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CS :
General Questions:
1. What is the purpose of the billing system?
o The billing system is designed to handle product sales, customer
management, and bill generation in a retail environment. It allows users to add products, create customer profiles, process purchases, generate bills, and keep track of payments and stock levels.
2. Explain the flow of the project. How does it work from start to finish?
o The flow begins by establishing a connection to a MySQL database. The
system allows the user to add products, view them, add customers, and generate bills based on customer purchases. When a bill is generated, the stock for purchased products is updated, and the total amount is calculated. The user can also view existing bills and mark them as paid. The flow is managed through a menu-driven interface.
3. What are the different modules in the billing system?
o The billing system is divided into the following modules:
1. Product Management: Allows adding and viewing products.
2. Customer Management: Allows adding and managing customers.
3. Billing: Facilitates bill generation based on customer purchases.
4. Payment Management: Allows marking bills as paid.
5. View Bills: Displays all the bills generated.
4. Why do you use MySQL for this project?
o MySQL is used because it is a reliable, widely used, and scalable relational
database management system (RDBMS). It provides efficient data storage, querying, and the ability to handle complex transactions, which are crucial for maintaining product and customer records as well as generating bills.
5. What is the significance of the AUTO_INCREMENT keyword in MySQL?
o The AUTO_INCREMENT keyword is used to automatically generate unique
values for primary key columns (e.g., product_id, customer_id, etc.) when new rows are inserted. This ensures that each row in the table has a unique identifier without needing manual input.
Python Code Specific Questions:
1. Explain the function create_db_connection().
o The create_db_connection() function establishes a connection to the MySQL
database using the mysql.connector.connect() method. It provides the necessary credentials such as host, user, password, and database name to connect to the database. This function returns a connection object that is used by other functions to interact with the database.
2. How do you add a product to the database? Explain the add_product() function.
o The add_product() function adds a new product to the database by accepting
the product's name, description, price, and stock quantity as parameters. It constructs an SQL INSERT INTO query and executes it, inserting the product's details into the products table. After executing the query, the function commits the transaction to save the changes in the database.
3. How does the view_products() function work?
o The view_products() function fetches all the products from the products table. It executes an SQL SELECT * FROM products query to retrieve all rows. The function then loops through the results and prints out each product's ID, name, price, and stock quantity.
4. Describe the process of creating a bill using the create_bill() function.
o The create_bill() function generates a bill for a customer by calculating the
total amount for purchased items. It checks if there is sufficient stock for each product and ensures that the products exist in the database. Once the items are validated, it inserts the bill into the bills table, creates corresponding entries in the bill_items table, and updates the stock quantity in the products table to reflect the sale. Finally, it commits the transaction to save the changes.
5. How does the mark_as_paid() function work?
o The mark_as_paid() function updates the payment status of a bill to "Paid". It
takes a bill_id as an argument and executes an SQL UPDATE query to change the payment_status field of the bills table. After the update, the transaction is committed to the database.
SQL Queries:
1. Explain the structure of the products table.
o The products table contains the following columns:
product_id: A unique identifier for each product (auto-incremented).
name: The name of the product (a string, cannot be NULL).
description: A textual description of the product.
price: The price of the product (a decimal value, cannot be NULL).
stock_quantity: The number of units available for the product (an
integer, cannot be NULL).
2. Why do we use the FOREIGN KEY constraint in the tables?
o The FOREIGN KEY constraint ensures referential integrity between related
tables. In this project:
bills.customer_id references customers.customer_id, linking each bill
to a specific customer.
bill_items.bill_id references bills.bill_id, linking bill items to their
respective bills.
bill_items.product_id references products.product_id, linking each bill
item to a specific product. This prevents data inconsistencies and ensures that only valid references exist.
3. What is the role of the ENUM data type in the bills table?
o The ENUM data type in the bills table is used for the payment_status column, which stores the payment status of a bill. It restricts the values of this column to either 'Paid' or 'Pending', providing a simple way to manage and track the payment status.
4. Why is the bills table linked to the customers table with a foreign key?
o The bills table is linked to the customers table to associate each bill with a specific customer. By using the customer_id foreign key, we can track which customer made the purchase and manage customer-related information (such as name and contact details) for each bill.
5. Explain the use of JOIN in the view_bills() function.
o The JOIN operation in the view_bills() function is used to retrieve information
from both the bills and customers tables. It matches records in the bills table with the corresponding records in the customers table based on the customer_id. This allows the system to display the customer's name along with the bill details, instead of just the customer_id.
Miscellaneous: 1. What will happen if a customer tries to buy more products than are available in stock?
o If a customer tries to purchase more products than are available in stock, the system will check the stock quantity and display a message saying that there is not enough stock. The bill creation process will be stopped, and the purchase will not be completed.
2. How do you handle errors such as invalid product IDs in the system?
o In the create_bill() function, an error is handled by checking if the product
exists in the database. If a product ID is invalid or does not exist, a message is printed, and the function exits without creating the bill. This prevents the creation of a bill with invalid or non-existent products.
3. What improvements could you make to this project in the future?
o Some possible improvements include:
Adding user authentication to restrict access to the system.
Implementing more advanced stock management, such as automated
restocking or low stock alerts.
Adding invoice generation and email notifications.
Providing a graphical user interface (GUI) for ease of use.
Security and Optimization:
1. How can you make this system more secure (e.g., password handling)?
o To improve security, you could:
Implement secure user authentication and password hashing using
libraries like bcrypt.
Use parameterized queries or prepared statements (as already done)
to prevent SQL injection attacks.
Ensure the database is protected from unauthorized access by using
strong passwords and limiting user privileges.
2. What changes would you make to optimize the performance of this billing system?
o To optimize performance:
Implement indexing on frequently queried columns (e.g., product_id,
customer_id). Use pagination for displaying large sets of data (e.g., bills or products) to avoid loading everything at once.
Optimize queries by limiting the columns selected and using efficient
joins.
By understanding these answers and being able to explain them clearly, you'll be well- prepared for your viva!
Knight's Microsoft Business Intelligence 24-Hour Trainer: Leveraging Microsoft SQL Server Integration, Analysis, and Reporting Services with Excel and SharePoint
Knight's Microsoft Business Intelligence 24-Hour Trainer: Leveraging Microsoft SQL Server Integration, Analysis, and Reporting Services with Excel and SharePoint
