipulating the database for various applications.
3. What is a Database system?
The database and DBMS software together is called as Database system.
4. What are the advantages of DBMS?
As compared to raw access and storage in files, DBMS has many advanteges to use. It includes:
Ø Redundancy is controlled.
Ø Unauthorised access is restricted.
Ø Providing multiple user interfaces.
Ø Enforcing integrity constraints.
Ø Providing backup and recovery.
5. What are the disadvantage in File Processing System?
Ø Data redundancy & inconsistency.
Ø Difficult in accessing data.
Ø Data isolation.
Ø Data integrity.
Ø Concurrent access is not possible.
Ø Security Problems.
6. Describe the three levels of data abstraction?
There are three levels of abstraction:
Ø Physical level: The lowest level of abstraction describes how data are stored.
Ø Logical level: This is the next higher level of abstraction that describes what data are stored in database and what is the relationship among those data.
Ø View level: The highest level of abstraction describes only part of entire database.
7. Define the "integrity rules".
There are two Integrity rules.
Ø Entity Integrity: States that “Primary key cannot have NULL value”
Ø Referential Integrity: States that “Foreign Key can be either a NULL value or should be Primary Key value of other relation”.
8. What is extension and intension?
Extension - It is the number of tuples present in a table at any instance. This is time dependent.
Intension - It is a constant value that gives the name, structure of table and the constraints laid on it.
9. What is System R? What are its two major subsystems?
System R was designed and developed over a period of 1974-79 at IBM San Jose Research Center. It is a prototype and its purpose was to demonstrate that it is possible to build a Relational System that can be used in a real life environment to solve real life problems, with performance at least comparable to that of existing system.
Its two subsystems are
Ø Research Storage
Ø System Relational Data System.
10. How is the data structure of System R different from the relational structure?
Unlike Relational systems in System R
Ø Domains are not supported
Ø Enforcement of candidate key uniqueness is optional
Ø Enforcement of entity integrity is optional
Ø Referential integrity is not enforced
11. What is Data Independence?
Data independence means that “the application is independent of the storage structure and access strategy of data”. In other words, The ability to modify the schema definition in one level should not affect the schema definition in the next higher level.
Two types of Data Independence:
Ø Physical Data Independence: Modification in physical level should not affect the logical level.
Ø Logical Data Independence: Modification in logical level should affect the view level.
NOTE: Logical Data Independence is more difficult to achieve
12. What is a view? How it is related to data independence?
A view may be thought of as a virtual table, that is, a table that does not really exist in its own right but is instead derived from one or more underlying base table. In other words, there is no stored file that direct represents the view instead a definition of view is stored in data dictionary.
Growth and restructuring of base tables is not reflected in views. Thus the view can insulate users from the effects of restructuring and growth in the database. Hence accounts for logical data independence.
13. What is Data Model?
A collection of conceptual tools for describing data, data relationships, data semantics and constraints.
14. What is E-R model?
This data model is based on real world that consists of basic objects called entities and of relationship among these objects. Entities are described in a database by a set of attributes.
15. What is Object Oriented model?
This model is based on collection of objects. An object contains values stored in instance variables with in the object. An object also contains bodies of code that operate on the object. These bodies of code are called methods. Objects that contain same types of values and the same methods are grouped together into classes.
16. What is an Entity?
It is a 'thing' in the real world with an independent existence.
17. What is an Entity type?
It is a collection (set) of entities that have same attributes.
18. What is an Entity set?
It is a collection of all entities of particular entity type in the database.
19. What is an Extension of entity type?
The collections of entities of a particular entity type are grouped together into an entity set.
20. What is Weak Entity set?
An entity set may not have sufficient attributes to form a primary key, and its primary key compromises of its partial key and primary key of its parent entity, then it is said to be Weak Entity set.
21. What is an attribute?
It is a particular property, which describes the entity.
22. What is a Relation Schema and a Relation?
A relation Schema denoted by R(A1, A2, …, An) is made up of the relation name R and the list of attributes Ai that it contains. A relation is defined as a set of tuples. Let r be the relation which contains set tuples (t1, t2, t3, ..., tn). Each tuple is an ordered list of n-values t=(v1,v2, ..., vn).
23. What is degree of a Relation?
It is the number of attributes of its relation schema.
24. What is Relationship?
It is an association among two or more entities.
25. What is Relationship set?
The collection (or set) of similar relationships.
26. What is Relationship type?
Relationship type defines a set of associations or a relationship set among a given set of entity types.
27. What is degree of Relationship type?
It is the number of entity types participating.
25. What is DDL (Data Definition Language)?
A data base schema is specifies by a set of definitions expressed by a special language called DDL.
26. What is VDL (View Definition Language)?
It specifies user views and their mappings to the conceptual schema.
27. What is SDL (Storage Definition Language)?
This language is to specify the internal schema. This language may specify the mapping between two schemas.
28. What is Data Storage - Definition Language?
The storage structures and access methods used by database system are specified by a set of definition in a special type of DDL called data storage-definition language.
29. What is DML (Data Manipulation Language)?
This language that enables the user to access or manipulate data as organised by appropriate data model.
Ø Procedural DML or Low level: DML requires a user to specify what data are needed and how to get those data.
Ø Non-Procedural DML or High level: DML requires a user to specify what data are needed without specifying how to get those data.
30. What is DML Compiler?
It translates DML statements in a query language into low-level instruction that the query evaluation engine can understand.
31. What is Query evaluation engine?
It executes low-level instruction generated by compiler.
32. What is DDL Interpreter?
It interprets DDL statements and record them in tables containing metadata.
34. What is Record-at-a-time?
The Low level or Procedural DML can specify and retrieve each record from a set of records. This retrieve of a record is said to be Record-at-a-time.
35. What is Set-at-a-time or Set-oriented?
The High level or Non-procedural DML can specify and retrieve many records in a single DML statement. This retrieve of a record is said to be Set-at-a-time or Set-oriented.
36. What is Relational Algebra?
It is procedural query language. It consists of a set of operations that take one or two relations as input and produce a new relation.
37. What is Relational Calculus?
It is an applied predicate calculus specifically tailored for relational databases proposed by E.F. Codd. Example for the languages based on it are DSL ALPHA and QUEL.
38. How does Tuple-oriented relational calculus differ from domain-oriented relational calculus
The tuple-oriented calculus uses a tuple variables i.e., variable whose only permitted values are tuples of that relation. E.g. QUEL
The domain-oriented calculus has domain variables i.e., variables that range over the underlying domains instead of over relation. E.g. ILL, DEDUCE.
39. What is normalization?
It is a process of analysing the given relation schemas based on their Functional Dependencies (FDs) and primary key to achieve the properties
Ø Minimizing redundancy
Ø Minimizing insertion, deletion and updation anomalies.
40. What is Functional Dependency?
A Functional dependency is denoted by X Y between two sets of attributes X and Y that are subsets of R specifies a constraint on the possible tuple that can form a relation state r of R. The constraint is for any two tuples t1 and t2 in r if t1[X] = t2[X] then they have t1[Y] = t2[Y]. This means the value of X component of a tuple uniquely determines the value of component Y.41. When is a functional dependency F said to be minimal?
Ø Every dependency in F has a single attribute for its right hand side.
Ø 
We cannot replace any dependency X A in F with a dependency Y A where Y is a proper subset of X and still have a set of dependency that is equivalent to F.
We cannot replace any dependency X A in F with a dependency Y A where Y is a proper subset of X and still have a set of dependency that is equivalent to F.Ø We cannot remove any dependency from F and still have a set of dependency that is equivalent to F.
42. What is Multivalued dependency?
Multivalued dependency denoted by X Y specified on relation schema R, where X and Y are both subsets of R, specifies the following constraint on any relation r of R: if two tuples t1 and t2 exist in r such that t1[X] = t2[X] then t3 and t4 should also exist in r with the following propertiesØ t3[X] = t4[X] = t1[X] = t2[X]
Ø t3[Y] = t1[Y] and t4[Y] = t2[Y]
Ø t3[Z] = t2[Z] and t4[Z] = t1[Z]
where [Z = (R-(X U Y)) ]
43. What is Lossless join property?
It guarantees that the spurious tuple generation does not occur with respect to relation schemas after decomposition.
44. What is 1NF (Normal Form)?
The domain of attribute must include only atomic (simple, indivisible) values.
45. What is meant by Fully Functional Dependency?
A functional dependency X Y is full functional dependency if removal of any attribute A from X means that the dependency does not hold any more.46. What is 2NF?
A relation schema R is in 2NF if it is in 1NF and every non-prime attribute A in R is fully functionally dependent on primary key.
47. What is 3NF?
A relation schema R is in 3NF if it is in 2NF and for every FD X A either of the following is trueØ X is a Super-key of R.
Ø A is a prime attribute of R.
In other words, if every non prime attribute is non-transitively dependent on primary key.
48. What is BCNF (Boyce-Codd Normal Form)?
A relation schema R is in BCNF if it is in 3NF and satisfies an additional constraint that for every FD X A, X must be a candidate key.49. What is 4NF?
A relation schema R is said to be in 4NF if for every Multivalued dependency X Y that holds over R, one of following is trueØ X is subset or equal to (or) XY = R.
Ø X is a super key.
50. What is 5NF?
A Relation schema R is said to be 5NF if for every join dependency {R1, R2, ..., Rn} that holds R, one of the following is true :
Ø Ri = R for some i.
Ø The join dependency is implied by the set of FD, over R in which the left side is key of R.
51. What is Domain-Key Normal Form?
A relation is said to be in DKNF if all constraints and dependencies that should hold on the the constraint can be enforced by simply enforcing the domain constraint and key constraint on the relation.
52. What are partial, alternate,, artificial, compound and natural key?
Partial Key:
It is a set of attributes that can uniquely identify weak entities and that are related to same owner entity. It is sometime called as Discriminator.
Alternate Key:
All Candidate Keys excluding the Primary Key are known as Alternate Keys.
Artificial Key:
If no obvious key, either stand alone or compound is available, then the last resort is to simply create a key, by assigning a unique number to each record or occurrence. Then this is known as developing an artificial key.
Compound Key:
If no single data element uniquely identifies occurrences within a construct, then combining multiple elements to create a unique identifier for the construct is known as creating a compound key.
Natural Key:
When one of the data elements stored within a construct is utilized as the primary key, then it is called the natural key.
53. What is indexing and what are the different kinds of indexing?
Indexing is a technique for determining how quickly specific data can be found.
Types:
Ø Binary search style indexing
Ø B-Tree indexing
Ø Inverted list indexing
Ø Memory resident table
Ø Table indexing
54. What is system catalog or catalog relation? How is better known as?
A RDBMS maintains a description of all the data that it contains, information about every relation and index that it contains. This information is stored in a collection of relations maintained by the system called metadata. It is also called data dictionary.
55. What is meant by query optimization?
The phase that identifies an efficient execution plan for evaluating a query that has the least estimated cost is referred to as query optimization.
56. What is join dependency and inclusion dependency?
Join Dependency:
A Join dependency is generalization of Multivalued dependency.A JD {R1, R2, ..., Rn} is said to hold over a relation R if R1, R2, R3, ..., Rn is a lossless-join decomposition of R . There is no set of sound and complete inference rules for JD.
Inclusion Dependency:
An Inclusion Dependency is a statement of the form that some columns of a relation are contained in other columns. A foreign key constraint is an example of inclusion dependency.
57. What is durability in DBMS?
Once the DBMS informs the user that a transaction has successfully completed, its effects should persist even if the system crashes before all its changes are reflected on disk. This property is called durability.
58. What do you mean by atomicity and aggregation?
Atomicity:
Either all actions are carried out or none are. Users should not have to worry about the effect of incomplete transactions. DBMS ensures this by undoing the actions of incomplete transactions.
Aggregation:
A concept which is used to model a relationship between a collection of entities and relationships. It is used when we need to express a relationship among relationships.
59. What is a Phantom Deadlock?
In distributed deadlock detection, the delay in propagating local information might cause the deadlock detection algorithms to identify deadlocks that do not really exist. Such situations are called phantom deadlocks and they lead to unnecessary aborts.
60. What is a checkpoint and When does it occur?
A Checkpoint is like a snapshot of the DBMS state. By taking checkpoints, the DBMS can reduce the amount of work to be done during restart in the event of subsequent crashes.
61. What are the different phases of transaction?
Different phases are
Ø Analysis phase
Ø Redo Phase
Ø Undo phase
62. What do you mean by flat file database?
It is a database in which there are no programs or user access languages. It has no cross-file capabilities but is user-friendly and provides user-interface management.
63. What is "transparent DBMS"?
It is one, which keeps its Physical Structure hidden from user.
64. Brief theory of Network, Hierarchical schemas and their properties
Network schema uses a graph data structure to organize records example for such a database management system is CTCG while a hierarchical schema uses a tree data structure example for such a system is IMS.
65. What is a query?
A query with respect to DBMS relates to user commands that are used to interact with a data base. The query language can be classified into data definition language and data manipulation language.
66. What do you mean by Correlated subquery?
Subqueries, or nested queries, are used to bring back a set of rows to be used by the parent query. Depending on how the subquery is written, it can be executed once for the parent query or it can be executed once for each row returned by the parent query. If the subquery is executed for each row of the parent, this is called a correlated subquery.
A correlated subquery can be easily identified if it contains any references to the parent subquery columns in its WHERE clause. Columns from the subquery cannot be referenced anywhere else in the parent query. The following example demonstrates a non-correlated subquery.
E.g. Select * From CUST Where '10/03/1990' IN (Select ODATE From ORDER Where CUST.CNUM = ORDER.CNUM)
67. What are the primitive operations common to all record management systems?
Addition, deletion and modification.
68. Name the buffer in which all the commands that are typed in are stored
‘Edit’ Buffer
69. What are the unary operations in Relational Algebra?
PROJECTION and SELECTION.
70. Are the resulting relations of PRODUCT and JOIN operation the same?
No.
PRODUCT: Concatenation of every row in one relation with every row in another.
JOIN: Concatenation of rows from one relation and related rows from another.
71. What is RDBMS KERNEL?
Two important pieces of RDBMS architecture are the kernel, which is the software, and the data dictionary, which consists of the system-level data structures used by the kernel to manage the database
You might think of an RDBMS as an operating system (or set of subsystems), designed specifically for controlling data access; its primary functions are storing, retrieving, and securing data. An RDBMS maintains its own list of authorized users and their associated privileges; manages memory caches and paging; controls locking for concurrent resource usage; dispatches and schedules user requests; and manages space usage within its table-space structures
.
72. Name the sub-systems of a RDBMS
I/O, Security, Language Processing, Process Control, Storage Management, Logging and Recovery, Distribution Control, Transaction Control, Memory Management, Lock Management
73. Which part of the RDBMS takes care of the data dictionary? How
Data dictionary is a set of tables and database objects that is stored in a special area of the database and maintained exclusively by the kernel.
74. What is the job of the information stored in data-dictionary?
The information in the data dictionary validates the existence of the objects, provides access to them, and maps the actual physical storage location.
75. Not only RDBMS takes care of locating data it also
determines an optimal access path to store or retrieve the data76. How do you communicate with an RDBMS?
You communicate with an RDBMS using Structured Query Language (SQL)
77. Define SQL and state the differences between SQL and other conventional programming Languages
SQL is a nonprocedural language that is designed specifically for data access operations on normalized relational database structures. The primary difference between SQL and other conventional programming languages is that SQL statements specify what data operations should be performed rather than how to perform them.
78. Name the three major set of files on disk that compose a database in Oracle
There are three major sets of files on disk that compose a database. All the files are binary. These are
Ø Database files
Ø Control files
Ø Redo logs
The most important of these are the database files where the actual data resides. The control files and the redo logs support the functioning of the architecture itself.
All three sets of files must be present, open, and available to Oracle for any data on the database to be useable. Without these files, you cannot access the database, and the database administrator might have to recover some or all of the database using a backup, if there is one.
79. What is an Oracle Instance?
The Oracle system processes, also known as Oracle background processes, provide functions for the user processes—functions that would otherwise be done by the user processes themselves
Oracle database-wide system memory is known as the SGA, the system global area or shared global area. The data and control structures in the SGA are shareable, and all the Oracle background processes and user processes can use them.
The combination of the SGA and the Oracle background processes is known as an Oracle instance
80. What are the four Oracle system processes that must always be up and running for the database to be useable
The four Oracle system processes that must always be up and running for the database to be useable include DBWR (Database Writer), LGWR (Log Writer), SMON (System Monitor), and PMON (Process Monitor).
81. What are database files, control files and log files. How many of these files should a database have at least? Why?
Database Files
The database files hold the actual data and are typically the largest in size. Depending on their sizes, the tables (and other objects) for all the user accounts can go in one database file—but that's not an ideal situation because it does not make the database structure very flexible for controlling access to storage for different users, putting the database on different disk drives, or backing up and restoring just part of the database.
You must have at least one database file but usually, more than one files are used. In terms of accessing and using the data in the tables and other objects, the number (or location) of the files is immaterial.
The database files are fixed in size and never grow bigger than the size at which they were created
Control Files
The control files and redo logs support the rest of the architecture. Any database must have at least one control file, although you typically have more than one to guard against loss. The control file records the name of the database, the date and time it was created, the location of the database and redo logs, and the synchronization information to ensure that all three sets of files are always in step. Every time you add a new database or redo log file to the database, the information is recorded in the control files.
Redo Logs
Any database must have at least two redo logs. These are the journals for the database; the redo logs record all changes to the user objects or system objects. If any type of failure occurs, the changes recorded in the redo logs can be used to bring the database to a consistent state without losing any committed transactions. In the case of non-data loss failure, Oracle can apply the information in the redo logs automatically without intervention from the DBA.
The redo log files are fixed in size and never grow dynamically from the size at which they were created.
82. What is ROWID?
The ROWID is a unique database-wide physical address for every row on every table. Once assigned (when the row is first inserted into the database), it never changes until the row is deleted or the table is dropped.
The ROWID consists of the following three components, the combination of which uniquely identifies the physical storage location of the row.
Ø Oracle database file number, which contains the block with the rows
Ø Oracle block address, which contains the row
Ø The row within the block (because each block can hold many rows)
The ROWID is used internally in indexes as a quick means of retrieving rows with a particular key value. Application developers also use it in SQL statements as a quick way to access a row once they know the ROWID
83. What is Oracle Block? Can two Oracle Blocks have the same address?
Oracle "formats" the database files into a number of Oracle blocks when they are first created—making it easier for the RDBMS software to manage the files and easier to read data into the memory areas.
The block size should be a multiple of the operating system block size. Regardless of the block size, the entire block is not available for holding data; Oracle takes up some space to manage the contents of the block. This block header has a minimum size, but it can grow.
These Oracle blocks are the smallest unit of storage. Increasing the Oracle block size can improve performance, but it should be done only when the database is first created.
Each Oracle block is numbered sequentially for each database file starting at 1. Two blocks can have the same block address if they are in different database files.
84. What is database Trigger?
A database trigger is a PL/SQL block that can defined to automatically execute for insert, update, and delete statements against a table. The trigger can e defined to execute once for the entire statement or once for every row that is inserted, updated, or deleted. For any one table, there are twelve events for which you can define database triggers. A database trigger can call database procedures that are also written in PL/SQL.
85. Name two utilities that Oracle provides, which are use for backup and recovery.
Along with the RDBMS software, Oracle provides two utilities that you can use to back up and restore the database. These utilities are Export and Import.
The Export utility dumps the definitions and data for the specified part of the database to an operating system binary file. The Import utility reads the file produced by an export, recreates the definitions of objects, and inserts the data.
If Export and Import are used as a means of backing up and recovering the database, all the changes made to the database cannot be recovered since the export was performed. The best you can do is recover the database to the time when the export was last performed.
86. What are stored-procedures? And what are the advantages of using them.
Stored procedures are database objects that perform a user defined operation. A stored procedure can have a set of compound SQL statements. A stored procedure executes the SQL commands and returns the result to the client. Stored procedures are used to reduce network traffic.
87. How are exceptions handled in PL/SQL?
PL/SQL exception handling is a mechanism for dealing with run-time errors encountered during procedure execution. Use of this mechanism enables execution to continue if the error is not severe enough to cause procedure termination.
The exception handler must be defined within a subprogram specification. Errors cause the program to raise an exception with a transfer of control to the exception-handler block. After the exception handler executes, control returns to the block in which the handler was defined. If there are no more executable statements in the block, control returns to the caller.
User-Defined Exceptions
PL/SQL enables the user to define exception handlers in the declarations area of subprogram specifications. User accomplishes this by naming an exception as in the following example:
ot_failure EXCEPTION;
In this case, the exception name is ot_failure. Code associated with this handler is written in the EXCEPTION specification area as follows:
EXCEPTION
when OT_FAILURE then
out_status_code := g_out_status_code;
out_msg := g_out_msg;
The following is an example of a subprogram exception:
EXCEPTION
when NO_DATA_FOUND then
g_out_status_code := 'FAIL';
RAISE ot_failure;
Within this exception is the RAISE statement that transfers control back to the ot_failure exception handler. This technique of raising the exception is used to invoke all user-defined exceptions.
System-Defined Exceptions
Exceptions internal to PL/SQL are raised automatically upon error. For example NO_DATA_FOUND is a system-defined exception. There is also a catch-all exception named OTHERS that traps all errors for which specific error handling has not been established.
88. Does PL/SQL support "overloading"? Explain
The concept of overloading in PL/SQL relates to the idea that you can define procedures and functions with the same name. PL/SQL does not look only at the referenced name, however, to resolve a procedure or function call. The count and data types of formal parameters are also considered.
PL/SQL also attempts to resolve any procedure or function calls in locally defined packages before looking at globally defined packages or internal functions. To further ensure calling the proper procedure, you can use the dot notation. Prefacing a procedure or function name with the package name fully qualifies any procedure or function reference.
89. Tables derived from the ERD
a) Are totally unnormalised
b) Are always in 1NF
c) Can be further denormalised
d) May have multi-valued attributes
Answer:
(b) Are always in 1NF
90. Spurious tuples may occur due to
(i) Bad normalization
(ii) Theta joins
(iii) Updating tables from join
i & ii b) ii & iii c) i & iii d) ii & iii
Answer:
i & iii
Explanation:
Theta joins are joins made on keys that are not primary keys.
91. A B C is a set of attributes. The functional dependency is as follows
AB -> B AC -> C C -> B
is in 1NF
b) is in 2NF
c) is in 3NF
d) is in BCNF
Answer:
( is in 1NF since (AC)+ = { A, B, C} hence AC is the primary key. Since C B is a FD given, where neither C is a Key nor B is a prime attribute, this it is not in 3NF. Further B is not functionally dependent on key AC thus it is not in 2NF. Thus the given FDs is in 1NF.
92. In mapping of ERD to DFD
entities in ERD should correspond to an existing entity/store in DFD
b) entity in DFD is converted to attributes of an entity in ERD
c) relations in ERD has 1 to 1 correspondence to processes in DFD
d) relationships in ERD has 1 to 1 correspondence to flows in DFD
Answer:
( entities in ERD should correspond to an existing entity/store in DFD
93. A dominant entity is the entity
on the N side in a 1 : N relationship
b) on the 1 side in a 1 : N relationship
c) on either side in a 1 : 1 relationship
d) nothing to do with 1 : 1 or 1 : N relationship
Answer:
(b) on the 1 side in a 1 : N relationship
94. Select 'NORTH', CUSTOMER From CUST_DTLS Where REGION = 'N' Order By CUSTOMER Union Select 'EAST', CUSTOMER From CUST_DTLS Where REGION = 'E' Order By CUSTOMER
The above is
Not an error
b) Error - the string in single quotes 'NORTH' and 'SOUTH'
c) Error - the string should be in double quotes
d) Erro r - ORDER BY clause
Answer:
(d) Error - the ORDER BY clause. Since ORDER BY clause cannot be used in UNIONS
95. What is Storage Manager?
It is a program module that provides the interface between the low-level data stored in database, application programs and queries submitted to the system.
96. What is Buffer Manager?
It is a program module, which is responsible for fetching data from disk storage into main memory and deciding what data to be cache in memory.
97. What is Transaction Manager?
It is a program module, which ensures that database, remains in a consistent state despite system failures and concurrent transaction execution proceeds without conflicting.
98. What is File Manager?
It is a program module, which manages the allocation of space on disk storage and data structure used to represent information stored on a disk.
99. What is Authorization and Integrity manager?
It is the program module, which tests for the satisfaction of integrity constraint and checks the authority of user to access data.
100. What are stand-alone procedures?
Procedures that are not part of a package are known as stand-alone because they independently defined. A good example of a stand-alone procedure is one written in a SQL*Forms application. These types of procedures are not available for reference from other Oracle tools. Another limitation of stand-alone procedures is that they are compiled at run time, which slows execution.
101. What are cursors give different types of cursors.
PL/SQL uses cursors for all database information accesses statements. The language supports the use two types of cursors
Ø Implicit
Ø Explicit
102. What is cold backup and hot backup (in case of Oracle)?
Ø Cold Backup:
It is copying the three sets of files (database files, redo logs, and control file) when the instance is shut down. This is a straight file copy, usually from the disk directly to tape. You must shut down the instance to guarantee a consistent copy.
If a cold backup is performed, the only option available in the event of data file loss is restoring all the files from the latest backup. All work performed on the database since the last backup is lost.
Ø Hot Backup:
Some sites (such as worldwide airline reservations systems) cannot shut down the database while making a backup copy of the files. The cold backup is not an available option.
So different means of backing up database must be used — the hot backup. Issue a SQL command to indicate to Oracle, on a tablespace-by-tablespace basis, that the files of the tablespace are to backed up. The users can continue to make full use of the files, including making changes to the data. Once the user has indicated that he/she wants to back up the tablespace files, he/she can use the operating system to copy those files to the desired backup destination.
The database must be running in ARCHIVELOG mode for the hot backup option.
If a data loss failure does occur, the lost database files can be restored using the hot backup and the online and offline redo logs created since the backup was done. The database is restored to the most consistent state without any loss of committed transactions.
103. What are Armstrong rules? How do we say that they are complete and/or sound
The well-known inference rules for FDs
Ø Reflexive rule :
If Y is subset or equal to X then X Y.Ø Augmentation rule:
If X Y then XZ YZ.Ø Transitive rule:
If {X Y, Y Z} then X Z.Ø Decomposition rule :
If X YZ then X Y.Ø Union or Additive rule:
If {X Y, X Z} then X YZ.Ø Pseudo Transitive rule :
If {X Y, WY Z} then WX Z.Of these the first three are known as Amstrong Rules. They are sound because it is enough if a set of FDs satisfy these three. They are called complete because using these three rules we can generate the rest all inference rules.
104. How can you find the minimal key of relational schema?
Minimal key is one which can identify each tuple of the given relation schema uniquely. For finding the minimal key it is required to find the closure that is the set of all attributes that are dependent on any given set of attributes under the given set of functional dependency.
Algo. I Determining X+, closure for X, given set of FDs F
1. Set X+ = X
2. Set Old X+ = X+
3. For each FD Y Z in F and if Y belongs to X+ then add Z to X+
For each FD Y Z in F and if Y belongs to X+ then add Z to X+4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until Old X+ = X+
Algo.II Determining minimal K for relation schema R, given set of FDs F
1. Set K to R that is make K a set of all attributes in R
2. For each attribute A in K
a. Compute (K – + with respect to F
b. If (K – + = R then set K = (K – +
105. What do you understand by dependency preservation?
Given a relation R and a set of FDs F, dependency preservation states that the closure of the union of the projection of F on each decomposed relation Ri is equal to the closure of F. i.e.,
((PR1(F)) U … U (PRn(F)))+ = F+
if decomposition is not dependency preserving, then some dependency is lost in the decomposition.
106. What is meant by Proactive, Retroactive and Simultaneous Update.
Proactive Update:
The updates that are applied to database before it becomes effective in real world .
Retroactive Update:
The updates that are applied to database after it becomes effective in real world .
Simulatneous Update:
The updates that are applied to database at the same time when it becomes effective in real world .
| |||||
 | |||||
 | |||||
1. Name some pure object oriented languages.
Ø Smalltalk,
Ø Java,
Ø Eiffel,
Ø Sather.
2. What do you mean by the words ‘Abstraction’, ‘Separation’, ’Composition’, and ‘Generalization’?
Abstraction:
Simplifying the description of a real world entity to its essentials.
Separation:
Treating what an entity does and how it does it independently of each other.
Composition:
Building complex whole components by assembling simpler parts in one of the two ways, Association and aggregation.
Generalization:
Identifying common elements in an entity.
3. What is information hiding?
Information hiding is a mechanism that separates the implementation of the class from its user.
4. Differentiate between the message and method.
Message Method
Objects communicate by sending messages Provides response to a message.
to each other.
A message is sent to invoke a method. It is an implementation of an
operation.
5. What is the interface of a class?
The interface of the class is the view provided to the outside world, which hides its internal structure and behaviour.
6. What is an adaptor class or Wrapper class?
A class that has no functionality of its own. Its member functions hide the use of a third party software component or an object with the non-compatible interface or a non- object- oriented implementation.
7. What is a node class?
A node class is a class that,
Ø relies on the base class for services and implementation,
Ø provides a wider interface to te users than its base class,
Ø relies primarily on virtual functions in its public interface
Ø depends on all its direct and indirect base class
Ø can be understood only in the context of the base class
Ø can be used as base for further derivation
Ø can be used to create objects.
A node class is a class that has added new services or functionality beyond the services inherited from its base class.
8. What is an orthogonal base class?
If two base classes have no overlapping methods or data they are said to be independent of, or orthogonal to each other. Orthogonal in the sense means that two classes operate in different dimensions and do not interfere with each other in any way. The same derived class may inherit such classes with no difficulty.
9. What is a container class? What are the types of container classes?
A container class is a class that is used to hold objects in memory or external storage. A container class acts as a generic holder. A container class has a predefined behavior and a well-known interface. A container class is a supporting class whose purpose is to hide the topology used for maintaining the list of objects in memory. When a container class contains a group of mixed objects, the container is called a heterogeneous container; when the container is holding a group of objects that are all the same, the container is called a homogeneous container.
10. What is a protocol class?
An abstract class is a protocol class if:
Ø it neither contains nor inherits from classes that contain member data, non-virtual functions, or private (or protected) members of any kind.
Ø it has a non-inline virtual destructor defined with an empty implementation,
Ø all member functions other than the destructor including inherited functions, are declared pure virtual functions and left undefined.
11. What is a mixin class?
A class that provides some but not all of the implementation for a virtual base class is often called mixin. Derivation done just for the purpose of redefining the virtual functions in the base classes is often called mixin inheritance. Mixin classes typically don't share common bases.
12. What is a concrete class?
A concrete class is used to define a useful object that can be instantiated as an automatic variable on the program stack. The implementation of a concrete class is defined. The concrete class is not intended to be a base class and no attempt to minimize dependency on other classes in the implementation or behavior of the class.
13. What is the handle class?
A handle is a class that maintains a pointer to an object that is programmatically accessible through the public interface of the handle class.
In case of abstract classes, unless one manipulates the objects of these classes through pointers and references, the benefits of the virtual functions are lost. User code may become dependent on details of implementation classes because an abstract type cannot be allocated statistically or on the stack without its size being known. Using pointers or references implies that the burden of memory management falls on the user. Another limitation of abstract class object is of fixed size. Classes however are used to represent concepts that require varying amounts of storage to implement them.
A popular technique for dealing with these issues is to separate what is used as a single object in two parts: a handle providing the user interface and a representation holding all or most of the object's state. The connection between the handle and the representation is typically a pointer in the handle. Often, handles have a bit more data than the simple representation pointer, but not much more. Hence the layout of the handle is typically stable, even when the representation changes and also that handles are small enough to move around relatively freely so that the user needn’t use the pointers and the references.
14. What is an action class?
The simplest and most obvious way to specify an action in C++ is to write a function. However, if the action has to be delayed, has to be transmitted 'elsewhere' before being performed, requires its own data, has to be combined with other actions, etc then it often becomes attractive to provide the action in the form of a class that can execute the desired action and provide other services as well. Manipulators used with iostreams is an obvious example.
A common form of action class is a simple class containing just one virtual function.
class Action{
public:
virtual int do_it( int )=0;
virtual ~Action( );
}
Given this, we can write code say a member that can store actions for later execution without using pointers to functions, without knowing anything about the objects involved, and without even knowing the name of the operation it invokes. For example:
class write_file : public Action{
File& f;
public:
int do_it(int){
return fwrite( ).suceed( );
}
};
class error_message: public Action{
response_box db(message.cstr( ),"Continue","Cancel","Retry");
switch (db.getresponse( )) {
case 0: return 0;
case 1: abort();
case 2: current_operation.redo( );return 1;
}
};
A user of the Action class will be completely isolated from any knowledge of derived classes such as write_file and error_message.
15. What are seed classes?
In C++, you design classes to fulfill certain goals. Usually you start with a sketchy idea of class requirements, filling in more and more details as the project matures. Often you wind up with two classes that have certain similarities. To avoid duplicating code in these classes, you should split up the classes at this point, relegating the common features to a parent and making separate derived classes for the different parts. Classes that are made only for the purpose of sharing code in derived classes are called seed classes.
16. What is an accessor?
An accessor is a class operation that does not modify the state of an object. The accessor functions need to be declared as const operations
17. What is an inspector?
Messages that return the value of an attribute are called inspector.
18. What is a modifier?
A modifier, also called a modifying function is a member function that changes the value of at least one data member. In other words, an operation that modifies the state of an object. Modifiers are also known as ‘mutators’.
19. What is a predicate?
A predicate is a function that returns a bool value.
20. What is a facilitator?
A facilitator causes an object to perform some action or service.
21. State the "Rule of minimality" and its corollary?
The rule of minimality states that unless a behavior is needed, it shouldn't be part of the ADT.
Corollary of the rule of minimality: If the function or operator can be defined such that, it is not a member. This practice makes a non-member function or operator generally independent of changes to the class's implementation.
1. What is reflexive association?
The 'is-a' is called a reflexive association because the reflexive association permits classes to bear the is-a association not only with their super-classes but also with themselves. It differs from a 'specializes-from' as 'specializes-from' is usually used to describe the association between a super-class and a sub-class. For example:
Printer is-a printer.
2. What is slicing?
Slicing means that the data added by a subclass are discarded when an object of the subclass is passed or returned by value or from a function expecting a base class object.
Consider the following class declaration:
class base{
...
base& operator =(const base&);
base (const base&);
}
void fun( ){
base e=m;
e=m;
}
As base copy functions don't know anything about the derived only the base part of the derived is copied. This is commonly referred to as slicing. One reason to pass objects of classes in a hierarchy is to avoid slicing. Other reasons are to preserve polymorphic behavior and to gain efficiency.
3. What is a Null object?
It is an object of some class whose purpose is to indicate that a real object of that class does not exist. One common use for a null object is a return value from a member function that is supposed to return an object with some specified properties but cannot find such an object.
4. Define precondition and post-condition to a member function.
Precondition:
A precondition is a condition that must be true on entry to a member function. A class is used correctly if preconditions are never false. An operation is not responsible for doing anything sensible if its precondition fails to hold.
For example, the interface invariants of stack class say nothing about pushing yet another element on a stack that is already full. We say that isful() is a precondition of the push operation.
Post-condition:
A post-condition is a condition that must be true on exit from a member function if the precondition was valid on entry to that function. A class is implemented correctly if post-conditions are never false.
For example, after pushing an element on the stack, we know that isempty() must necessarily hold. This is a post-condition of the push operation.
5. What is class invariant?
A class invariant is a condition that defines all valid states for an object. It is a logical condition to ensure the correct working of a class. Class invariants must hold when an object is created, and they must be preserved under all operations of the class. In particular all class invariants are both preconditions and post-conditions for all operations or member functions of the class.
6. What are the conditions that have to be met for a condition to be an invariant of the class?
Ø The condition should hold at the end of every constructor.
Ø The condition should hold at the end of every mutator(non-const) operation.
7. What are proxy objects?
Objects that points to other objects are called proxy objects or surrogates. Its an object that provides the same interface as its server object but does not have any functionality. During a method invocation, it routes data to the true server object and sends back the return value to the object. template<class T> class Array2D{
public:
class Array1D{
public:
T& operator[] (int index);
const T& operator[] (int index) const;
...
};
Array1D operator[] (int index);
const Array1D operator[] (int index) const;
...
};
The following then becomes legal:
Array2D<float>data(10,20);
........
cout<<data[3][6]; // fine
Here data[3] yields an Array1D object and the operator [] invocation on that object yields the float in position(3,6) of the original two dimensional array. Clients of the Array2D class need not be aware of the presence of the Array1D class. Objects of this latter class stand for one-dimensional array objects that, conceptually, do not exist for clients of Array2D. Such clients program as if they were using real, live, two-dimensional arrays. Each Array1D object stands for a one-dimensional array that is absent from a conceptual model used by the clients of Array2D. In the above example, Array1D is a proxy class. Its instances stand for one-dimensional arrays that, conceptually, do not exist.
8. What is cloning?
An object can carry out copying in two ways i.e. it can set itself to be a copy of another object, or it can return a copy of itself. The latter process is called cloning.
9. List out some of the OODBMS available.
Ø GEMSTONE/OPAL of Gemstone systems.
Ø ONTOS of Ontos.
Ø Objectivity of Objectivity inc.
Ø Versant of Versant object technology.
Ø Object store of Object Design.
Ø ARDENT of ARDENT software.
Ø POET of POET software.
Object Oriented Analysis and Design
1. What do you mean by analysis and design?
Analysis:
Basically, it is the process of determining what needs to be done before how it should be done. In order to accomplish this, the developer refers the existing systems and documents. So, simply it is an art of discovery.
Design:
It is the process of adopting/choosing the one among the many, which best accomplishes the users needs. So, simply, it is compromising mechanism.
2. What are the steps involved in designing?
Before getting into the design the designer should go through the SRS prepared by the System Analyst. The main tasks of design are Architectural Design and Detailed Design.
In Architectural Design we find what are the main modules in the problem domain.
In Detailed Design we find what should be done within each module.
3. What are the main underlying concepts of object orientation?
Objects, messages, class, inheritance and polymorphism are the main concepts of object orientation.
4. What do u meant by "SBI" of an object?
SBI stands for State, Behavior and Identity. Since every object has the above three.
Ø State:
It is just a value to the attribute of an object at a particular time.
Ø Behaviour:
It describes the actions and their reactions of that object.
Ø Identity:
An object has an identity that characterizes its own existence. The identity makes it possible to distinguish any object in an unambiguous way, and independently from its state.
5. Differentiate persistent and non-persistent objects.
Persistent refers to an object's ability to transcend time or space. A persistent object stores/saves its state in a permanent storage system with out losing the information represented by the object.
A non-persistent object is said to be transient or ephemeral. By default objects are considered as non-persistent.
6. What do you meant by active and passive objects?
Active objects are one which instigate an interaction which owns a thread and they are responsible for handling control to other objects. In simple words it can be referred as client.
Passive objects are one, which passively waits for the message to be processed. It waits for another object that requires its services. In simple words it can be referred as server.
Diagram:
7. What is meant by software development method?
Software development method describes how to model and build software systems in a reliable and reproducible way. To put it simple, methods that are used to represent ones' thinking using graphical notations.
8. What are models and meta models?
Model:
It is a complete description of something (i.e. system).
Meta model:
It describes the model elements, syntax and semantics of the notation that allows their manipulation.
9. What do you meant by static and dynamic modeling?
Static modeling is used to specify structure of the objects that exist in the problem domain. These are expressed using class, object and USECASE diagrams.
But Dynamic modeling refers representing the object interactions during runtime. It is represented by sequence, activity, collaboration and statechart diagrams.
10. How to represent the interaction between the modeling elements?
Model element is just a notation to represent (Graphically) the entities that exist in the problem domain. e.g. for modeling element is class notation, object notation etc.
Relationships are used to represent the interaction between the modeling elements.
The following are the Relationships.
Ø Association: Its' just a semantic connection two classes.
e.g.:
Ø Aggregation: Its' the relationship between two classes which are related in the fashion that master and slave. The master takes full rights than the slave. Since the slave works under the master. It is represented as line with diamond in the master area.
Example:
car contains wheels, etc.
|
Ø Containment: This relationship is applied when the part contained with in the whole part, dies when the whole part dies.
It is represented as darked diamond at the whole part.
Example:
class A{
//some code
};
class B{
A aa; // an object of class A;
// some code for class B;
};
In the above example we see that an object of class A is instantiated with in the class B. So the object class A dies when the object class B dies. We can represent it in a diagram like this:
Ø Generalization: This relationship used when we want represents a class, which captures the common states of objects of different classes. It is represented as arrow line pointed at the class, which has captured the common states.
The above graph depicts the concept of generalization.Since UML is the class which culminates the properties of the other three (i.e. Booch,Rumbaugh,Jacobson).
|
Ø Dependency: It is the relationship between dependent and independent classes. Any change in the independent class will affect the states of the dependent class.
Diagram:
|
11. Why generalization is very strong?
Even though Generalization satisfies Structural, Interface, Behaviour properties. It is mathematically very strong, as it is Antisymmetric and Transitive.
Antisymmetric:
Employee is a person, but not all persons are employees. Mathematically all As’ are B, but all Bs’ not A.
Transitive:
A=>B, B=>c then A=>c.
A. Salesman, B. Employee, C. Person.
Note:
All the other relationships satisfy all the properties like Structural properties, Interface properties, Behaviour properties.
12. Differentiate Aggregation and containment?
Aggregation is the relationship between the whole and a part. We can add/subtract some properties in the part (slave) side. It won't affect the whole part.
Best example is Car, which contains the wheels and some extra parts. Even though the parts are not there we can call it as car.
But, in the case of containment the whole part is affected when the part within that got affected. The human body is an apt example for this relationship. When the whole body dies the parts (heart etc) are died.
13. Can link and Association applied interchangeably?
No, You cannot apply the link and Association interchangeably. Since link is used represent the relationship between the two objects.
But Association is used represent the relationship between the two classes.
|
14. List out some of the object-oriented methodologies.
Ø Object Oriented Development (OOD) (Booch 1991,1994).
Ø Object Oriented Analysis and Design (OOA/D) (Coad and Yourdon 1991).
Ø Object Modelling Techniques (OMT) (Rumbaugh 1991).
Ø Object Oriented Software Engineering (Objectory) (Jacobson 1992).
Ø Object Oriented Analysis (OO (Shlaer and Mellor 1992).
Ø The Fusion Method (Coleman 1991).
15. What is meant by "method-wars"?
Before 1994 there were different methodologies like Rumbaugh, Booch, Jacobson, Meyer etc who followed their own notations to model the systems. The developers were in a dilemma to choose the method which best accomplishes their needs. This particular time-span was called as "method-wars".
16. Whether unified method and unified modeling language are same or different?
Unified method is convergence of the Rumbaugh and Booch. Unified modeling lang. is the fusion of Rumbaugh, Booch and Jacobson as well as Betrand Meyer (whose contribution is "sequence diagram"). Its' the superset of all the methodologies.
17. Who were the three famous amigos and what was their contribution to the object community?
The Three amigos namely,
Ø James Rumbaugh (OMT): A veteran in analysis who came up with an idea about the objects and their Relationships (in particular Associations).
Ø Grady Booch: A veteran in design who came up with an idea about partitioning of systems into subsystems.
Ø Ivar Jacobson (Objectory): The father of USECASES, who described about the user and system interaction.
17. Differentiate the class representation of Booch,Rumbaugh and UML?
If you look at the class representaiton of Rumbaugh and UML, It is some what similar and both are very easy to draw.
Representation:
OMT
ClassName |
| +Public Attribute; #protected Attribute; -private Attribute; |
| +Public Method(); #Protected Method(); -private Method(); |
UML.
ClassName<<actor>> |
| +Public Attribute; #protected Attribute; -private Attribute; classattribute; |
| +Public Method(); #Protected Method(); -private Method(); classmethod(); |
Booch:
In this method classes are represented as "Clouds" which are not very easy to draw as for as the developer's view is concern.
Representation:
18. What is an USECASE?why it is needed?
A Use Case is a description of a set of sequence of actions that a system
performs that yields an observable rsult of value to a particular action.
Simply, in SSAD process <=> In OOAD USECASE. It is represented elliptically.
Representation: 19. Who is an Actor?
An Actor is someone or something that must interact with the system.In addition to that an Actor initiates the process (that is USECASE).
It is represesnted as a stickman like this.
Representation:
|
20. What is guard condition?
Guard condition is one which acts as a firewall. The access from a particular object can be made only when the particular condition is met.
For Example,
here the object on the customer acccess the ATM facility only when the guard condition is met.
21. Differentiate the following notations?
I:
|
II:
In the above I represention Student Class sends message to Course Class
but in the case of second , the data is transfered from student Class to Course Class
22. USECASE is an implementaion independent notation. How will the designer give the implementaion details of a particular USECASE to the programmer?
This can be accompllished by specifying the relationship called "refinement" that talkes about the two different abstraction of the same thing.
For example,
In the above example calculate Pay is an USECASE. It is refined in terms of giving the implementation details. This kind of connection is related by means of “refinement”.
23. Suppose a class acts an Actor in the problem domain,how can i represent it in the
static model?
In this senario you can use “stereotype”.since stereotype is just a string that gives extra semantic to the particular entity/model element.
It is given with in the << >>.
| Class << Actor>> |
| Attributes |
| MemberFunctions |
24. Why does the function arguments are called as "signatures"?
The arguments distinguishes functions with the same name (functional polymorphism). The name alone does not necessarily identify a unique function. However, the name and its arguments (signatures) will uniquely identify a function.
In real life we see suppose,in class there are two guys with same name.but they can be easily identified by their signatures.The same concept is applied here.
For example:
class person
{
public:
char getsex();
void setsex(char);
void setsex(int);
};
In this example we can see that there is a function setsex() with same name but with different signature.
1. Explain the concept of Reentrancy.
It is a useful, memory-saving technique for multiprogrammed timesharing systems. A Reentrant Procedure is one in which multiple users can share a single copy of a program during the same period. Reentrancy has 2 key aspects:
i.) The program code cannot modify itself,
ii.) The local data for each user process must be stored separately.
Thus, the permanent part is the code, and the temporary part is the pointer back to the calling program and local variables used by that program. Each execution instance is called activation. It executes the code in the permanent part, but has its own copy of local variables/parameters. The temporary part associated with each activation is the activation record. Generally, the activation record is kept on the stack.
Note: A reentrant procedure can be interrupted and called by an interrupting program, and still execute correctly on returning to the procedure.
2. Explain Belady's Anomaly.
Also called FIFO anomaly. Usually, on increasing the number of frames allocated to a process' virtual memory, the process execution is faster, because fewer page faults occur. Sometimes, the reverse happens, i.e., the execution time increases even when more frames are allocated to the process. This is Belady's Anomaly. This is true for certain page reference patterns.
3. What is a binary semaphore? What is its use?
A binary semaphore is one, which takes only 0 and 1 as values. They are used to implement mutual exclusion and synchronize concurrent processes.
4. What is thrashing?
It is a phenomenon in virtual memory schemes, when the processor spends most of its time swapping pages, rather than executing instructions. This is due to an inordinate number of page faults.
5. List the Coffman's conditions that lead to a deadlock.
a) Mutual Exclusion: Only one process may use a critical resource at a time.
b) Hold & Wait: A process may be allocated some resources while waiting for others.
c) No Pre-emption: No resource can be forcible removed from a process holding it.
d) Circular Wait: A closed chain of processes exist such that each process holds at least one resource needed by another process in the chain.
6. What are short-, long- and medium-term scheduling?
Long term scheduler determines which programs are admitted to the system for processing. It controls the degree of multiprogramming. Once admitted, a job becomes a process.
Medium term scheduling is part of the swapping function. This relates to processes that are in a blocked or suspended state. They are swapped out of main-memory until they are ready to execute. The swapping-in decision is based on memory-management criteria.
Short term scheduler, also know as a dispatcher executes most frequently, and makes the finest-grained decision of which process should execute next. This scheduler is invoked whenever an event occurs. It may lead to interruption of one process by preemption.
7. What are turnaround time and response time?
Turnaround time is the interval between the submission of a job and its completion. Response time is the interval between submission of a request, and the first response to that request.
8. What are the typical elements of a process image?
a)User data: Modifiable part of user space. May include program data, user stack area, and programs that may be modified.
b) User program: The instructions to be executed.
c) System Stack: Each process has one or more LIFO stacks associated with it. Used to store parameters and calling addresses for procedure and system calls.
d) Process Control Block (PCB): Info needed by the OS to control processes.
9. What is the Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB)?
In a cached system, the base addresses of the last few referenced pages is maintained in registers called the TLB that aids in faster lookup. TLB contains those page-table entries that have been most recently used. Normally, each virtual memory reference causes 2 physical memory accesses-- one to fetch appropriate page-table entry, and one to fetch the desired data. Using TLB in-between, this is reduced to just one physical memory access in cases of TLB-hit.
10. What is the resident set and working set of a process?
Resident set is that portion of the process image that is actually in main-memory at a particular instant. Working set is that subset of resident set that is actually needed for execution. (Relate this to the variable-window size method for swapping techniques.)
11. When is a system in safe state?
The set of dispatchable processes is in a safe state if there exist at least one temporal order in which all processes can be run to completion without resulting in a deadlock.
12. What is cycle stealing?
We encounter cycle stealing in the context of Direct Memory Access (DMA). Either the DMA controller can use the data bus when the CPU does not need it, or it may force the CPU to temporarily suspend operation. The latter technique is called cycle stealing. Note that cycle stealing can be done only at specific break points in an instruction cycle.
13. What is meant by arm-stickiness?
If one or a few processes have a high access rate to data on one track of a storage disk, then they may monopolize the device by repeated requests to that track. This generally happens with most common device scheduling algorithms (LIFO, SSTF, C-SCAN, etc). High-density multi-surface disks are more likely to be affected by this, than the low density ones.
14. What are the stipulations of C2 level security?
C2 level security provides for:
1. Discretionary Access Control
2. Identification and Authentication
3. Auditing
4. Resource Reuse
15. What is busy waiting?
The repeated execution of a loop of code while waiting for an event to occur is called busy-waiting. The CPU is not engaged in any real productive activity during this period, and the process does not progress toward completion.
16. Explain the popular multiprocessor thread-scheduling strategies.
Load Sharing: Processes are not assigned to a particular processor. A global queue of threads is maintained. Each processor, when idle, selects a thread from this queue. Note that load balancing refers to a scheme where work is allocated to processors on a more permanent basis.
Gang Scheduling: A set of related threads is scheduled to run on a set of processors at the same time, on a 1-to-1 basis. Closely related threads / processes may be scheduled this way to reduce synchronization blocking, and minimize process switching. Group scheduling predated this strategy.
Dedicated processor assignment: Provides implicit scheduling defined by assignment of threads to processors. For the duration of program execution, each program is allocated a set of processors equal in number to the number of threads in the program. Processors are chosen from the available pool.
Dynamic scheduling: The number of thread in a program can be altered during the course of execution.
17. When does the condition 'rendezvous' arise?
In message passing, it is the condition in which, both, the sender and receiver are blocked until the message is delivered.
18. What is a trap and trapdoor?
Trapdoor is a secret undocumented entry point into a program, used to grant access without normal methods of access authentication. A trap is a software interrupt, usually the result of an error condition.
19. What are local and global page replacements?
Local replacement means that an incoming page is brought in only to the relevant process' address space. Global replacement policy allows any page frame from any process to be replaced. The latter is applicable to variable partitions model only.
20. Define latency, transfer and seek time with respect to disk I/O.
Seek time is the time required to move the disk arm to the required track. Rotational delay or latency is the time to move the required sector to the disk head. Sums of seek time (if any) and the latency is the access time, for accessing a particular track in a particular sector. Time taken to actually transfer a span of data is transfer time.
1. Describe the Buddy system of memory allocation.
Free memory is maintained in linked lists, each of equal sized blocks. Any such block is of size 2^k. When some memory is required by a process, the block size of next higher order is chosen, and broken into two. Note that the two such pieces differ in address only in their kth bit. Such pieces are called buddies. When any used block is freed, the OS checks to see if its buddy is also free. If so, it is rejoined, and put into the original free-block linked-list.
2. What is time stamping?
It is a technique proposed by Lamport, used to order events in a distributed system without the use of clocks. This scheme is intended to order events consisting of the transmission of messages. Each system 'i' in the network maintains a counter Ci. Every time a system transmits a message, it increments its counter by 1 and attaches the time-stamp Ti to the message. When a message is received, the receiving system 'j' sets its counter Cj to 1 more than the maximum of its current value and the incoming time-stamp Ti. At each site, the ordering of messages is determined by the following rules:
For messages x from site i and messages y from site j, x precedes y if one of the following conditions holds if Ti < Tj or if Ti = Tj and i < j.
3. How are the wait/signal operations for monitor different from those for semaphores?
If a process in the monitor signals and no task is waiting on the condition variable, the signal is lost. So this allows easier program design. Whereas in semaphores, every operation affects the value of the semaphore, so the wait and signal operations should be perfectly balanced in the program.
4. In the context of memory management, what are placement and replacement algorithms?
Placement algorithms determine where in the available main-memory to load the incoming process. Common methods are first-fit, next-fit, and best-fit. Replacement algorithms are used when memory is full, and one process (or part of a process) needs to be swapped out to accommodate the new incoming process. The replacement algorithm determines which are the partitions (memory portions occupied by the processes) to be swapped out.
5. In loading processes into memory, what is the difference between load-time dynamic linking and run-time dynamic linking?
For load-time dynamic linking: Load module to be loaded is read into memory. Any reference to a target external module causes that module to be loaded and the references are updated to a relative address from the start base address of the application module.
With run-time dynamic loading: Some of the linking is postponed until actual reference during execution. Then the correct module is loaded and linked.
6. What are demand- and pre-paging?
With demand paging, a page is brought into the main-memory only when a location on that page is actually referenced during execution. With prepaging, pages other than the one demanded by a page fault are brought in. The selection of such pages is done based on common access patterns, especially for secondary memory devices.
7. What is mounting?
Mounting is the mechanism by which two different file systems can be combined together. This is one of the services provided by the operating system, which allows the user to work with two different file systems, and some of the secondary devices.
8. What do you mean by dispatch latency?
The time taken by the dispatcher to stop one process and start running another process is known as the dispatch latency.
9. What is multi-processing?
The ability of an operating system to use more than one CPU in a single computer system. Symmetrical multiprocessing refers to the OS's ability to assign tasks dynamically to the next available processor, whereas asymmetrical multiprocessing requires that the original program designer choose the processor to use for a given task at the time of writing the program.
10. What is multitasking?
Multitasking is a logical extension of multi-programming. This refers to the simultaneous execution of more than one program, by switching between them, in a single computer system.
11. Define multithreading?
The concurrent processing of several tasks or threads inside the same program or process. Because several tasks can be processed parallely and no tasks have to wait for the another to finish its execution.
12. Define compaction.
Compaction refers to the mechanism of shuffling the memory portions such that all the free portions of the memory can be aligned (or merged) together in a single large block. OS to overcome the problem of fragmentation, either internal or external, performs this mechanism, frequently. Compaction is possible only if relocation is dynamic and done at run-time, and if relocation is static and done at assembly or load-time compaction is not possible.
13. What do you mean by FAT (File Allocation Table)?
A table that indicates the physical location on secondary storage of the space allocated to a file. FAT chains the clusters (group of sectors) to define the contents of the file. FAT allocates clusters to files.
14. What is a Kernel?
Kernel is the nucleus or core of the operating system. This represents small part of the code, which is thought to be the entire operating system, it is most intensively used. Generally, the kernel is maintained permanently in main memory, and other portions of the OS are moved to and from the secondary storage (mostly hard disk).
15. What is memory-mapped I/O?
Memory-mapped I/O, meaning that the communication between the I/O devices and the processor is done through physical memory locations in the address space. Each I/O device will occupy some locations in the I/O address space. I.e., it will respond when those addresses are placed on the bus. The processor can write those locations to send commands and information to the I/O device and read those locations to get information and status from the I/O device. Memory-mapped I/O makes it easy to write device drivers in a high-level language as long as the high-level language can load and store from arbitrary addresses.
16. What are the advantages of threads?
Ø Threads provide parallel processing like processes but they have one important advantage over process, they are much more efficient.
Ø Threads are cheaper to create and destroy because they do not require allocation and de-allocation of a new address space or other process resources.
Ø It is faster to switch between threads. It will be faster since the memory-mapping does not have to be setup and the memory and address translation caches do not have to be violated.
Ø Threads are efficient as they share memory. They do not have to use system calls (which are slower because of context switches) to communicate.
17. What are kernel threads?
The processes that execute in the Kernel-mode that processes are called kernel threads.
18. What are the necessary conditions for deadlock to exist?
Ø Process claims exclusive control for the Resources allocated to them. (Mutual exclusion condition).
Ø Resources cannot be de-allocated until the process completes they are used for its complete execution. (No preemption condition).
Ø A process can hold one resource and wait for other resources to be allocated. (Wait for condition)
Ø Circular wait condition.
19. What are the strategies for dealing with deadlock?
Ø Prevention- Place restrictions on resource requests so that deadlock cannot occur.
Ø Avoidance- Plan ahead so that you never get in to a situation where deadlock is inevitable.
Ø Recovery- when deadlock is identified in the system, it recovers from it by removing some of the causes of the deadlock.
Ø Detection – detecting whether the deadlock actually exists and identifies the processes and resources that are involved in the deadlock.
20. Paging a memory management function, while multiprogramming a processor management function, are the two interdependent?
Yes.
21. What is page cannibalizing?
Page swapping or page replacements are called page cannibalizing.
22. What has triggered the need for multitasking in PCs?
Ø Increased speed and memory capacity of microprocessors together with the support fir virtual memory and
Ø Growth of client server computing
23. What are the four layers that Windows NT have in order to achieve independence?
Ø Hardware abstraction layer
Ø Kernel
Ø Subsystems
Ø System Services.
24. What is SMP?
To achieve maximum efficiency and reliability a mode of operation known as symmetric multiprocessing is used. In essence, with SMP any process or threads can be assigned to any processor.
25. What are the key object oriented concepts used by Windows NT?
Ø Encapsulation
Ø Object class and instance
26. Is Windows NT a full blown object oriented operating system? Give reasons.
No Windows NT is not so, because its not implemented in object oriented language and the data structures reside within one executive component and are not represented as objects and it does not support object oriented capabilities .
47. What is a drawback of MVT?
It does not have the features like
Ø ability to support multiple processors
Ø virtual storage
Ø source level debugging
48. What is process spawning?
When the OS at the explicit request of another process creates a process, this action is called process spawning.
49. How many jobs can be run concurrently on MVT?
15 jobs
50. List out some reasons for process termination.
Ø Normal completion
Ø Time limit exceeded
Ø Memory unavailable
Ø Bounds violation
Ø Protection error
Ø Arithmetic error
Ø Time overrun
Ø I/O failure
Ø Invalid instruction
Ø Privileged instruction
Ø Data misuse
Ø Operator or OS intervention
Ø Parent termination.
51. What are the reasons for process suspension?
Ø swapping
Ø interactive user request
Ø timing
Ø parent process request
52. What is process migration?
It is the transfer of sufficient amount of the state of process from one machine to the target machine
53. What is mutant?
In Windows NT a mutant provides kernel mode or user mode mutual exclusion with the notion of ownership.
54. What is an idle thread?
The special thread a dispatcher will execute when no ready thread is found.
55. What is FtDisk?
It is a fault tolerance disk driver for Windows NT.
56. What are the possible threads a thread can have?
Ø Ready
Ø Standby
Ø Running
Ø Waiting
Ø Transition
Ø Terminated.
57. What are rings in Windows NT?
Windows NT uses protection mechanism called rings provides by the process to implement separation between the user mode and kernel mode.
58. What is Executive in Windows NT?
In Windows NT, executive refers to the operating system code that runs in kernel mode.
59. What are the sub-components of I/O manager in Windows NT?
Ø Network redirector/ Server
Ø Cache manager.
Ø File systems
Ø Network driver
Ø Device driver
60. What are DDks? Name an operating system that includes this feature.
DDks are device driver kits, which are equivalent to SDKs for writing device drivers. Windows NT includes DDks.
61. What level of security does Windows NT meets?
C2 level security.
| |||
| |||
Section - I - File Management In Unix
1. What are the logical blocks of the UNIX file system?
Ø Boot block
Ø Super block
Ø Inode block
Ø Data block
2. What is an 'inode'?
All UNIX files have its description stored in a structure called 'inode'. The inode contains info about the file-size, its location, time of last access, time of last modification, permission and so on. Directories are also represented as files and have an associated inode. In addition to descriptions about the file, the inode contains pointers to the data blocks of the file. If the file is large, inode has indirect pointer to a block of pointers to additional data blocks (this further aggregates for larger files). A block is typically 8k.
Inode consists of the following fields:
Ø File owner identifier
Ø File type
Ø File access permissions
Ø File access times
Ø Number of links
Ø File size
Ø Location of the file data
3. How does the inode map to data block of a file?
Inode has 13 block addresses. The first 10 are direct block addresses and these addresses point to first 10 data blocks in the file.
The 11th address points to a one-level index block.
The 12th address points to a two-level (double in-direction) index block. The 13th address points to a three-level (triple in-direction) index block.
This mapping scheme provides a very large maximum file size with efficient access to large files, still small files are accessed directly in one disk read.
4. Brief about the directory representation in UNIX
A UNIX directory is a file containing a correspondence between filenames and inodes. A directory is a special file that the kernel maintains. Only kernel modifies directories, but processes can read directories. The contents of a directory are a list of filename and inode number pairs. When new directories are created, kernel makes two entries named '.' (refers to the directory itself) and '..' (refers to parent directory).
The system call for creating a new directory is mkdir (pathname, mode).
5. How are devices represented in UNIX?
All devices are represented by files that are called as special files. They are are located in ‘/dev’ directory. Thus, device files and other files are named and accessed in the same way.
There are two types of such special files: 'block special files' and 'character special files'. A 'block special file' represents a device with characteristics similar to a disk (data transfer in terms of blocks). A 'character special file' represents a device with characteristics similar to a keyboard (data transfer is by stream of bits in sequential order).
6. What are the Unix system calls for I/O?
Ø open(pathname,flag,mode) - open file
Ø creat(pathname,mode) - create file
Ø close(filedes) - close an open file
Ø read(filedes,buffer,bytes) - read data from an open file
Ø write(filedes,buffer,bytes) - write data to an open file
Ø lseek(filedes,offset,from) - position an open file
Ø dup(filedes) - duplicate an existing file descriptor
Ø dup2(oldfd,newfd) - duplicate to a desired file descriptor
Ø fcntl(filedes,cmd,arg) - change properties of an open file
Ø ioctl(filedes,request,arg) - change the behaviour of an open file
The difference between fcntl anf ioctl is that the former is intended for any open file, while the latter is for device-specific operations.
7. How do you change File Access Permissions?
Every file has following attributes:
Ø owner's user ID ( 16 bit integer )
Ø owner's group ID ( 16 bit integer )
Ø File access mode word
'r w x - r w x - r w x'
(user permission - group permission - others permission)
r-read, w-write, x-execute.
To change the access mode, we use chmod(filename,mode).
Example 1:
To change mode of myfile to 'rw-rw-r--' (ie. read, write permission for user - read,write permission for group - only read permission for others) we give the args as:
chmod(myfile,0664) .
Each operation is represented by discrete values
'r' is 4
'w' is 2
'x' is 1
Therefore, for 'rw' the value is 6(4+2).
Example 2:
To change mode of myfile to 'rwxr--r--' we give the args as:
chmod(myfile,0744).
8. What are links and symbolic links in UNIX file system?
A link is a second name for a file. Links can be used to assign more than one name to a file, but they cannot be used to assign a directory more than one name or to link filenames on different computers.
Symbolic link 'is' a file that only contains the name of another file. Operation on the symbolic link is directed to the file pointed by the it. Both the limitations of links are eliminated in symbolic links.
Commands for linking files are:
Link ln filename1 filename2
Symbolic link ln -s filename1 filename2
9. What is a FIFO?
FIFO are otherwise called as 'named pipes'. FIFO (first-in-first-out) is a special file that is said to be ‘data transient’. Once data is read from named pipe, it cannot be read again. Also, data can be read only in the order written. It is used in interprocess communication where a process writes to one end of the pipe (producer) and the other reads from the other end (consumer).
10. How do you create special files like named pipes and device files?
The system call mknod creates special files in the following sequence:
1. kernel assigns new inode,
2. sets the file type to indicate that the file is a pipe, directory or special file,
3. If it is a device file, it makes the other entries like major, minor device numbers.
For example: If the device is a disk, major device number refers to the disk controller and minor device number refers the disk.
11. Discuss the mount and unmount system calls
The privileged mount system call is used to attach a file system to a directory of another file system; the unmount system call detaches a file system. When you mount another file system on to your directory, you are essentially splicing one directory tree onto a branch in another directory tree. The first argument to mount call is the mount point, that is, a directory in the current file naming system. The second argument is the file system to mount to that point. When you insert a cdrom to your Unix system's drive, the file system in the cdrom automatically mounts to /dev/cdrom in your system.
12. What are surrogate super blocks and surrogate inode tables?
Whenever we use any file or change its permissions, these changes should be made on the disk; but this can be time consuming. Hence a copy of the super block and an inode table is maintained in the RAM that are called as the surrogate super blocks and inode tables respectively.
The ‘sync’ command synchronizes the inode table in the memory with the one on the disk by simply overwriting the memory copy on to the disk.
13. Assuming the block size to be 1KB calculate the maximum size of a file in the Unix file system.
The first 10 data block pointers can point to 10 data blocks each of size 1 KB .
The 11 th pointer points to a table of block pointers the table has 256 pointers each pointing to data block of size 1 KB. Similarly the 12 th pointer can address
(256 X 256KB) i.e. 64 MB and the 13 th pointer (256 X 64 MB) => 16 GB. Hence the maximum size of the file is 10 KB + 256 KB + 64 MB + 16 GB.
14. What are the uses of these disk related commands: df, dfspace, du and ulimit?
$ df - reports the free as well as used disk space,
$ dfspace - same as df but is more explanatory,
$ du - shows the disk space used by a specified file,
No comments:
Post a Comment