Interview questions - 3 years Exp - BOA, HCL and CTS

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Gurugars
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Interview questions - 3 years Exp - BOA, HCL and CTS

Post by Gurugars » Thu Nov 07, 2013 4:08 pm

Hi,

Recently I have taken few interviews for Mainframe development/Support. Posting the questions which are asked with me. Hope it may helpful for those who are taking the interview for first time.

I have attended all these interviews in Chennai, India.


Company name: BOA

COBOL
1. Static call VS Dynamic call
2. How can you tell a CALL is static or dynamic just by looking at the code?
3. If a COBBAT program is calling COBBATDB program, how many plans would be there?
4. What are the ways you can pass values to other programs?
5. What are the ways you can get vales to a program?
6. What is the use of REPLACING clause in COBOL program against copybooks?

DB2

1. Catalog tables?
2. PLAN_TABLE - what are the values you will look in the table for optimization?
3. DEAD-LOCK?
4. If a program is running for a long time which ran very minimal time yesterday, what are all could be the reason?
5. SQL codes: 904, 903, 904, 811, 803, 530
6. Why cursor?
7. I know my query will return more than one row but I don't want cursor what should I do? -- provide FETCH FIRST ROW ONLY
8. What is 305? NULL indicator not handled properly.
9. What are the ways to handle NULL indicator?
10. DB2 utilities REORG, RUNSTAT
11. There is a student table where a student can have more subjects and marks secured in that subject. Now want the complete details of student who appeared for more than 3 subjects.
12. UNION, UNION ALL which will give a distinct result? --- UNION
13. What is the difference between GROUP BY and ORDER BY?
14. COMMIT and ROLLBACK --- how will you secure opened cursor from COMMIT? Will ROLLBACK close all the opened cursor?
15. SYSIBM tables?
16. How can you get the number of rows impacted by the last executed query? - SQLERRD (3)
17. Isolation levels? CS, RR, UR
18. I am compiling my DB2 with CS will it lock the table though I use simple select on a table?
19. What are cluster and index?

Company name : HCL

1. How will you build an internal array in COBOL program --- OCCURS clause
2. How will you create a dynamic internal table? --- using DEPENDING ON clause.
3. Do we need to declare the depending on clause variable in WS? -- NO
4. Dynamic and Static calls? How will you identify just by looking at the program?
5. How will you pass values to the other programs? Via Linkage section, MQ, Files, TDQ, TSQ, Channels & Containers
6. Why we should use TSQ, we can use TDQ instead right?
7. What is Binary search? What is the default ordering of Binary search -- ASC.
8. What is executable PLAN or Package?
9. What is Subscript and Index?

Company Name - CTS

1. Static VS Dynamic calls
2. Subscript VS INDEX -- which is better? Why it is better?
3. Search VS Search all?
4. What is COMP and COMP3? How much space will 9(4) COMP occupy?
5. What are isolation levels? What each will do?
6. What are cursors? Why we need cursors?
7. Explain a simple program which involves DB2 like how will you declare cursor, fetch, close etc.
8. Explain DB2 program compilation process.
9. Explain CICS-DB2 program compilation process.
10. Questions on Redefine like can WS-A X(100) can be redefined by WS-B X(200) wise versa?
11. Different file open MODES and their purpose? - INPUT, OUTPUT, I-O, EXTEND.
12. Few DB2 SQLCODEs 811, 530, 803 like most frequent.
13. Later I was asked to write few queries by given few sample tables -- which involved JOINS, SUM (*), Group by etc.,
14. What does BLOCK SIZE IS ZERO means while defining the file in COBOL: program?


Hope this may help!
Guru:-)

You're never fully dressed without a smile :)

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Gurugars
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Location: Chennai,India.

Post by Gurugars » Wed Nov 27, 2013 2:09 pm

Company name - CSC

DB2
SQL codes -501 to -504, -904, -911, -803, -180, -181, -305, -205, -922 etc
Null indicator - how will you handle it? What are the possible values returned to null-indicator-var? -2, -1, 0
DB2 Load and unload utilities.
About Explain? How will you determine cost of an query.? Where it will be available?
About COBBATDB program compilation process.
Bind options?
Isolation levels - CS RR UR RS.. about each.
Which is executable pkg or plan?
How will you copy a entire table in one region to another table which is having two more additional columns.?
Portioned tables?


COBOL
Internal table
Search and search all
What are the changes need to be done while you changing a SERCH clause by SEARCH ALL clause
PERFORM types
String unstring inspect
How will you get the system date in COBOL pgm? and how will you get the date of 10 days after today in COBOL (not using DB2)?
Evaluate and If end-if - some situation and answers
File organizations and access modes for VSAM files

JCL
VSAM utility - IDCAMS
Diff between Repro and SORT-copy?
What are the parameters used while creating GDG, KSDS, RRDS, ESDS
GDG - questions like - file created in step one and how it will be referred in next step. This job abends after step1, then what are the changes need to be done while re-running/ changes needed?
Understandings on JCLLIB, JOBLIB and STEPLIB
How will you check a file is empty and stop processing the next steps.
What is COND=EVEN, COND=ONLY
How many DD statement in a step?
How many steps in a PROC?
About JES3, JES2

CICS
What is DFHCOMMAREA
What is the return code when a file open error occurs in CICS
What are the CICS abends that you are aware of?
Guru:-)

You're never fully dressed without a smile :)

NicC
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Location: Down on the pig farm

Post by NicC » Wed Nov 27, 2013 3:21 pm

A lot of what is posted here are not questions but just a phrase with no meaning. For example:
Internal Table
About JES3,JES2
These are not questions.
Regards
Nic

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Gurugars
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Posts: 107
Joined: Sat Oct 23, 2010 2:17 pm
Location: Chennai,India.

Post by Gurugars » Thu Nov 28, 2013 4:48 pm

A lot of what is posted here are not questions but just a phrase with no meaning.
Thanks NicC for your concern. But these are all the topic that I have been questioned in the interviews that I attended. Also the intension I posted here is not for the solutions/answers. Just posted few areas where a first time job switcher need to brush up himself.



Yes I agree the below..
These are not questions.
Guru:-)

You're never fully dressed without a smile :)

academyindia4

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