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Information Storage and Retrieval: Informatica Scenario based Questions and Solutions (Part-1)

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Sunday, February 14, 2010

Informatica Scenario based Questions and Solutions (Part-1)

Scenario1:

We have a target source table containing 3 columns : Col1, Col2 and Col3. There is only 1 row in the table as follows:

Col1 Col2 Col3
-----------------
  a       b       c

There is target table containg only 1 column Col. Design a mapping so that the target table contains 3 rows as follows:

Col
-----
a
b
c

Solution: Not using a Normalizer transformation:

Create 3 expression transformations exp_1,exp_2 and exp_3 with 1 port each. Connect col1 from Source Qualifier to port in exp_1.Connect col2 from Source Qualifier to port in exp_2.Connect col3 from source qualifier to port in exp_3. Make 3 instances of the target. Connect port from exp_1 to target_1. Connect port from exp_2 to target_2 and connect port from exp_3 to target_3.

Scenario 2:

There is a source table that contains duplicate rows.Design a mapping to load all the unique rows in 1 target while all the duplicate rows (only 1 occurence) in another target.

Solution :

Bring all the columns from source qualifier to an Aggregator transformation. Check group by on the key column. Create a new output port count_col in aggregator transformation and write an expression count(key_column). Make a router transformation with 2 groups:Dup and Non-Dup. Check the router conditions count_col>1 in Dup group while count_col=1 in Non-dup group. Load these 2 groups in different targets.

Scenario 3:

There is a source table containing 2 columns Col1 and Col2 with data as follows:

Col1   Col2
 a          l
 b         p
 a         m
 a         n
 b         q
 x          y

Design a mapping to load a target table with following values from the above mentioned source:

Col1    Col2
  a        l,m,n
  b       p,q
  x        y

Solution:

Use a sorter transformation after the source qualifier to sort the values with col1 as key. Build an expression transformation with following ports(order of ports should also be the same):

1. Col1_prev : It will be a variable type port. Expression should contain a variable e.g val
2. Col1 : It will be Input/Output port from Sorter transformation
3. Col2 : It will be input port from sorter transformation
4. val : It will be a variable type port. Expression should contain Col1
5. Concatenated_value: It will be a variable type port. Expression should be decode(Col1,Col1_prev,Concatenated_value||','||Col2,Col1)
6. Concatenated_Final : It will be an outpur port conating the value of Concatenated_value

After expression, build a Aggregator Transformation. Bring ports Col1 and Concatenated_Final into aggregator. Group by Col1. Don't give any expression. This effectively will return the last row from each group.

Connect the ports Col1 and Concatenated_Final from aggregator to the target table.

Scenario 4:

Design an Informatica mapping to load first half records to 1 target while other half records to a separate target.

Solution:

You will have to assign a row number with each record. To achieve this, either use Oracle's psudo column rownum in Source Qualifier query or use NEXTVAL port of a Sequence generator. Lets name this column as rownumber.

From Source Qualifier, create 2 pipelines:

First Pipeline:
Carry first port Col1 from SQ transformation into an aggregator transformation. Create a new output port "tot_rec" and give the expression as COUNT(Col1). Do not group by any port. This will give us the total number of records in Source Table. Carry this port tot_rec to an Expression Transformation. Add another port DUMMY in expression transformation with default value 1.

Second Pipeline:
from SQ transformation, carry all the ports(including an additional port rownumber generated by rownum or sequence generator) to an Expression Transformation. Add another port DUMMY in expression transformation with default value 1.

Join these 2 pipelines with a Joiner Transformation on common port DUMMY. carry all the source table ports and 2 additional ports tot_rec and rownumber to a router transformation. Add 2 groups in Router : FIRST_HALF and SECOND_HALF. Give condition rownumber<=tot_rec/2 in FIRST_HALF. Give condition rownumber>tot_rec/2 in SECOND_HALF. Connect the 2 groups to 2 different targets.

15 comments:

Usha said...

Gaurav,
Nice article.. Just one comment on scenario 4. If you use Oracle Analytics function in source qualifier, you can avoid 2nd pipe line.

eg. select col1 count() over() as total_rows from aTable

Usha said...

Sorry Missed comma and count needs to be count(*)

eg. select col1, count(*) over() as total_rows from aTable

Anonymous said...

Gaurav, useful blog for interviewers. Thanks :-)

Akshat J said...

for problem4: can we have the following solution:

1. Sequence generator--for numbering the records.

2. Count the total records in aggregator.


3. let x=Count/2 in expression

4. Router:If Seq_Gen val of record >x then else

Anonymous said...

hi can you plz xplain how we can xtract the data in one file in scenario one after populating it in 3 different instances of tgt tables, also whats is the key to denormalize without using normalizer.

Anonymous said...

my tgt was a flat file where i need to populate the data for all the 3 instances

swathi said...

For senario 1,our out put is having only 1 target r8,if we use 3 instances of targets na,bt according to 1st senario answer we can we havent get the 3 rows in single target...can any one explain my dout?

Anonymous said...

Good article and superb questions.
For more interview questions: informatica scenarios

sreenuRao said...

scenario 2 solution is not correct, if you use aggregator it will shrink the data using aggregation, it won't return duplicate rows out from the aggregator.

sreenuRao said...

scenario 2 solution is not correct, if you use aggregator it will shrink the data using aggregation, it won't return duplicate rows out from the aggregator.

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vijay @ informatica tutorials said...

You can find more scenarios at Informatica scenarios

Divya said...

Scenario3:
The decode statement in Solution3 should be
decode(Col1,Col1_prev,concat1||','||Col2,Col2)

the default condition is mentioned Col1 it should be Col2.

James Zicrov said...

Informatica is a sea of knowledge and a tool that goes on becoming deeper and deeper as u keep diving.

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