Oracle Certification Questions

A Subquery or Inner query or a Nested query is a query within another SQL query and embedded within the WHERE clause.

Subqueries are most frequently used with the SELECT statement. The basic syntax is as follows::

SELECT column_name [, column_name ]
FROM table1 [, table2 ]
WHERE column_name OPERATOR
(SELECT column_name [, column_name ]
FROM table1 [, table2 ]
[WHERE])

A subquery is used to return data that will be used in the main query as a condition to further restrict the data to be retrieved.

Subqueries can be used with the SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE statements along with the operators like =, <, >, >=, <=, IN, BETWEEN, etc.

There are a few rules that subqueries must follow −

1. Subqueries must be enclosed within parentheses.

2. A subquery can have only one column in the SELECT clause, unless multiple columns are in the main query for the subquery to compare its selected columns.

3. An ORDER BY command cannot be used in a subquery, although the main query can use an ORDER BY. The GROUP BY command can be used to perform the same function as the ORDER BY in a subquery.

4. Subqueries that return more than one row can only be used with multiple value operators such as the IN operator.

5. The SELECT list cannot include any references to values that evaluate to a BLOB, ARRAY, CLOB, or NCLOB.

6. A subquery cannot be immediately enclosed in a set function.

7. The BETWEEN operator cannot be used with a subquery. However, the BETWEEN operator can be used within the subquery.

A candidate key is a column, or set of columns, in a table that can uniquely identify any database record without referring to any other data. Each table may have one or more candidate keys, but one candidate key is unique, and it is called the primary key.

Foreign keys are the columns of a table that points to the primary key of another table. They act as a cross-reference between tables.

In detail : A Foreign key is a field (or collection of fields) in one table that uniquely identifies a row of another table or the same table. In simpler words, the foreign key is defined in a second table, but it refers to the primary key or a unique key in the first table.