Basic Java Interview Questions

Q1. Explain JDK, JRE and JVM?

JDK vs JRE vs JVM

JDK JRE JVM

It stands for Java Development It stands for Java Runtime

It stands for Java Virtual Machine.
Kit. Environment.

It is the tool necessary to JRE refers to a runtime It is an abstract machine. It is a specification

compile, document and environment in which Java that provides a run-time environment in
package Java programs. bytecode can be executed. which Java bytecode can be executed.

JVM follows three notations:

It contains JRE + development It’s an implementation of the
Specification, Implementation, and Runtime
tools. JVM which physically exists.
Instance.

Q2. Explain public static void main(String args[ ]) in Java.

main() in Java is the entry point for any Java program. It is always written as public static void main(String[ ]
args).

 public: Public is an access modifier, which is used to specify who can access this method. Public
means that this Method will be accessible by any Class.
 static: It is a keyword in java which identifies it is class-based. main() is made static in Java so that it
can be accessed without creating the instance of a Class. In case, main is not made static then the
compiler will throw an error as main() is called by the JVM before any objects are made and only static
methods can be directly invoked via the class.
 void: It is the return type of the method. Void defines the method which will not return any value.
 main: It is the name of the method which is searched by JVM as a starting point for an application with
a particular signature only. It is the method where the main execution occurs.
 String args[]: It is the parameter passed to the main method.

Q3. Why Java is platform independent?

Java is called platform independent because of its byte codes which can run on any system irrespective of its
underlying operating system.

Q4. Why Java is not 100% Object-oriented?

Java is not 100% Object-oriented because it makes use of eight primitive data types such as boolean, byte,
char, int, float, double, long, short which are not objects.

Q5. What are wrapper classes in Java?

Wrapper classes convert the Java primitives into the reference types (objects). Every primitive data type has a
class dedicated to it. These are known as wrapper classes because they “wrap” the primitive data type into an
object of that class. Refer to the below image which displays different primitive type, wrapper class and
constructor argument.

Q6. What are constructors in Java?

In Java, constructor refers to a block of code which is used to initialize an object. It must have the same name
as that of the class. Also, it has no return type and it is automatically called when an object is created.

There are two types of constructors:

 1. Default Constructor: In Java, a default constructor is the one which does not take any inputs. In other
words, default constructors are the no argument constructors which will be created by default in case
you no other constructor is defined by the user. Its main purpose is to initialize the instance variables
with the default values. Also, it is majorly used for object creation.
2. Parameterized Constructor: The parameterized constructor in Java, is the constructor which is
capable of initializing the instance variables with the provided values. In other words, the constructors
which take the arguments are called parameterized constructors.

Q7. What is singleton class in Java and how can we make a class singleton?
Singleton class is a class whose only one instance can be created at any given time, in one JVM. A class can
be made singleton by making its constructor private.

Q8. What is the difference between Array list and vector in Java?
Array List Vector

Array List is not synchronized. Vector is synchronized.

Array List is fast as it’s non-synchronized. Vector is slow as it is thread safe.

If an element is inserted into the Array List, it

Vector defaults to doubling size of its array.
increases its Array size by 50%.

Array List does not define the increment size. Vector defines the increment size.

Array List can only use Iterator for traversing an Vector can use both Enumeration and Iterator for
Array List. traversing.

Q9. What is the difference between equals() and == in Java?

Equals() method is defined in Object class in Java and used for checking equality of two objects defined by
business logic.

“==” or equality operator in Java is a binary operator provided by Java programming language and used to
compare primitives and objects. public Boolean equals(Object o) is the method provided by the Object class.
The default implementation uses == operator to compare two objects. For example: method can be overridden
like String class. equals() method is used to compare the values of two objects.

Q10. What are the differences between Heap and Stack Memory in Java?
The major difference between Heap and Stack memory are:

Features Stack Heap

Stack memory is used only by one thread Heap memory is used by all the parts of the
Memory
of execution. application.

Stack memory can’t be accessed by other Objects stored in the heap are globally
Access
threads. accessible.

Memory Memory management is based on the

Follows LIFO manner to free memory.
Management generation associated with each object.

Exists until the end of execution of the Heap memory lives from the start till the end of
Lifetime
thread. application execution.

Stack memory only contains local Whenever an object is created, it’s always
Usage
primitive and reference variables to stored in the Heap space.
 objects in heap space.

Q11. What is a package in Java? List down various advantages of packages.

Packages in Java, are the collection of related classes and interfaces which are bundled together. By using
packages, developers can easily modularize the code and optimize its reuse. Also, the code within the
packages can be imported by other classes and reused. Below I have listed down a few of its advantages:

 Packages help in avoiding name clashes

 They provide easier access control on the code
 Packages can also contain hidden classes which are not visible to the outer classes and only used
within the package
 Creates a proper hierarchical structure which makes it easier to locate the related classes

Q12. Why pointers are not used in Java?

Java doesn’t use pointers because they are unsafe and increases the complexity of the program. Since, Java
is known for its simplicity of code, adding the concept of pointers will be contradicting. Moreover, since JVM is
responsible for implicit memory allocation, thus in order to avoid direct access to memory by the user, pointers
are discouraged in Java.

Q13. What is JIT compiler in Java?

JIT stands for Just-In-Time compiler in Java. It is a program that helps in converting the Java bytecode into
instructions that are sent directly to the processor. By default, the JIT compiler is enabled in Java and is
activated whenever a Java method is invoked. The JIT compiler then compiles the bytecode of the invoked
method into native machine code, compiling it “just in time” to execute. Once the method has been compiled,
the JVM summons the compiled code of that method directly rather than interpreting it. This is why it is often
responsible for the performance optimization of Java applications at the run time.

Q14. What are access modifiers in Java?

In Java, access modifiers are special keywords which are used to restrict the access of a class, constructor,
data member and method in another class. Java supports four types of access modifiers:

1. Default
2. Private
3. Protected
4. Public

Modifier Default Private Protected Public

Same class YES YES YES YES

Same Package subclass YES NO YES YES

Same Package non-subclass YES NO YES YES

Different package subclass NO NO YES YES

Different package non-subclass NO NO NO YES

Q15. Define a Java Class.

A class in Java is a blueprint which includes all your data. A class contains fields (variables) and methods to
describe the behavior of an object. Let’s have a look at the syntax of a class.
 1 class Abc {

2 member variables // class body

3 methods}
Q16. What is an object in Java and how is it created?
An object is a real-world entity that has a state and behavior. An object has three characteristics:

1. State
2. Behavior
3. Identity

An object is created using the ‘new’ keyword. For example:

ClassName obj = new ClassName();

Q17. What is Object Oriented Programming?

Object-oriented programming or popularly known as OOPs is a programming model or approach where the
programs are organized around objects rather than logic and functions. In other words, OOP mainly focuses on
the objects that are required to be manipulated instead of logic. This approach is ideal for the programs large
and complex codes and needs to be actively updated or maintained.

Q18. What are the main concepts of OOPs in Java?

Object-Oriented Programming or OOPs is a programming style that is associated with concepts like:

1. Inheritance: Inheritance is a process where one class acquires the properties of another.
2. Encapsulation: Encapsulation in Java is a mechanism of wrapping up the data and code together as a
single unit.
3. Abstraction: Abstraction is the methodology of hiding the implementation details from the user and only
providing the functionality to the users.
4. Polymorphism: Polymorphism is the ability of a variable, function or object to take multiple forms.

Q19. What is the difference between a local variable and an instance variable?
In Java, a local variable is typically used inside a method, constructor, or a block and has only local scope.
Thus, this variable can be used only within the scope of a block. The best benefit of having a local variable is
that other methods in the class won’t be even aware of that variable.

Example

1 if(x > 100)

2{

3 String test = "Edureka";

4 }

Whereas, an instance variable in Java, is a variable which is bounded to its object itself. These variables are
declared within a class, but outside a method. Every object of that class will create it’s own copy of the
variable while using it. Thus, any changes made to the variable won’t reflect in any other instances of that class
and will be bound to that particular instance only.

1 class Test{
2 public String EmpName;

3 public int empAge;

4 }

Q20. Differentiate between the constructors and methods in Java?

Methods Constructors

1. Used to represent the behavior of an object 1. Used to initialize the state of an object

2. Must have a return type 2. Do not have any return type

3. Needs to be invoked explicitly 3. Is invoked implicitly

4. No default method is provided by the compiler 4. A default constructor is provided by the compiler if the
class has none

5. Method name may or may not be same as class name 5. Constructor name must always be the same as
the class name

Q21. What is final keyword in Java?

final is a special keyword in Java that is used as a non-access modifier. A final variable can be used in
different contexts such as:

 final variable

When the final keyword is used with a variable then its value can’t be changed once assigned. In case the no
value has been assigned to the final variable then using only the class constructor a value can be assigned to
it.

 final method

When a method is declared final then it can’t be overridden by the inheriting class.

 final class

When a class is declared as final in Java, it can’t be extended by any subclass class but it can extend other
class.

Q22. What is the difference between break and continue statements?

break continue
1. Can be used in switch and loop (for, while,
1. Can be only used with loop statements
do while) statements

2. It causes the switch or loop statements to 2. It doesn’t terminate the loop but causes the loop to jump to
terminate the moment it is executed the next iteration

3. It terminates the innermost enclosing loop 3. A continue within a loop nested with a switch will cause the
or switch immediately next loop iteration to execute

Example break:

1 for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)

2 {

3 if (i == 3)

4 {

5 break;

6 }

7 System.out.println(i);

8 }

Example continue:

1 for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)

2 {

3 if (i == 2)

4 {

5 continue;

6 }

7 System.out.println(i);

8 }

Q23.What is an infinite loop in Java? Explain with an example.

An infinite loop is an instruction sequence in Java that loops endlessly when a functional exit isn’t met. This
type of loop can be the result of a programming error or may also be a deliberate action based on the
application behavior. An infinite loop will terminate automatically once the application exits.

For example:

1 public class InfiniteForLoopDemo

2 {
3 public static void main(String[] arg) {

4 for(;;)

5 System.out.println("Welcome to Edureka!");

6 // To terminate this program press ctrl + c in the console.

7 }

8 }

Q24. What is the difference between this() and super() in Java?

In Java, super() and this(), both are special keywords that are used to call the constructor.

this() super()

1. super() represents the current instance of a

1. this() represents the current instance of a class
parent/base class

2. Used to call the default constructor of the same 2. Used to call the default constructor of the
class parent/base class

3. Used to access methods of the current class 3. Used to access methods of the base class

4. Used for pointing the current class instance 4. Used for pointing the superclass instance

5. Must be the first line of a block 5. Must be the first line of a block

Q25. What is Java String Pool?

Java String pool refers to a collection of Strings which are stored in heap memory. In this, whenever a new
object is created, String pool first checks whether the object is already present in the pool or not. If it is present,
then the same reference is returned to the variable else new object will be created in the String pool and the
respective reference will be returned.

Q26. Differentiate between static and non-static methods in Java.

Static Method Non-Static Method

1. The static keyword must be used before the method 1. No need to use the static keyword before the
name method name

2. It is called using the class (className.methodName) 2. It is can be called like any general method

3. They can’t access any non-static instance variables 3. It can access any static method and any static
or methods variable without creating an instance of the class

Q27. What is constructor chaining in Java?

In Java, constructor chaining is the process of calling one constructor from another with respect to the current
object. Constructor chaining is possible only through legacy where a subclass constructor is responsible for
invoking the superclass’ constructor first. There could be any number of classes in the constructor chain.
Constructor chaining can be achieved in two ways:

1. Within the same class using this()

2. From base class using super()

Q28. Difference between String, String Builder, and String Buffer.

Factor String String Builder String Buffer

Storage Area Constant String Pool Heap Area Heap Area

Mutability Immutable Mutable Mutable

Thread Safety Yes Yes No

Performance Fast Slow Fast

Q29. What is a class loader in Java?

The Java Class Loader is a subset of JVM (Java Virtual Machine) that is responsible for loading the class
files. Whenever a Java program is executed it is first loaded by the class loader. Java provides three built-in
class loaders:

1. Bootstrap Class Loader

2. Extension Class Loader
3. System/Application Class Loader

Q30. Why Java Strings are immutable in nature?

In Java, string objects are immutable in nature which simply means once the String object is created its state
cannot be modified. Whenever you try to update the value of that object instead of updating the values of that
particular object, Java creates a new string object. Java String objects are immutable as String objects are
generally cached in the String pool. Since String literals are usually shared between multiple clients, action
from one client might affect the rest. It enhances security, caching, synchronization, and performance of the
application.

Q31. What is the difference between an array and an array list?

Array Array List

Cannot contain values of different data types Can contain values of different data types.

Size must be defined at the time of declaration Size can be dynamically changed
 Need to specify the index in order to add data No need to specify the index

Arrays are not type parameterized Array lists are type

Arrays can contain primitive data types as well as Array lists can contain only objects, no primitive data
objects types are allowed

Q32. What is a Map in Java?

In Java, Map is an interface of Util package which maps unique keys to values. The Map interface is not a
subset of the main Collection interface and thus it behaves little different from the other collection types. Below
are a few of the characteristics of Map interface:

1. Map doesn’t contain duplicate keys.

2. Each key can map at max one value.

Q33. What is collection class in Java? List down its methods and interfaces.
In Java, the collection is a framework that acts as an architecture for storing and manipulating a group of
objects. Using Collections you can perform various tasks like searching, sorting, insertion, manipulation,
deletion, etc. Java collection framework includes the following:

 Interfaces
 Classes
 Methods

The below image shows the complete hierarchy of the Java Collection.
In case you are facing any challenges with these java interview questions, please comment on your problems
in the section below.

OOPS Java Interview Questions

Q1. What is Polymorphism?
Polymorphism is briefly described as “one interface, many implementations”. Polymorphism is a characteristic
of being able to assign a different meaning or usage to something in different contexts – specifically, to allow
an entity such as a variable, a function, or an object to have more than one form. There are two types of

polymorphism:

1. Compile time polymorphism

2. Run time polymorphism

Compile time polymorphism is method overloading whereas Runtime time polymorphism is done using
inheritance and interface.

Q2. What is runtime polymorphism or dynamic method dispatch?

In Java, runtime polymorphism or dynamic method dispatch is a process in which a call to an overridden
method is resolved at runtime rather than at compile-time. In this process, an overridden method is called
through the reference variable of a superclass. Let’s take a look at the example below to understand it better.

1. class Car {
2. void run()
3. {
4. System.out.println(&ldquo;car is running&rdquo;);
5. }
6. }
7. class Audi extends Car {
8. void run()
9. {
10. System.out.prinltn(&ldquo;Audi is running safely with 100km&rdquo;);
11. }
12. public static void main(String args[])
13. {
14. Car b= new Audi(); //upcasting
15. b.run();
16. }
17. }

Q3. What is abstraction in Java?

Abstraction refers to the quality of dealing with ideas rather than events. It basically deals with hiding the
details and showing the essential things to the user. Thus you can say that abstraction in Java is the process
of hiding the implementation details from the user and revealing only the functionality to them. Abstraction can
be achieved in two ways:

1. Abstract Classes (0-100% of abstraction can be achieved)

2. Interfaces (100% of abstraction can be achieved)
Q4. What do you mean by an interface in Java?
An interface in Java is a blueprint of a class or you can say it is a collection of abstract methods and static
constants. In an interface, each method is public and abstract but it does not contain any constructor. Thus,
interface basically is a group of related methods with empty bodies. Example:

public interface Animal {

public void eat();

public void sleep();

public void run();

Q5. What is the difference between abstract classes and interfaces?

Abstract Class Interfaces

An abstract class can provide complete, default code An interface cannot provide any code at all, just the
and/or just the details that have to be overridden signature

In the case of an abstract class, a class may extend

A Class may implement several interfaces
only one abstract class

An abstract class can have non-abstract methods All methods of an Interface are abstract

An abstract class can have instance variables An Interface cannot have instance variables

An abstract class can have any visibility: public,

An Interface visibility must be public (or) none
private, protected

If we add a new method to an abstract class then we

If we add a new method to an Interface then we have to
have the option of providing default implementation
track down all the implementations of the interface and
and therefore all the existing code might work
define implementation for the new method
properly

An abstract class can contain constructors An Interface cannot contain constructors

Interfaces are slow as it requires extra indirection to find

Abstract classes are fast
the corresponding method in the actual class

Q6. What is inheritance in Java?

Inheritance in Java is the concept where the properties of one class can be inherited by the other. It helps to
reuse the code and establish a relationship between different classes. Inheritance is performed between two
types of classes:

1. Parent class (Super or Base class)

2. Child class (Subclass or Derived class)

A class which inherits the properties is known as Child Class whereas a class whose properties are inherited is
known as Parent class.
Q7. What are the different types of inheritance in Java?
Java supports four types of inheritance which are:

1. Single Inheritance: In single inheritance, one class inherits the properties of another i.e there will be
only one parent as well as one child class.
2. Multilevel Inheritance: When a class is derived from a class which is also derived from another class,
i.e. a class having more than one parent class but at different levels, such type of inheritance is called
Multilevel Inheritance.
3. Hierarchical Inheritance: When a class has more than one child classes (subclasses) or in other
words, more than one child classes have the same parent class, then such kind of inheritance is known
as hierarchical.
4. Hybrid Inheritance: Hybrid inheritance is a combination of two or more types of inheritance.

Q8. What is method overloading and method overriding?

Method Overloading :

 In Method Overloading, Methods of the same class shares the same name but each method must have
a different number of parameters or parameters having different types and order.
 Method Overloading is to “add” or “extend” more to the method’s behavior.
 It is a compile-time polymorphism.
 The methods must have a different signature.
 It may or may not need inheritance in Method Overloading.

Let’s take a look at the example below to understand it better.

1. class Adder {
2. Static int add(int a, int b)
3. {
4. return a+b;
5. }
6. Static double add( double a, double b)
7. {
8. return a+b;
9. }
10. public static void main(String args[])
11. {
12. System.out.println(Adder.add(11,11));
13. System.out.println(Adder.add(12.3,12.6));
14. }}

Method Overriding:

 In Method Overriding, the subclass has the same method with the same name and exactly the same
number and type of parameters and same return type as a superclass.
 Method Overriding is to “Change” existing behavior of the method.
 It is a run time polymorphism.
 The methods must have the same signature.
 It always requires inheritance in Method Overriding.

Let’s take a look at the example below to understand it better.

1. class Car {
2. void run(){
3. System.out.println(&ldquo;car is running&rdquo;);
4. }
5. Class Audi extends Car{
 6. void run()
7. {
8. System.out.prinltn("Audi is running safely with 100km");
9. }
10. public static void main( String args[])
11. {
12. Car b=new Audi();
13. b.run();
14. }
15. }

Q9. Can you override a private or static method in Java?

You cannot override a private or static method in Java. If you create a similar method with the same return type
and same method arguments in child class then it will hide the superclass method; this is known as method
hiding. Similarly, you cannot override a private method in subclass because it’s not accessible there. What you
can do is create another private method with the same name in the child class. Let’s take a look at the example
below to understand it better.

1. class Base {
2. private static void display() {
3. System.out.println("Static or class method from Base");
4. }
5. public void print() {
6. System.out.println("Non-static or instance method from Base");
7. }
8. class Derived extends Base {
9. private static void display() {
10. System.out.println("Static or class method from Derived");
11. }
12. public void print() {
13. System.out.println("Non-static or instance method from Derived");
14. }
15. public class test {
16. public static void main(String args[])
17. {
18. Base obj= new Derived();
19. obj1.display();
20. obj1.print();
21. }
22. }

Q10. What is multiple inheritance? Is it supported by Java?

If a child class inherits the property from multiple classes is known as multiple inheritance. Java does not allow
to extend multiple classes.
The problem with multiple inheritance is that if multiple parent classes have the same method name, then at
runtime it becomes difficult for the compiler to decide which method to execute from the child class.

Therefore, Java doesn’t support multiple inheritance. The problem is commonly referred to as Diamond
Problem.

Q11. What is encapsulation in Java?

Encapsulation is a mechanism where you bind your data(variables) and code(methods) together as a single
unit. Here, the data is hidden from the outer world and can be accessed only via current class methods. This
helps in protecting the data from any unnecessary modification. We can achieve encapsulation in Java by:

 Declaring the variables of a class as private.

 Providing public setter and getter methods to modify and view the values of the variables.

Q12. What is an association?

Association is a relationship where all object have their own lifecycle and there is no owner. Let’s take the
example of Teacher and Student. Multiple students can associate with a single teacher and a single student
can associate with multiple teachers but there is no ownership between the objects and both have their own
lifecycle. These relationships can be one to one, one to many, many to one and many to many.

Q13. What do you mean by aggregation?

An aggregation is a specialized form of Association where all object has their own lifecycle but there is
ownership and child object can not belong to another parent object. Let’s take an example of Department and
teacher. A single teacher can not belong to multiple departments, but if we delete the department teacher
object will not destroy.

Q14. What is composition in Java?

Composition is again a specialized form of Aggregation and we can call this as a “death” relationship. It is a
strong type of Aggregation. Child object does not have their lifecycle and if parent object deletes all child object
will also be deleted. Let’s take again an example of a relationship between House and rooms. House can
contain multiple rooms there is no independent life of room and any room can not belongs to two different
houses if we delete the house room will automatically delete.

Q15. What is a marker interface?

A Marker interface can be defined as the interface having no data member and member functions. In simpler
terms, an empty interface is called the Marker interface. The most common examples of Marker interface in
Java are Serializable, Cloneable etc. The marker interface can be declared as follows.

1. public interface Serializable{

2. }

Q16. What is object cloning in Java?

Object cloning in Java is the process of creating an exact copy of an object. It basically means the ability to
create an object with a similar state as the original object. To achieve this, Java provides a method clone() to
make use of this functionality. This method creates a new instance of the class of the current object and then
initializes all its fields with the exact same contents of corresponding fields. To object clone(), the marker
interface java.lang.Cloneable must be implemented to avoid any runtime exceptions. One thing you must note
is Object clone() is a protected method, thus you need to override it.
Q17. What is a copy constructor in Java?
Copy constructor is a member function that is used to initialize an object using another object of the same
class. Though there is no need for copy constructor in Java since all objects are passed by reference.
Moreover, Java does not even support automatic pass-by-value.

Q18. What is a constructor overloading in Java?

In Java, constructor overloading is a technique of adding any number of constructors to a class each having a
different parameter list. The compiler uses the number of parameters and their types in the list to differentiate
the overloaded constructors.

1. class Demo
2. {
3. int i;
4. public Demo(int a)
5. {
6. i=k;
7. }
8. public Demo(int a, int b)
9. {
10. //body
11. }

1. Is String keyword in Java?

NO. String is not a Java reserved keyword. It is a derived type data type i.e. class.

StringExample.java
public class StringExample
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
Integer String = 10;

System.out.println(String); //Prints 10
}
}

2. Why strings are immutable?

We all know that strings in java are immutable. If you want to know, what immutability is and how it is
achieved? follow this post: How to make a java class immutable?

Here the question is WHY? Why immutable? Let’s analyze.

1. The very first reason i can think of is performance increase. Java language was developed to
speed up the application development as it was not that much fast in previous languages. JVM
designers must have been smart enough to identify that real-world applications will consist of
mostly Strings in form of labels, messages, configuration, output and such numerous ways.

Seeing such overuse, they imagined how dangerous can be string’s improper use. So they came
up with a concept of String pool (next section). String pool is nothing but a collection of some
strings mostly unique. The very basic idea behind String pool is to reuse string once created.
This way if a particular string is created 20 times in code, application end up having only one
instance.

2. Second reason I see as security considerations. Strings are most used parameter type in each
aspect of java programming. Be it loading a driver or open a URL connection, you need to pass
the information as parameter in form of string. If strings have not been final then they have
opened up a Pandora box of security issues.All of us must have gone though interview
questions related to String class in java. These questions range from immutability to memory
leak issues. I will try to cover such questions in this post.

Apart from the above two reasons, I didn’t find any convincing answer to this question. If you any
something appealing, please share with me.

3. String pool concept

String pool is a special memory area separate from regular heap memory where these string
constants are stored. These objects are referred string variables during the life cycle of the application.

In Java, String can be created in many ways. Let’s understand them:

1) String assignment

String str = "abc";

Above code causes JVM to verify if there is already a string “abc” (same char sequence). If such string
exists, JVM simply assigns the reference of the existing object to variable str, otherwise, a new object
“abc” will be created and its reference will be assigned to variable str.
2) Using new keyword

String str = new String("abc");

This version end up creating two objects in memory. One object in string pool having char
sequence “abc” and second in heap memory referred by variable str and having same char sequence
as “abc”.

As java docs says : Unless an explicit copy of original is needed, use of this constructor is
unnecessary since Strings are immutable.

4. Keyword ‘intern’ usage

This is best described by java docs:

When the intern() method is invoked, if the pool already contains a string equal to
this String object as determined by the equals(Object) method, then the string from the pool is
returned. Otherwise, this String object is added to the pool and a reference to this String object is
returned.

String str = new String("abc");

str.intern();
It follows that for any two strings s and t, s.intern() == t.intern() is true if and only
if s.equals(t) is true. Means if s and t both are different string objects and have same character
sequence, then calling intern() on both will result in single string pool literal referred by both
variables.

5. Matching Regular expressions

Not so secret but useful feature if you still have not explored it. You must have seen usage
of Pattern and Matcher for regular expression matching. String class provides its own shortcut. Use it
directly. This method also uses Pattern.matches() inside function definition.

String str = new String("abc");

str.matches("<regex>");

6. String comparison with equals() and ‘==’

Another favorite area in interviews. There are generally two ways to compare objects

 Using == operator
 Using equals() method

== operator compare for object references i.e. memory address equality. So if two string objects are
referring to same literal in string pool or same string object in heap then s==t will return true,
else false.
equals() method is overridden in String class and it verify the char sequences hold by string
objects. If they store the same char sequence, the s.equals(t) will return true, else false.

7. Memory leak issue

Till now we have gone through basic stuff. Now something serious. Have you tried creating substrings
from a string object? I bet, Yes. Do you know the internals of substring in java? How they create
memory leaks?

Substrings in Java are created using method substring(int beginIndex) and some other overloaded
forms of this method. All these methods create a new String object and update the offset and count
variable which we saw at the start of this article.

The original value[] is unchanged. Thus if you create a string with 10000 chars and create 100 substrings
with 5-10 chars in each, all 101 objects will have the same char array of size 10000 chars. It is memory
wastage without any doubt.

Let see this using a program:

import java.lang.reflect.Field;
import java.util.Arrays;

public class SubStringTest {

public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception
{
//Our main String
String mainString = "i_love_java";
//Substring holds value 'java'
String subString = mainString.substring(7);

System.out.println(mainString);
System.out.println(subString);

//Lets see what's inside mainString

Field innerCharArray = String.class.getDeclaredField("value");
innerCharArray.setAccessible(true);
char[] chars = (char[]) innerCharArray.get(mainString);
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(chars));

//Now peek inside subString

chars = (char[]) innerCharArray.get(subString);
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(chars));
}
}

Output:

i_love_java
java
[i, _, l, o, v, e, _, j, a, v, a]
[i, _, l, o, v, e, _, j, a, v, a]
Clearly, both objects have the same char array stored while subString need only four characters.
Let’s solve this issue using our own code:

import java.lang.reflect.Field;
import java.util.Arrays;

public class SubStringTest

{
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception
{
//Our main String
String mainString = "i_love_java";
//Substring holds value 'java'
String subString = fancySubstring(7, mainString);

System.out.println(mainString);
System.out.println(subString);

//Lets see what's inside mainString

Field innerCharArray = String.class.getDeclaredField("value");
innerCharArray.setAccessible(true);
char[] chars = (char[]) innerCharArray.get(mainString);
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(chars));

//Now peek inside subString

chars = (char[]) innerCharArray.get(subString);
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(chars));
}

//Our new method prevents memory leakage

public static String fancySubstring(int beginIndex, String original)
{
return new String(original.substring(beginIndex));
}
}

Output:

i_love_java
java
[i, _, l, o, v, e, _, j, a, v, a]
[j, a, v, a]
Now substring has only characters which it needs, and intermediate string used to create our correct
substring can be garbage collected and thus leaving no memory footprint.

8. How String works in Java?

String in Java is like any other programming language, a sequence of characters. This is more like a
utility class to work on that char sequence. This char sequence is maintained in the following variable:

/** The value is used for character storage. */

private final char value[];
To access this array in different scenarios, the following variables are used:
/** The offset is the first index of the storage that is used. */
private final int offset;

/** The count is the number of characters in the String. */

private final int count;

10. How to check is String in Palindrome?

A String is said to be Palindrome if it’s value is same when reversed. To check Palindrome, simply
reverse the String and check the content of original string and revered String.

StringExample.java
public class StringExample
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
String originalString = "abcdcba";

StringBuilder strBuilder = new StringBuilder(originalString);

String reverseString = strBuilder.reverse().toString();

boolean isPalindrame = originalString.equals(reverseString);

System.out.println(isPalindrame); //true
}
}

11. How to remove or replace characters from String?

To replace or remove characters, use String.replace() or String.replaceAll(). These methods take
two arguments. First argument is character to be replaced, and second argument is new character
which will be placed in string.

If you want to remove characters, then pass blank character in the second argument.

StringExample.java
String originalString = "howtodoinjava";

//Replace one character

System.out.println( originalString.replace("h", "H") ); //Howtodoinjava

//Replace all matching characters

System.out.println( originalString.replaceAll("o", "O") ); //hOwtOdOinjava

//Remove one character

System.out.println( originalString.replace("h", "") ); //owtodoinjava

//Remove all matching characters

System.out.println( originalString.replace("o", "") ); //hwtdinjava
12. How to make String upper case or lower case?
Use String.toLowerCase() and String.toUpperCase() methods to convert string to lowercase or
upper case.

StringExample.java
String blogName = "HowToDoInJava.com";

System.out.println(blogName.toLowerCase()); //howtodoinjava.com

System.out.println(blogName.toUpperCase()); //HOWTODOINJAVA.COM

13. How to compare two Strings in java program?

Always use equals() method to verify string equality. Never use "==" operator. Double equal
operator always check the object references in memory. equals() method checks the String content.

StringExample.java
String blogName = "HowToDoInJava.com";

String anotherString = new String("HowToDoInJava.com");

System.out.println(blogName == anotherString); //false

System.out.println(blogName.equals(anotherString)); //true

14. Can we use String in switch case?

Yes, you can use String class in switch statements since Java 7. Before Java 7, it was not possible and
you had to use if-else statements to achieve similar behavior.

StringExample.java
String number = "1";

switch (number)
{
case "1":
System.out.println("One"); //Prints '1'
break;
case "2":
System.out.println("Two");
break;
default:
System.out.println("Other");
}

15. Write a program to print all permutations of String?

A permutation is a re-arrangement of the elements of an ordered list of characters in such a way that
each arrangement is unique with respect to other arrangements. e.g. below are the permutations of
string “ABC” – ABC ACB BAC BCA CBA CAB.

A string of length N has N! (N Factorial) permutations.

StringExample.java
import java.util.HashSet;
import java.util.Set;

public class StringExample

{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
System.out.println(getPermutations("ABC"));

//Prints
//[ACB, BCA, ABC, CBA, BAC, CAB]
}

public static Set<String> getPermutations(String string)

{
//All permutations
Set<String> permutationsSet = new HashSet<String>();

// invalid strings
if (string == null || string.length() == 0)
{
permutationsSet.add("");
}
else
{
//First character in String
char initial = string.charAt(0);

//Full string without first character

String rem = string.substring(1);

//Recursive call
Set<String> wordSet = getPermutations(rem);

for (String word : wordSet) {

for (int i = 0; i <= word.length(); i++) {
permutationsSet.add(charInsertAt(word, initial, i));
}
}
}
return permutationsSet;
}

public static String charInsertAt(String str, char c, int position)

{
String begin = str.substring(0, position);
String end = str.substring(position);
return begin + c + end;
}
}
16. Write a java program to reverse each word of a given string?
To reverse each word separately, first, tokenize the string and get all words separate in an array. Then
apply reverse word logic to each word, and finally concatenate all words.

StringExample.java
String blogName = "how to do in java dot com";

//spilt on white space

String[] tokens = blogName.split(" ");

//It will store reversed words

StringBuffer finalString = new StringBuffer();

//Loop all words and reverse them

for (String token : tokens) {
String reversed = new StringBuffer(token).reverse().toString();
finalString.append(reversed);
finalString.append(" ");
}

//Check final string

System.out.println(finalString.toString()); //woh ot od ni avaj tod moc

17. How to Split String in java?

Use String.split() method which breaks a given string around matches of the given regular
expression. It’s also called get string tokens based on delimiter.

split() method returns the array of string. Each string in array is individual token.

StringExample.java
String numbers = "1,2,3,4,5,6,7";

String[] numArray = numbers.split(",");

System.out.println(Arrays.toString(numArray)); //[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]

18. Why Char array is preferred over String for storing password?
We know that strings are stored in the constant pool in Java. Once a string is created in the string
pool, it stays in the pool until unless garbage collected. By this time, any malicious program can
access the memory location in the physical memory location and access the string as well.

If we store the password as a string, then it will also be stored in spring pool and will be available in
memory for the longer duration than required, because garbage collection cycles are unpredictable.
This makes sensitive password strings vulnerable to hacking and data theft.
Can we make String blank after using it? No, we cannot. We know that once a String is created, we
cannot manipulate it e.g. you cannot change its content. Strings are final and immutable.

But char arrays are mutable, their content can be overwritten after use it. So your application shall use
char[] to store password text, and after using the password, replace array content with a blank.

StringExample.java
String password = "123456"; //Do not use it

char[] passwordChars = new char[4]; //Get password from some system such as

//use password

for(char c : passwordChars) {
c = ' ';
}

19. Is string thread-safe in Java?

Yes, strings are thread safe. They are immutable and all immutable instances in java are thread-safe,
by default.

20. Why String is popular HashMap key in Java?

In Java, A key which has be to used in Map – shall be immutable and should honor the contract
between equals() and hashCode() method. String class satisfies both conditions.

Also, String class provides many useful methods to compare, sort, tokenize or lower-upper cases.
These methods can be used while performing CRUD operations on Map. It makes it a very useful class
to use in Map rather than creating your own class.

21. Difference between String, StringBuffer and StringBuilder?

 String class represents a sequence of characters and provides useful methods to work with
characters. String class instances are immutable. So each time you perform string concatenation
using string class, a new object will be created with the concatenated string.
 StringBuilder class is used to perform string concatenation operations in more memory
efficient way. It internally maintains a char array and manipulate the content in this array only.

When you need to get the complete concatenated string after performing all operations, it
creates a new String with character array content.

 StringBuffer is very much same as StringBuilder class. Only difference is that it is thread-safe.
It’s all methods are synchronized.
22. How to concatenate multiple strings?
Use StringBuffer or StringBuilder classes based on you need thread safety or not.
Use append() methods in both classes to concatenate strings.

StringExample.java
StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer();

buffer.append("how")
.append("to")
.append("do")
.append("in")
.append("java")
.append(".")
.append("com");

String blogName = buffer.toString();

System.out.println(blogName); //howtodoinjava.com

23. How many objects will be created with string initialization code?
StringExample.java
String s1 = "howtodoinjava.com";
String s2 = "howtodoinjava.com";
String s3 = new String("howtodoinjava.com");
1. Above code will create 2 objects.
2. First object will be created in string pool by first statement.
3. Second statement will not create any new object, and s2 will refer to same string constant as s1.
4. Third statement will create a new string object in heap memory.

24. How do you count the number of occurrences of each character in a

string?
To find the number of occurrences of each character in a given string, we have used HashMap with the
character as a key and it’s occurrences as a value. With each new occurrence, we will increment the
value for that character.

StringExample.java
String blogName = "howtodoinjava.com";

HashMap<Character, Integer> occurancesMap = new HashMap<Character, Integer>();

char[] strArray = blogName.toCharArray();

for (char c : strArray)

{
if(occurancesMap.containsKey(c))
{
occurancesMap.put(c, occurancesMap.get(c)+1);
 }
else
{
occurancesMap.put(c, 1);
}
}

System.out.println(occurancesMap);
//{a=2, c=1, d=1, h=1, i=1, j=1, m=1, n=1, .=1, o=4, t=1, v=1, w=1}

25. Write a java program to reverse a string without StringBuilder or

StringBuffer?
Best way to reverse a string is definitely
the StringBuffer.reverse() and StringBuilder.reverse() methods. Still, interviewer may ask you
to write your own program, to check your skill level.

Use below-given recursion based example to reverse the string. This program takes the first character
from the string and places at the last position in the string. It uses this replacement for all characters
in the string until whole string is revered.

StringExample.java
public class StringExample
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
String blogName = "howtodoinjava.com";

String reverseString = recursiveSwap(blogName);

System.out.println(reverseString);
}

static String recursiveSwap(String str)

{
if ((null == str) || (str.length() <= 1))
{
return str;
}
return recursiveSwap(str.substring(1)) + str.charAt(0);
}
}
I can think of these frequently asked String interview questions will help you in your next interview.
If you know any more questions specifically regarding String class, please share.

Happy Learning !!
 Servlets Interview Questions
Q1. What is a servlet?

 Java Servlet is server-side technologies to extend the capability of web servers by providing support for
dynamic response and data persistence.
 The javax.servlet and javax.servlet.http packages provide interfaces and classes for writing our own
servlets.
 All servlets must implement the javax.servlet.Servlet interface, which defines servlet lifecycle methods.
When implementing a generic service, we can extend the GenericServlet class provided with the Java
Servlet API. The HttpServlet class provides methods, such as doGet() and doPost(), for handling
HTTP-specific services.
 Most of the times, web applications are accessed using HTTP protocol and thats why we mostly extend
HttpServlet class. Servlet API hierarchy is shown in below image.

Q2. What are the differences between Get and Post methods?
Get Post

Limited amount of data can be sent because data Large amount of data can be sent because data is
is sent in header. sent in body.

Not Secured because data is exposed in URL

Secured because data is not exposed in URL bar.
bar.

Can be bookmarked Cannot be bookmarked

Idempotent Non-Idempotent

It is more efficient and used than Post It is less efficient and used
Q3. What is Request Dispatcher?
Request Dispatcher interface is used to forward the request to another resource that can be HTML, JSP or
another servlet in same application. We can also use this to include the content of another resource to the
response.

There are two methods defined in this interface:

1.void forward()

2.void include()

Q4. What are the differences between forward() method and sendRedirect() methods?

forward() method SendRedirect() method

forward() sends the same request to another sendRedirect() method sends new request always
resource. because it uses the URL bar of the browser.

forward() method works at server side. sendRedirect() method works at client side.

sendRedirect() method works within and outside the

forward() method works within the server only.
server.
Q5. What is the life-cycle of a servlet?

There are 5 stages in the lifecycle of a servlet:

1. Servlet is loaded
2. Servlet is instantiated
3. Servlet is initialized
4. Service the request
5. Servlet is destroyed

Q6. How does cookies work in Servlets?

 Cookies are text data sent by server to the client and it gets saved at the client local machine.
 Servlet API provides cookies support through javax.servlet.http.Cookie class that implements
Serializable and Cloneable interfaces.
 HttpServletRequest getCookies() method is provided to get the array of Cookies from request, since
there is no point of adding Cookie to request, there are no methods to set or add cookie to request.
 Similarly HttpServletResponse addCookie(Cookie c) method is provided to attach cookie in response
header, there are no getter methods for cookie.

Q7. What are the differences between ServletContext vs ServletConfig?

The difference between ServletContext and ServletConfig in Servlets JSP is in below tabular format.

ServletConfig ServletContext

It represent whole web application running on

Servlet config object represent single servlet
particular JVM and common for all the servlet

Its like local parameter associated with particular Its like global parameter associated with whole
servlet application

It’s a name value pair defined inside the servlet

ServletContext has application wide scope so define
section of web.xml file so it has servlet wide
outside of servlet tag in web.xml file.
scope

getServletConfig() method is used to get the getServletContext() method is used to get the context
config object object.

for example shopping cart of a user is a specific To get the MIME type of a file or application session
to particular user so here we can use servlet related information is stored using servlet context
config object.
Q8. What are the different methods of session management in servlets?
Session is a conversational state between client and server and it can consists of multiple request and
response between client and server. Since HTTP and Web Server both are stateless, the only way to maintain
a session is when some unique information about the session (session id) is passed between server and client
in every request and response.

Some of the common ways of session management in servlets are:

1. User Authentication
2. HTML Hidden Field
3. Cookies
4. URL Rewriting
5. Session Management API

JDBC Interview Questions

1. What is JDBC Driver?
JDBC Driver is a software component that enables java application to interact with the database. There are 4
types of JDBC drivers:

1. JDBC-ODBC bridge driver

2. Native-API driver (partially java driver)
3. Network Protocol driver (fully java driver)
4. Thin driver (fully java driver)
2. What are the steps to connect to a database in java?

 Registering the driver class

 Creating connection
 Creating statement
 Executing queries
 Closing connection

3. What are the JDBC API components?

The java.sql package contains interfaces and classes for JDBC API.

Interfaces:

 Connection
 Statement
 PreparedStatement
 ResultSet
 ResultSetMetaData
 DatabaseMetaData
 CallableStatement etc.

Classes:

 DriverManager
 Blob
 Clob
 Types
 SQLException etc.

4. What is the role of JDBC DriverManager class?

The DriverManager class manages the registered drivers. It can be used to register and unregister drivers. It
provides factory method that returns the instance of Connection.

5. What is JDBC Connection interface?

The Connection interface maintains a session with the database. It can be used for transaction management. It
provides factory methods that returns the instance of Statement, PreparedStatement, CallableStatement and
DatabaseMetaData.

6. What is the purpose of JDBC ResultSet interface?

The ResultSet object represents a row of a table. It can be used to change the cursor pointer and get the
information from the database.

7. What is JDBC ResultSetMetaData interface?

The ResultSetMetaData interface returns the information of table such as total number of columns, column
name, column type etc.
8. What is JDBC DatabaseMetaData interface?
The DatabaseMetaData interface returns the information of the database such as username, driver name,
driver version, number of tables, number of views etc.

9. What do you mean by batch processing in JDBC?

Batch processing helps you to group related SQL statements into a batch and execute them instead of
executing a single query. By using batch processing technique in JDBC, you can execute multiple queries
which makes the performance faster.

10. What is the difference between execute, executeQuery, executeUpdate?

Statement execute(String query) is used to execute any SQL query and it returns TRUE if the result is an
ResultSet such as running Select queries. The output is FALSE when there is no ResultSet object such as
running Insert or Update queries. We can use getResultSet() to get the ResultSet
and getUpdateCount() method to retrieve the update count.

Statement executeQuery(String query) is used to execute Select queries and returns the ResultSet.
ResultSet returned is never null even if there are no records matching the query. When executing select
queries we should use executeQuery method so that if someone tries to execute insert/update statement it will
throw java.sql.SQLException with message “executeQuery method can not be used for update”.

Statement executeUpdate(String query) is used to execute Insert/Update/Delete (DML) statements or DDL

statements that returns nothing. The output is int and equals to the row count for SQL Data Manipulation
Language (DML) statements. For DDL statements, the output is 0.

You should use execute() method only when you are not sure about the type of statement else use
executeQuery or executeUpdate method.

Q11. What do you understand by JDBC Statements?

JDBC statements are basically the statements which are used to send SQL commands to the database and
retrieve data back from the database. Various methods like execute(), executeUpdate(), executeQuery, etc.
are provided by JDBC to interact with the database.

JDBC supports 3 types of statements:

1. Statement: Used for general purpose access to the database and executes a static SQL query at
runtime.
2. PreparedStatement: Used to provide input parameters to the query during execution.
3. CallableStatement: Used to access the database stored procedures and helps in accepting runtime
parameters.

In case you are facing any challenges with these java interview questions, please comment your problems in
the section below. Apart from this Java Interview Questions Blog, if you want to get trained from professionals
on this technology, you can opt for a structured training from edureka!
 Spring Interview Questions
Q1. What is Spring?
Wikipedia defines the Spring framework as “an application framework and inversion of control container for the
Java platform. The framework’s core features can be used by any Java application, but there are extensions
for building web applications on top of the Java EE platform.” Spring is essentially a lightweight, integrated
framework that can be used for developing enterprise applications in java.

Q2. Name the different modules of the Spring framework.

Some of the important Spring Framework modules are:

 Spring Context – for dependency injection.

 Spring AOP – for aspect oriented programming.
 Spring DAO – for database operations using DAO pattern
 Spring JDBC – for JDBC and DataSource support.
 Spring ORM – for ORM tools support such as Hibernate
 Spring Web Module – for creating web applications.
 Spring MVC – Model-View-Controller implementation for creating web applications, web services etc.

Q3. List some of the important annotations in annotation-based Spring configuration.

The important annotations are:

 @Required
 @Autowired
 @Qualifier
 @Resource
 @PostConstruct
 @PreDestroy
Q4. Explain Bean in Spring and List the different Scopes of Spring bean.
Beans are objects that form the backbone of a Spring application. They are managed by the Spring IoC
container. In other words, a bean is an object that is instantiated, assembled, and managed by a Spring IoC
container.

There are five Scopes defined in Spring beans.

 Singleton: Only one instance of the bean will be created for each container. This is the default scope
for the spring beans. While using this scope, make sure spring bean doesn’t have shared instance
variables otherwise it might lead to data inconsistency issues because it’s not thread-safe.
 Prototype: A new instance will be created every time the bean is requested.
 Request: This is same as prototype scope, however it’s meant to be used for web applications. A new
instance of the bean will be created for each HTTP request.
 Session: A new bean will be created for each HTTP session by the container.
 Global-session: This is used to create global session beans for Portlet applications.

Q5. Explain the role of DispatcherServlet and ContextLoaderListener.

DispatcherServlet is basically the front controller in the Spring MVC application as it loads the spring bean
configuration file and initializes all the beans that have been configured. If annotations are enabled, it also
scans the packages to configure any bean annotated with @Component, @Controller, @Repository or
@Service annotations.
ContextLoaderListener, on the other hand, is the listener to start up and shut down the
WebApplicationContext in Spring root. Some of its important functions includes tying up the lifecycle of
Application Context to the lifecycle of the ServletContext and automating the creation of ApplicationContext.

Q6. What are the differences between constructor injection and setter injection?
No. Constructor Injection Setter Injection

1) No Partial Injection Partial Injection

2) Doesn’t override the setter property Overrides the constructor property if both are defined.

Creates a new instance if any modification Doesn’t create a new instance if you change the
3)
occurs property value

4) Better for too many properties Better for a few properties.

Q7. What is autowiring in Spring? What are the autowiring modes?

Autowiring enables the programmer to inject the bean automatically. We don’t need to write explicit injection
logic. Let’s see the code to inject bean using dependency injection.

1. <bean id=“emp” class=“com.javatpoint.Employee” autowire=“byName” />

The autowiring modes are given below:

No. Mode Description

1) No this is the default mode, it means autowiring is not enabled.

2) byName Injects the bean based on the property name. It uses setter method.

3) byType Injects the bean based on the property type. It uses setter method.

4) constructor It injects the bean using constructor

Q8. How to handle exceptions in Spring MVC Framework?

Spring MVC Framework provides the following ways to help us achieving robust exception handling.

Controller Based:
We can define exception handler methods in our controller classes. All we need is to annotate these methods
with @ExceptionHandler annotation.

Global Exception Handler:

Exception Handling is a cross-cutting concern and Spring provides @ControllerAdvice annotation that we can
use with any class to define our global exception handler.
HandlerExceptionResolver implementation:
For generic exceptions, most of the times we serve static pages. Spring Framework provides
HandlerExceptionResolver interface that we can implement to create global exception handler. The reason
behind this additional way to define global exception handler is that Spring framework also provides default
implementation classes that we can define in our spring bean configuration file to get spring framework
exception handling benefits.

Q9. What are some of the important Spring annotations which you have used?
Some of the Spring annotations that I have used in my project are:

@Controller – for controller classes in Spring MVC project.

@RequestMapping – for configuring URI mapping in controller handler methods. This is a very important
annotation, so you should go through Spring MVC RequestMapping Annotation Examples

@ResponseBody – for sending Object as response, usually for sending XML or JSON data as response.

@PathVariable – for mapping dynamic values from the URI to handler method arguments.

@Autowired – for autowiring dependencies in spring beans.

@Qualifier – with @Autowired annotation to avoid confusion when multiple instances of bean type is present.

@Service – for service classes.

@Scope – for configuring the scope of the spring bean.

@Configuration, @ComponentScan and @Bean – for java based configurations.

AspectJ annotations for configuring aspects and advices , @Aspect, @Before, @After, @Around, @Pointcut,
etc.

Q10. How to integrate Spring and Hibernate Frameworks?

We can use Spring ORM module to integrate Spring and Hibernate frameworks if you are using Hibernate 3+
where SessionFactory provides current session, then you should avoid
using HibernateTemplate or HibernateDaoSupport classes and better to use DAO pattern with dependency
injection for the integration.

Also, Spring ORM provides support for using Spring declarative transaction management, so you should utilize
that rather than going for hibernate boiler-plate code for transaction management.

Q11. Name the types of transaction management that Spring supports.

Two types of transaction management are supported by Spring. They are:

1. Programmatic transaction management: In this, the transaction is managed with the help of
programming. It provides you extreme flexibility, but it is very difficult to maintain.
2. Declarative transaction management: In this, transaction management is separated from the
business code. Only annotations or XML based configurations are used to manage the transactions.

In case you are facing any challenges with these java interview questions, please comment your problems in
the section below. Apart from this Java Interview Questions Blog, if you want to get trained from professionals
on this technology, you can opt for structured training from edureka!
 Hibernate Interview Questions
1. What is Hibernate Framework?
Object-relational mapping or ORM is the programming technique to map application domain model objects to
the relational database tables. Hibernate is Java-based ORM tool that provides a framework for mapping
application domain objects to the relational database tables and vice versa.

Hibernate provides a reference implementation of Java Persistence API, that makes it a great choice as ORM
tool with benefits of loose coupling. We can use the Hibernate persistence API for CRUD operations. Hibernate
framework provide option to map plain old java objects to traditional database tables with the use of JPA
annotations as well as XML based configuration.

Similarly, hibernate configurations are flexible and can be done from XML configuration file as well as
programmatically.

2. What are the important benefits of using Hibernate Framework?

Some of the important benefits of using hibernate framework are:

1. Hibernate eliminates all the boiler-plate code that comes with JDBC and takes care of managing
resources, so we can focus on business logic.
2. Hibernate framework provides support for XML as well as JPA annotations, that makes our code
implementation independent.
3. Hibernate provides a powerful query language (HQL) that is similar to SQL. However, HQL is fully
object-oriented and understands concepts like inheritance, polymorphism, and association.
4. Hibernate is an open source project from Red Hat Community and used worldwide. This makes it a
better choice than others because learning curve is small and there are tons of online documentation
and help is easily available in forums.
5. Hibernate is easy to integrate with other Java EE frameworks, it’s so popular that Spring Framework
provides built-in support for integrating hibernate with Spring applications.
6. Hibernate supports lazy initialization using proxy objects and perform actual database queries only
when it’s required.
7. Hibernate cache helps us in getting better performance.
8. For database vendor specific feature, hibernate is suitable because we can also execute native sql
queries.

Overall hibernate is the best choice in current market for ORM tool, it contains all the features that you will ever
need in an ORM tool.

3. Explain Hibernate architecture.

4. What are the differences between get and load methods?
The differences between get() and load() methods are given below.

No. get() load()

Throws ObjectNotFoundException if an object is not

1) Returns null if object is not found.
found.

2) get() method always hit the database. load() method doesn’t hit the database.

3) It returns a real object, not a proxy. It returns a proxy object.

It should be used if you are not sure about the It should be used if you are sure that the instance
4)
existence of instance. exists.

5. What are the advantages of Hibernate over JDBC?

Some of the important advantages of Hibernate framework over JDBC are:

1. Hibernate removes a lot of boiler-plate code that comes with JDBC API, the code looks cleaner and
readable.
2. Hibernate supports inheritance, associations, and collections. These features are not present with
JDBC API.
3. Hibernate implicitly provides transaction management, in fact, most of the queries can’t be executed
outside transaction. In JDBC API, we need to write code for transaction management using commit and
rollback.
4. JDBC API throws SQLException that is a checked exception, so we need to write a lot of try-catch
block code. Most of the times it’s redundant in every JDBC call and used for transaction management.
Hibernate wraps JDBC exceptions and throw JDBCException or HibernateException un-checked
exception, so we don’t need to write code to handle it. Hibernate built-in transaction management
removes the usage of try-catch blocks.
5. Hibernate Query Language (HQL) is more object-oriented and close to Java programming language.
For JDBC, we need to write native SQL queries.
6. Hibernate supports caching that is better for performance, JDBC queries are not cached hence
performance is low.
7. Hibernate provides option through which we can create database tables too, for JDBC tables must exist
in the database.
8. Hibernate configuration helps us in using JDBC like connection as well as JNDI DataSource for the
connection pool. This is a very important feature in enterprise application and completely missing in
JDBC API.
9. Hibernate supports JPA annotations, so the code is independent of the implementation and easily
replaceable with other ORM tools. JDBC code is very tightly coupled with the application.

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in the section below. Apart from this Java Interview Questions Blog, if you want to get trained from
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Java Interview Questions: JSP

 1. What are the life-cycle methods for a jsp?
Methods Description

public void jspInit() It is invoked only once, same as init method of servlet.

public void _jspService(ServletRequest

It is invoked at each request, same as service()
request,ServletResponse)throws
method of servlet.
ServletException,IOException

It is invoked only once, same as destroy() method of

public void jspDestroy()
servlet.

2. What are the JSP implicit objects?

JSP provides 9 implicit objects by default. They are as follows:

Object Type

1) out JspWriter

2) request HttpServletRequest

3) response HttpServletResponse

4) config ServletConfig

5) session HttpSession

6) application ServletContext

7) pageContext PageContext

8) page Object

9) exception Throwable

3. What are the differences between include directive and include action?
include directive include action

The include directive includes the content at page

The include action includes the content at request time.
translation time.

The include action doesn’t include the original content

The include directive includes the original content
rather invokes the include() method of Vendor provided
of the page so page size increases at runtime.
class.

It’s better for static pages. It’s better for dynamic pages.

4. How to disable caching on back button of the browser?

<%
response.setHeader(“Cache-Control”,”no-store”);
response.setHeader(“Pragma”,”no-cache”);
response.setHeader (“Expires”, //prevents caching at the proxy server
%>

5. What are the different tags provided in JSTL?

There are 5 type of JSTL tags.
 1. core tags
2. sql tags
3. xml tags
4. internationalization tags
5. functions tags

6. How to disable session in JSP?

1. <%@ page session=“false” %>

7. How to delete a Cookie in a JSP?

The following code explains how to delete a Cookie in a JSP :

1. Cookie mycook = new Cookie("name1","value1");

2.
3. response.addCookie(mycook1);
4.
5. Cookie killmycook = new Cookie("mycook1","value1");
6.
7. killmycook . set MaxAge ( 0 );
8.
9. killmycook . set Path ("/");
10.
11. killmycook . addCookie ( killmycook 1 );

8. Explain the jspDestroy() method.

jspDestry() method is invoked from javax.servlet.jsp.JspPage interface whenever a JSP page is about to be
destroyed. Servlets destroy methods can be easily overridden to perform cleanup, like when closing a
database connection.

9. How is JSP better than Servlet technology?

JSP is a technology on the server’s side to make content generation simple. They are document-centric,
whereas servlets are programs. A Java server page can contain fragments of Java program, which execute
and instantiate Java classes. However, they occur inside an HTML template file. It provides the framework for
the development of a Web Application.

10. Why should we not configure JSP standard tags in web.xml?

We don’t need to configure JSP standard tags in web.xml because when container loads the web application
and find TLD files, it automatically configures them to be used directly in the application JSP pages. We just
need to include it in the JSP page using taglib directive.

11. How will you use JSP EL in order to get the HTTP method name?
Using pageContext JSP EL implicit object you can get the request object reference and make use of the dot
operator to retrieve the HTTP method name in the JSP page. The JSP EL code for this purpose will look
like ${pageContext.request.method}.

In case you are facing any challenges with these java interview questions, please comment on your problems
in the section below. Apart from this Java Interview Questions Blog, if you want to get trained from
professionals on this technology, you can opt for structured training from edureka!
 Exception and Thread Java Interview Questions
Q1. What is the difference between Error and Exception?
An error is an irrecoverable condition occurring at runtime. Such as OutOfMemory error. These JVM errors you
cannot repair them at runtime. Though error can be caught in the catch block but the execution of application
will come to a halt and is not recoverable.

While exceptions are conditions that occur because of bad input or human error etc. e.g.
FileNotFoundException will be thrown if the specified file does not exist. Or a NullPointerException will take
place if you try using a null reference. In most of the cases it is possible to recover from an exception (probably
by giving the user feedback for entering proper values etc.

Q2. How can you handle Java exceptions?

There are five keywords used to handle exceptions in Java:

1. try
2. catch
3. finally
4. throw
5. throws

Q3. What are the differences between Checked Exception and Unchecked Exception?
Checked Exception

 The classes that extend Throwable class except RuntimeException and Error are known as checked
exceptions.
 Checked exceptions are checked at compile-time.
 Example: IOException, SQLException etc.

Unchecked Exception

 The classes that extend RuntimeException are known as unchecked exceptions.

 Unchecked exceptions are not checked at compile-time.
 Example: ArithmeticException, NullPointerException etc.

Q4. What purpose do the keywords final, finally, and finalize fulfill?
Final:
Final is used to apply restrictions on class, method, and variable. A final class can’t be inherited, final method
can’t be overridden and final variable value can’t be changed. Let’s take a look at the example below to
understand it better.

1. class FinalVarExample {
2. public static void main( String args[])
3. {
4. final int a=10; // Final variable
5. a=50; //Error as value can't be changed
6. }
Finally
Finally is used to place important code, it will be executed whether the exception is handled or not. Let’s take a
look at the example below to understand it better.

1. class FinallyExample {
2. public static void main(String args[]){
3. try {
4. int x=100;
5. }
6. catch(Exception e) {
7. System.out.println(e);
8. }
9. finally {
10. System.out.println("finally block is executing");}
11. }}
12. }

Finalize
Finalize is used to perform clean up processing just before the object is garbage collected. Let’s take a look at
the example below to understand it better.

1. class FinalizeExample {
2. public void finalize() {
3. System.out.println("Finalize is called");
4. }
5. public static void main(String args[])
6. {
7. FinalizeExample f1=new FinalizeExample();
8. FinalizeExample f2=new FinalizeExample();
9. f1= NULL;
10. f2=NULL;
11. System.gc();
12. }
13. }

Q5. What are the differences between throw and throws?

throw keyword throws keyword

Throw is used to explicitly throw an exception. Throws is used to declare an exception.

Checked exceptions can not be propagated with

Checked exception can be propagated with throws.
throw only.

Throw is followed by an instance. Throws is followed by class.

Throw is used within the method. Throws is used with the method signature.

You can declare multiple exception e.g. public void

You cannot throw multiple exception
method()throws IOException,SQLException.

Q6. What is exception hierarchy in java?

The hierarchy is as follows:

Throwable is a parent class of all Exception classes. There are two types of Exceptions: Checked exceptions
and UncheckedExceptions or RunTimeExceptions. Both type of exceptions extends Exception class whereas
errors are further classified into Virtual Machine error and Assertion error.
Q7. How to create a custom Exception?
To create you own exception extend the Exception class or any of its subclasses.

 class New1Exception extends Exception { } // this will create Checked Exception

 class NewException extends IOException { } // this will create Checked exception
 class NewException extends NullPonterExcpetion { } // this will create UnChecked exception

Q8. What are the important methods of Java Exception Class?

Exception and all of it’s subclasses doesn’t provide any specific methods and all of the methods are defined in
the base class Throwable.

1. String getMessage() – This method returns the message String of Throwable and the message can be
provided while creating the exception through it’s constructor.
2. String getLocalizedMessage() – This method is provided so that subclasses can override it to provide
locale specific message to the calling program. Throwable class implementation of this method simply
use getMessage() method to return the exception message.
3. Synchronized Throwable getCause() – This method returns the cause of the exception or null id the
cause is unknown.
4. String toString() – This method returns the information about Throwable in String format, the returned
String contains the name of Throwable class and localized message.
5. void printStackTrace() – This method prints the stack trace information to the standard error stream,
this method is overloaded and we can pass PrintStream or PrintWriter as an argument to write the
stack trace information to the file or stream.

Q9. What are the differences between processes and threads?

Process Thread

An executing instance of a program is

Definition A thread is a subset of the process.
called a process.

Processes must use inter-process

Threads can directly communicate with other
Communication communication to communicate with
threads of its process.
sibling processes.

Processes can only exercise control Threads can exercise considerable control over
Control
over child processes. threads of the same process.

Any change in the parent process does Any change in the main thread may affect the
Changes
not affect child processes. behavior of the other threads of the process.
 Memory Run in separate memory spaces. Run in shared memory spaces.

Process is controlled by the operating Threads are controlled by programmer in a

Controlled by
system. program.

Dependence Processes are independent. Threads are dependent.

Q10. What is a finally block? Is there a case when finally will not execute?
Finally block is a block which always executes a set of statements. It is always associated with a try block
regardless of any exception that occurs or not.
Yes, finally will not be executed if the program exits either by calling System.exit() or by causing a fatal error
that causes the process to abort.

Q11. What is synchronization?

Synchronization refers to multi-threading. A synchronized block of code can be executed by only one thread at
a time. As Java supports execution of multiple threads, two or more threads may access the same fields or
objects. Synchronization is a process which keeps all concurrent threads in execution to be in sync.
Synchronization avoids memory consistency errors caused due to inconsistent view of shared memory. When
a method is declared as synchronized the thread holds the monitor for that method’s object. If another thread is
executing the synchronized method the thread is blocked until that thread releases the monitor.

Q12. Can we write multiple catch blocks under single try block?
Yes we can have multiple catch blocks under single try block but the approach should be from specific to
general. Let’s understand this with a programmatic example.

1. public class Example {

2. public static void main(String args[]) {
3. try {
4. int a[]= new int[10];
5. a[10]= 10/0;
6. }
7. catch(ArithmeticException e)
8. {
9. System.out.println("Arithmetic exception in first catch block");
10. }
11. catch(ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException e)
12. {
13. System.out.println("Array index out of bounds in second catch block");
14. }
15. catch(Exception e)
16. {
17. System.out.println("Any exception in third catch block");
18. }
 19. }

Q13. What are the important methods of Java Exception Class?

Methods are defined in the base class Throwable. Some of the important methods of Java exception class are
stated below.

1. String getMessage() – This method returns the message String about the exception. The message
can be provided through its constructor.
2. public StackTraceElement[] getStackTrace() – This method returns an array containing each
element on the stack trace. The element at index 0 represents the top of the call stack whereas the last
element in the array represents the method at the bottom of the call stack.
3. Synchronized Throwable getCause() – This method returns the cause of the exception or null id as
represented by a Throwable object.
4. String toString() – This method returns the information in String format. The returned String contains
the name of Throwable class and localized message.
5. void printStackTrace() – This method prints the stack trace information to the standard error stream.

Q14. What is OutOfMemoryError in Java?

OutOfMemoryError is the subclass of java.lang.Error which generally occurs when our JVM runs out of
memory.

Q15. What is a Thread?

A thread is the smallest piece of programmed instructions which can be executed independently by a
scheduler. In Java, all the programs will have at least one thread which is known as the main thread. This main
thread is created by the JVM when the program starts its execution. The main thread is used to invoke the
main() of the program.

Q16. What are the two ways to create a thread?

In Java, threads can be created in the following two ways:-

 By implementing the Runnable interface.

 By extending the Thread

Q17. What are the different types of garbage collectors in Java?

Garbage collection in Java a program which helps in implicit memory management. Since in Java, using the
new keyword you can create objects dynamically, which once created will consume some memory. Once the
job is done and there are no more references left to the object, Java using garbage collection destroys the
object and relieves the memory occupied by it. Java provides four types of garbage collectors:

 Serial Garbage Collector

 Parallel Garbage Collector
 CMS Garbage Collector
 G1 Garbage Collector
 MySQL DBA Interview Questions

Q1. Can you tell the difference between Mysql_connect And Mysql_pconnect?
Used to open a new connection to a database.

Mysql_connect You can open and close the database connection based on the request.

Opens a page everytime the page is loaded.

Mysql_connect vs Mysql_pconnect

Used to open a persistent connection in a database.

Mysql_pconnect You cannot close the database connection.

There is no need to open and close a connection everytime a page is loaded.

Q2. What is the default port for MySQL server?

MySQL Server’s default port is 3306. Apart from this, another standard default port for the SQL
Server in TCP/IP is 1433.

Q3. Can you tell what are the different set operations available in MySQL?
The various set operations available in MySQL are as follows:

 UNION – This operation returns all the distinct rows selected by a query
 UNION ALL – This operation returns all the rows selected by a query and also includes all duplicate
rows.
 MINUS – This operation returns all the distinct rows selected by the first query but does not select the
rows selected by the second query.
 INTERSECT – This operation returns all the distinct rows selected by both queries.

Refer to the below image:

 Q4. Can you tell the order of SQL SELECT statement?
The order of SQL SELECT statement is as follows:

SELECT, FROM, WHERE, GROUP BY, HAVING, ORDER BY.

Q5. What is Database White Box Testing?

The Database Whitebox Testing deals with the tables, data model, schema and referential integrity
rules. It also deals with the triggers, logical views with database consistency and ACID properties.

Q6. What is Database Black Box Testing?

Database Black Box Testing deals with data mapping, data storing and retrieving. The Database
Black Box Testing is used for techniques such as Equivalence Partitioning and Boundary Value
Analysis.

Q7. What is CTE?

An expression which consists of a temporary set of results defined in a SQL statement is said to be a
Common Table Expression(CTE).

Q8. What are the different tables present in Mysql?

There are mainly five types of tables present in MySQL. Out of all these database engines, the
default database engine used in MySQL is MyISAM. Refer below to know the five types of tables:

 MyISAM
 Heap
 Merge
 INNO DB
 ISAM

Q9. What is a Cursor?

Considered as a pointer to point to one row in a set of rows, a Cursor is nothing but a control which
enables traversal over the records in the table. So, the cursor is used for performing traversing
actions such as addition, retrieval, and removal of records in a database.

Q10. How can you test for NULL values in a database?

A NULL value is a field with no value present in that particular field. Since the NULL value cannot be
compared to any other NULL values, you cannot use the comparison operators such as =, <, or <>.
To compare the fields with NULL values, you have to use the IS NULL and IS NOT NULL operator.
Refer below for Syntax of IS NULL and IS NOT NULL.

SELECT column_names FROM table_name WHERE column_name IS NULL;

SELECT column_names FROM table_name WHERE column_name IS NOT NULL;

Q11. Can you elaborate on BLOB and TEXT in MySQL?

BLOB
BLOB(Binary Large Object) is used to hold a variable amount of data and holds up to 65,535 bytes of
data. The following are the four types of BLOB.

 TINYBLOB
 BLOB
 MEDIUMBLOB
 LONGBLOB

TEXT
TEXT is used to store string values and holds up to a maximum length of 65,535 characters. The
following are the four types of TEXT

 TINYTEXT
 TEXT
 MEDIUMTEXT
 LONGTEXT

Q12. Can you tell how can you display the Maximum salary in SQL?
To display the maximum salary in SQL, you can use the inbuilt function called MAX().

Q13. What is the difference between the NVL function, IFNULL function, and the ISNULL function?
The NVL function, IFNULL function, and the ISNULL function all of them are used to replace the
NULL value with another value. The ORACLE users use the NVL function, MySQL users use the
IFNULL function and the SQL servers use the ISNULL function

For example, let us say we have a column(column_3) which has NULL values.

So, if you run the below statement, the output you would get is a NULL value.

SELECT column_1 * (column_2 + column_3) FROM Example_Table

Now, to overcome this, you can use the above three functions as follows:

1. SELECT column_1 * (column_2 + NVL(column_3,0)) FROM Example_Table

2. SELECT column_1 * (column_2 + IFNULL(column_3,0)) FROM Example_Table
3. SELECT column_1 * (column_2 + ISNULL(column_3,0)) FROM Example_Table

Q14. What is the difference between GUI Testing and Database Testing?
GUI Testing Database Testing

Also known as User Interface Testing of Front-end

Also known as Back-End Testing or Data Testing.
Testing.

Deals with items that interact with users. Deals with items that are hidden from users.

Testers need not know SQL. Testers need to know SQL.

Database Testing focuses on the integrity of data in the

GUI Testing focuses on the outlook of the application
front end with the data present in the back end
Q15. How To Display Nth Highest Salary From A Table In A Mysql Query?
Consider the table named “Employee”.

Now, to find the Nth salary consider the below statement.

1. SELECT DISTINCT(salary) FROM employee ORDER BY salary DESC LIMIT n-1,1

So, if you want to find out the 7th largest salary, consider the below query.

2. SELECT DISTINCT(salary) FROM employee ORDER BY salary DESC LIMIT 6,1

Now, let’s move on to the next set of questions, which is the PHP MySQL Interview Questions.

PHP MySQL Interview Questions

Q1. What is the command used to create a database using PHP and MySQL?
The command used to create a database using both PHP and MySQL
is mysql_create_db(“Database Name”).

Q2. Can you tell the Difference Between Mysql_fetch_object And Mysql_fetch_array?
Both of them are similar but vary with a single difference. Mysql_fetch_object return as object and
Mysql_fetch_array returns an array. This means that you cannot access the data by their offsets but
can only access through its fields names.

Q3: What are the ways in which you can retrieve data in the result set of MySQL using PHP?
The different ways in which you can retrieve data in the result set of MySQL using PHP are as
follows:

 mysql_fetch_object: This constant fetches a result row as an object.

 mysql_fetch_array: This constant fetches a result row as an associative array, numeric array or as both.
 mysql_fetch_row: This constant gives us a result row as an enumerated array.
 mysql_fetch_assoc: This constant gives us a result row as an associative array.

Q4. Can you tell how many values can Set the function of MySQL to consider?
MySQL’s Set function can take a maximum of 64 values, but can also consider 0 values.

Q5. Can you tell the reasons for selecting Lamp(Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) instead of any other
combination of software programs, servers, and operating system?
The reason behind selecting Lamp stack is very simple. Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP are open
source software. The security of the Linux operating system is much more than Windows. The
Apache server is a better server than others in the perspective of functionalities and security. MySQL
is one of the most popular open source databases is used with PHP to perform various functionalities.

Q6. Can you tell a way to know the number of days between the two given dates in PHP?
You can simply declare the two dates, and then use the strtotime function to subtract both the dates
and find the differences between the days in seconds.

Consider the below example.

date1 =’2018-09-15′;
date2 =‘2018-10-15’;
days = (strtotime($date1) – strtotime($date2)) / (60 * 60 * 24);

Q7. Can you tell how to find the number of rows in a resultset using PHP?
You can use the mysql_num_rows function to find the number of rows in a resultset.
Consider the below example.

3. output = mysql_query(sql, database_name);

4. number_of_rows = mysql_num_rows(output);
5. echo "The number of forws found are equal to: $number_of_rows";

Q8. What are the functions used to encrypt and decrypt the data present in MySQL?
The function used to encrypt the data is AES_ENCRYPT() and the function used to decrypt the data
is AES_DECRYPT().

Q9. If you wish to encrypt the username and password using PHP, how will you do that?
You can encrypt the username and password using the following functions respectively:

1. SET USERNAME=USERNAME("Username");
2. SET PASSWORD=PASSWORD(”Password”);

Q10. How can you increase the performance of MySQL SELECT query?
The SELECT statement is used to select data from a database and the data returned is stored in a
result table, called the result-set. The SELECT statement can be either individually used or can be
used with other statements such as ORDER BY, GROUP BY, and HAVING clause.

To increase the performance of a MySQL SELECT query, you can use the LIMIT clause to limit
MySQL from further search in a table, after collecting the required number of records. Apart from this,
we can also use the LEFT JOIN or the RIGHT JOIN to retrieve data from two or more tables.

Q11. Can you tell the difference between $message and $$message?
$message and $$message are both PHP variables. $message is used to store the variable data and
$$message is used to store the variable of a variable. So basically, data is stored in $message and
$$message is used to store the data that can be changed dynamically.

Q12. Write a program using the SELECT statement, While Loop.

You can write a program to select the students details from the student table and use the loop to just
print the name of students.

1. example_query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM 'students' WHERE 'student_id' = '1';");

2. while(output = mysql_fetch_array(example_query))
3. {
4. echo output['Students_Name'];
5. }

Q13. How can you take the backup and restore a MySQL database using PHP?
MySQL comes with a utility mysqldump to provide the database backup and restore. The command
you can use for backup and restore are as follows respectively.

1. //To take the backup of database

2. mysqldump database > backup -file.sql;
3. //To restore the database
4. mysqldump database < backup -file.sql;

You can also use the phpMyAdmin user interface to backup your database. If you wish to backup, the
database you just have to click on the “export” link on the phpMyAdmin main page.
Q14. Can you tell the difference between ereg_replace() and eregi_replace()?
ereg_replace and eregi_repalce() are regular expressions used to replace the matching characters.
The only difference between these functions are eregi_replace() function ignores the case distinction
when it matches alphabetic characters.

Q15. How to copy data from one server to another using PHP?
You can use the following three options:

Option 1: You can use the PHP Copy to move files from server to server. Refer to the syntax below:

1. /* Copy the file from source url to server */

2. $copy = copy( $remote_file_url, $local_file );

Option 2: You can use the PHP FTP to move files from server to server. Refer to the syntax below.

1. /* Download $remote_file and save to $local_file */

2. ftp_get($connect_it,$local_file,$remote_file,FTP_BINARY)

Option 3: You can use the ZIP and UNZIP Files option in PHP.

Now, let’s move on to the next set of questions, which is the Complex MySQL Interview Questions.

Complex MySQL Interview Questions

Q1. Can you tell few best practices to be followed for optimization in SQL?
The best practices to be followed for SQL optimizations depend on the individual to individual, but the
following list consists of the most popular practices that are advised to follow. Refer below.

 Try avoiding prefixing your stored procedure names with “sp_”.

 It is recommended to use the column list in INSERT statements.
 Preferably use the ANSI-Standard JOIN Clauses rather than the Old style clauses.
 While using SELECT statement, avoid using * queries.
 Do not use double quotes in T-SQL code.
 Try avoiding to use column numbers in the ORDER BY clause.
 Try using table aliases if your SQL statement involves more than a single source.

Q2. Can you tell what are various ways to create an index?
The various options to create an index are as follows:

 You can create an index using the T-SQL statements.

 You can use the SQL Server Management Studio. In this, you can browse to the table you need to
create an index and then right click on the Indexes node. Over here you have to choose the New Index
option.
 You can indirectly identify the index by defining the PRIMARY KEY and the UNIQUE constraint within
the CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLE statement.

Q3. What is the difference between a Heap table and Temporary table?
Heap Table Temporary Table

Heap Table exists in the memory A temporary table is valid only during the session.

Heap Tables are shared among a various number

Temporary tables are not shared among the clients.
of clients.

Temporary tables need a special privilege to create Heap Tables are storage engines which do not need special
tables. privileges.
Q4. Why do you think it is advised to not to use GUID and CHARACTER columns as Clustered Index
arrays?
GUID columns affect the clustered index sorting performance as the nature of the random GUID
value generated is larger than the integer data types.

CHARACTER columns affect the sorting performance of the character data types, larger-size values,
non-increasing values, and non-static values which often tend to change. These values cannot be
compared as binary values, as the characters comparison mechanism depends on the used
collection.

Q5. How can you handle the –secure-file-priv in MySQL?

–secure-file-priv option limits the MySQL Server from loading the directories using the LOAD DATA
INFILE.

If you wish to see the directory that has been configured then you may use the SHOW VARIABLES
LIKE “secure_file_priv”;

You have mainly two options to tackle:

 Either move your file to the directory specified by the secure-file-priv.

 Or you can disable secure-file-priv. You cannot disable this later on, and you have to remove it from
the start itself.

Q6. What is the difference between B-Tree and Hash Indexes?

B-Tree Hash Indexes

A B-Tree index can be used for column

A Hash-Index can be only used for equality comparisons
comparisons like =, >, <, >=, <= or BETWEEN
that use =, >=, <=.
operators.

B-Tree can be used to search the next entry in the Hash Index cannot be used to search for the next entry in
order. the order.

Any leftmost prefix of the key can be used to find the

Only whole keys are used to find a row.
rows.

Q7. Where is the MyISAM table stored?

Each and every MyISAM Table is stored on disk in the following three files:

 .frm file – Stores the table definition.

 .MYD file – A data file has an MYData extension.
 .MYI index file – The index file has an MYIndex extension.

Q8.State the differences between MongoDB and MySQL.

MongoDB MYSQL

An open source database that stores JSON like An open source relational database management system
documents which vary in structure. which stores relational data.

Each and every individual record are stored as Each and every individual record are stored as rows in a
documents. table.

Documents from a particular class or a group are

A similar type of records are stored in a table.
stored in a collection.
Q9. Identify what is wrong in the below query.
SELECT EmployeeID, AVG(Salary)
FROM EmployeeDetails
WHERE AVG(Salary) > 75
GROUP BY EmployeeID
The answer is quite simple. You cannot use the WHERE clause to restrict the groups. Instead of this,
you have to use the HAVING clause.

Your query should be as follows:

1. SELECT EmployeeID, AVG(Salary)

2. FROM EmployeeDetails
3. HAVING AVG(Salary) > 75
4. GROUP BY EmployeeID

Q10. What is Normalization and list the different types of normalization?

Normalization is the process of organizing data to avoid duplication and redundancy. There are many
successive levels of normalization. These are called normal forms. Each consecutive normal form
depends on the previous one. The first three normal forms are usually adequate.

 First Normal Form (1NF) – No repeating groups within rows

 Second Normal Form (2NF) – Every non-key (supporting) column value is dependent on the whole
primary key.
 Third Normal Form (3NF) – Dependent solely on the primary key and no other non-key (supporting)
column value.

Now, let us move on to the next set of questions which is the Tricky MySQL Interview Questions.

Tricky MySQL Interview Questions

Q1. Consider you have a composite index of three columns. Now, you have to provide the value of two
columns in the WHERE clause of a SELECT query. Do you think Index can be used for the operation?
Usage of index completely depends on if you consider the primary index or not. Consider you have a
student table. Now, suppose if an Index is present on StudentID, StudentFirstName, and
StudentLastName then you can consider a query as follows:

1. SELECT * FROM StudentDetails WHERE StudentID=3 and StudentFirstName='Jatin'

Now, if you consider that the above two columns in the query are the secondary index columns, then
the index will not be invoked. Else, if the above two columns contain the first column while creating an
index(i.e. the primary index), then the index will definitely be invoked.

In the above scenario, I have considered that StudentID and the StudentFirstName as primary
columns, so an Index will be used in this case.
Q2. Suppose you have to collect the first name, middle name and the last name of students from the
below table. But, you observe that there few missing values either in the first name, middle name and
the last name columns. How will you return the first non-null values?
StudentID FirstName MiddleName LastName

1 Rohit Kumar NULL

2 Sakshi Chowdhary NULL

3 NULL Yash Singhania

4 Akash NULL Kumar

5 Avinash NULL Daksh

You can use the COALESCE function to return the first non-null value from the table. Consider the
below query.

2. SELECT StudentID, COALESCE(FirstName, MiddleName, LastName) as Name FROM StudentDetails;

Q3. Consider a scenario where you have two to three tables with thousand tuples in each of them.
Now, if you have to perform a JOIN operation between them will you choose to perform filtering of
rows or transforming of rows first.
The answer to this question is quite logical. If you have three tables with thousands of tuples in each
of them, then you are first supposed to filter the rows in those tables and then transform the table.
This would be beneficiary as if you transform the table, then the number of columns may increase
reducing the performance. Due to such performance issues, a lot of memory will be used and the
output will appear on your screen after quite a long wait of time.

Q4. How can you validate emails using a single query?

To validate emails you can use the regular expressions function (REGEXP_LIKE). Consider the
below query.

3. SELECT
4. Email
5. FROM
6. Employee
7. where NOT REGEXP_LIKE(Email, ‘[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+.[A-Z]{2,4}’, ‘i’);

Q5. Consider a scenario where you have to send an email to a client from the SQL database. How do
you think you can achieve this task?
To send an email from the database, you can use the stored procedures. Follow the below procedure
to send the emails:

 Configure your SQL Server Mail account.

 Enable the database mail.
 Write a script to send an email. Refer below for the script.

1. USE [YourDB]
2. EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_send_dbmail
3. @recipients = '[email protected]; [email protected];[email protected]’
4. @body = ' Sample Body Text',
5. @subject = 'Example Email' ;
6. GO
Q6. Consider you have the following three tables which have to be linked together.
Department(Ssn, EmployeeName, EmployeeAge..)
EmployeeContactDetails(Ssn, DepartmentID,desc,Ord)
EmployeeAddress(Ssn,DepartmentID, desc, Ord)
The problem statement is to select all the departments from the Department table,
with the “desc” field from the EmployeeContactDetails and EmployeeAddress where Ord=1. Now, you
have to solve this problem statement with a single query.
To solve this problem statement you can use the JOINS concept. You simply have to perform a JOIN
on the Department.Ssn and the DepartmentID in the other tables.

Now, if you are sure that the Ssn exists in all the three considered tables, then you can use the
INNER JOIN. Also, if you are not sure that you have matching rows, then you can use the LEFT
JOIN. Consider the below query.

1. SELECT d.Ssn,
2. d.EmployeeName,
3. c.desc ContactDetailsDesc,
4. a.desc AddressDetailsDesc
5. from Department d
6. inner join EmployeeContactDetails c
7. on d.id = c.DepartmentID
8. inner join address a
9. on d.id = a.DepartmentID
10. where d.EmployeeName = 'abc'
11. and c.ord = 1
12. and a.ord = 1

Q7. If you are assigned a task, to find the information of PROCEDURES. What are the basic commands
that you will use to do so?
To check the procedures, you can consider the following query.

1. SELECT * FROM SampleSource

2. WHERE Type=’PROCEDURE’
3. AND NAME IN (‘SP_CONNECTED_AGG’,’SP_UNCONNECTED_AGG’);

To find the procedures columns information, you can consider the following query.

1. SELECT OWNER, OBJECT_NAME, ARGUMENT_NAME, DATA_TYPE, IN_OUT from ALL_ARGUMENTS order

by OWNER, OBJECT_NAME, SEQUENCE;

Q8. Can you tell which of the following WHERE clauses is faster?
WHERE col * 4 < 16

WHERE col < 16 / 4

If we compare both the statements, then the second WHERE clause would be comparatively faster
than the first one. That is because, for the first statement, MYSQL would retrieve the value of ‘col’ for
each and every row, multiplied by four. After that, it would compare the result to 16. Also, in the first
case no Index can be used, and hence it makes it further slow.

Q9. What is the main difference between ‘BETWEEN’ and ‘IN’ condition operators?
BETWEEN operator is used to display rows based on a range of values in a row whereas the IN
condition operator is used to check for values contained in a specific set of values.

Example of BETWEEN:
2. SELECT * FROM Students where ROLL_NO BETWEEN 10 AND 50;
Example of IN:
SELECT * FROM students where ROLL_NO IN (8,15,25);

Q10. What are the different types of Collation Sensitivity?

Following are the different types of collation sensitivity:

 Case Sensitivity
 Kana Sensitivity
 Width Sensitivity
 Accent Sensitivity

So this brings us to the end of the MySQL Interview Questions blog. I hope this set of MySQL
Interview Questions will help you ace your job interview. All the best for your interview!