15 Basic MySQL Interview Questions for Database Administrators

Categories Interview Questions, MySQL 22 Comments

Prior to This Article, three articles has already been published in ‘Linux Interview‘ Section and all of them were highly appreciated by our notable readers, however we were receiving feedback to make this interactive learning process, section-wise. From idea to action, we are providing you 15 MySQL Interview Questions.

Mysql Interview Questions
Mysql Interview Questions
1. How would you check if MySql service is running or not?
Answer : Issue the command “service mysql status” in ‘Debian’ and “service mysqld status” in RedHat. Check the output, and all done.
[email protected]:/home/avi# service mysql status

/usr/bin/mysqladmin  Ver 8.42 Distrib 5.1.72, for debian-linux-gnu on i486
Copyright (c) 2000, 2013, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its
affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective
owners.

Server version 5.1.72-2
Protocol version 10
Connection Localhost via UNIX socket
UNIX socket /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
Uptime: 1 hour 22 min 49 sec

Threads: 1  Questions: 112138  Slow queries: 1  Opens: 1485  Flush tables: 1  Open tables: 64  Queries per second avg: 22.567.
2. If the service is running/stop how would you stop/start the service?
Answer : To start MySql service use command as service mysqld start and to stop use service mysqld stop.
[email protected]:/home/avi# service mysql stop

Stopping MySQL database server: mysqld.

[email protected]:/home/avi# service mysql start

Starting MySQL database server: mysqld.

Checking for corrupt, not cleanly closed and upgrade needing tables..
3. How will you login to MySQL from Linux Shell?
Answer : To connect or login to MySQL service, use command: mysql -u root -p.
[email protected]:/home/avi# mysql -u root -p 
Enter password: 
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g. 
Your MySQL connection id is 207 
Server version: 5.1.72-2 (Debian) 

Copyright (c) 2000, 2013, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its 
affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective 
owners. 

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement. 

mysql>
4. How will you obtain list of all the databases?
Answer : To list all currently running databases run the command on mysql shell as: show databases;
mysql> show databases; 
+--------------------+ 
| Database           | 
+--------------------+ 
| information_schema | 
| a1                 | 
| cloud              | 
| mysql              | 
| phpmyadmin         | 
| playsms            | 
| sisso              | 
| test               | 
| ukolovnik          | 
| wordpress          | 
+--------------------+ 
10 rows in set (0.14 sec)
5. How will you switch to a database, and start working on that?
Answer : To use or switch to a specific database run the command on mysql shell as: use database_name;
mysql> use cloud; 
Reading table information for completion of table and column names 
You can turn off this feature to get a quicker startup with -A 

Database changed 
mysql>
6. How will you get the list of all the tables, in a database?
Answer : To list all the tables of a database use the command on mysql shell as: show tables;
mysql> show tables; 
+----------------------------+ 
| Tables_in_cloud            | 
+----------------------------+ 
| oc_appconfig               | 
| oc_calendar_calendars      | 
| oc_calendar_objects        | 
| oc_calendar_repeat         | 
| oc_calendar_share_calendar | 
| oc_calendar_share_event    | 
| oc_contacts_addressbooks   | 
| oc_contacts_cards          | 
| oc_fscache                 | 
| oc_gallery_sharing         | 
+----------------------------+ 
10 rows in set (0.00 sec)
7. How will you get the Field Name and Type of a MySql table?
Answer : To get the Field Name and Type of a table use the command on mysql shell as: describe table_name;
mysql> describe oc_users; 
+----------+--------------+------+-----+---------+-------+ 
| Field    | Type         | Null | Key | Default | Extra | 
+----------+--------------+------+-----+---------+-------+ 
| uid      | varchar(64)  | NO   | PRI |         |       | 
| password | varchar(255) | NO   |     |         |       | 
+----------+--------------+------+-----+---------+-------+ 
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)
8. How will you delete a table?
Answer : To delte a specific table use the command on mysql shell as: drop table table_name;
mysql> drop table lookup; 

Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
9. What about database? How will you delete a database?
Answer : To delte a specific database use the command on mysql shell as: drop database database-name;
mysql> drop database a1; 

Query OK, 11 rows affected (0.07 sec)
10. How will you see all the contents of a table?
Answer : To view all the contents of a particular table use the command on mysql shell as: select * from table_name;
mysql> select * from engines; 
+------------+---------+----------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+------+------------+ 
| ENGINE     | SUPPORT | COMMENT                                                        | TRANSACTIONS | XA   | SAVEPOINTS | 
+------------+---------+----------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+------+------------+ 
| InnoDB     | YES     | Supports transactions, row-level locking, and foreign keys     | YES          | YES  | YES        | 
| MRG_MYISAM | YES     | Collection of identical MyISAM tables                          | NO           | NO   | NO         | 
| BLACKHOLE  | YES     | /dev/null storage engine (anything you write to it disappears) | NO           | NO   | NO         | 
| CSV        | YES     | CSV storage engine                                             | NO           | NO   | NO         | 
| MEMORY     | YES     | Hash based, stored in memory, useful for temporary tables      | NO           | NO   | NO         | 
| FEDERATED  | NO      | Federated MySQL storage engine                                 | NULL         | NULL | NULL       | 
| ARCHIVE    | YES     | Archive storage engine                                         | NO           | NO   | NO         | 
| MyISAM     | DEFAULT | Default engine as of MySQL 3.23 with great performance         | NO           | NO   | NO         | 
+------------+---------+----------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+------+------------+ 
8 rows in set (0.00 sec)
11. How will you see all the data in a field (say, uid), from table (say, oc_users)?
Answer : To view all the data in a field use the command on mysql shell as: select uid from oc_users;
mysql> select uid from oc_users; 
+-----+ 
| uid | 
+-----+ 
| avi | 
+-----+ 
1 row in set (0.03 sec)
12. Say you have a table ‘xyz’, which contains several fields including ‘create_time’ and ‘engine’. The field ‘engine’ is populated with two types of data ‘Memory’ and ‘MyIsam’. How will you get only ‘create_time’ and ‘engine’ from the table where engine is ‘MyIsam’?
Answer : Use the command on mysql shell as: select create_time, engine from xyz where engine=”MyIsam”;
12. mysql> select create_time, engine from xyz where engine="MyIsam";

+---------------------+--------+ 
| create_time         | engine | 
+---------------------+--------+ 
| 2013-12-15 13:43:27 | MyISAM | 
| 2013-12-15 13:43:27 | MyISAM | 
| 2013-12-15 13:43:27 | MyISAM | 
| 2013-12-15 13:43:27 | MyISAM | 
| 2013-12-15 13:43:27 | MyISAM | 
| 2013-12-15 13:43:27 | MyISAM | 
| 2013-12-15 13:43:27 | MyISAM | 
| 2013-12-15 13:43:27 | MyISAM | 
| 2013-10-23 14:56:38 | MyISAM | 
| 2013-10-23 14:56:38 | MyISAM | 
| 2013-10-23 14:56:38 | MyISAM | 
| 2013-10-23 14:56:38 | MyISAM | 
| 2013-10-23 14:56:38 | MyISAM | 
| 2013-10-23 14:56:38 | MyISAM | 
| 2013-10-23 14:56:38 | MyISAM | 
+---------------------+--------+ 
132 rows in set (0.29 sec)
13. How will you show all the records from table ‘xrt’ where name is ‘tecmint’ and web_address is ‘tecmint.com’?
Answer : Use the command on mysql shell as: select * from xrt where name = “tecmint” and web_address = “tecmint.com”;
mysql> select  * from xrt where name = "tecmint" and web_address = “tecmint.com”;
+---------------+---------------------+---------------+ 
| Id                  | name                   | web_address | 
+---------------+---------------------+----------------+ 
| 13                 |  tecmint               | tecmint.com  |
+---------------+---------------------+----------------+ 
| 41                 |  tecmint               | tecmint.com  |
+---------------+---------------------+----------------+
14. How will you show all the records from table ‘xrt’ where name is not ‘tecmint’ and web_address is ‘tecmint.com’?
Answer : Use the command on mysql shell as: select * from xrt where name != “tecmint” and web_address = “tecmint.com”;
mysql> select * from xrt where name != ”tecmint” and web_address = ”tecmint.com”;

+---------------+---------------------+---------------+ 
| Id            | name                | web_address   | 
+---------------+---------------------+----------------+ 
| 1173          |  tecmint            | tecmint.com   |
+---------------+---------------------+----------------+
15. You need to know total number of row entry in a table. How will you achieve it?
Answer : Use the command on mysql shell as: select count(*) from table_name;
mysql> select count(*) from Tables; 

+----------+ 
| count(*) | 
+----------+ 
|      282 | 
+----------+ 
1 row in set (0.01 sec)

Read Also : 10 MySQL Database Interview Questions Intermediates

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22 thoughts on “15 Basic MySQL Interview Questions for Database Administrators”

  2. I must say a very nice collection of questions related to database. But i think questions related to MySql data types are also frequently asked. So you can include questions from the basic tutorial like introduction to MySQL data types.

    Reply

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