One of My Interview Questions Today
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Write a function that reverses the contents of a null-terminated string in place. The only limitation is that you can't allocate a new string during any part of the process. This is what I gave them:
void ReverseString(char* str)
{
int len = strlen(str);
int delta = len / 2;
char pivot;
for (int i = 0; i < delta; i++)
{
pivot = str[i];
str[i] = str[len - i - 1];
str[len - i - 1] = pivot;
}
}I know, it's not all that impressive, but the interviewer told me I'm the only person he's seen do it that way (which seemed odd to me). BTW, I feel that both of the interviews I did today went well. I fully expect to get offers on from each company.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
On a long string, you will exhaust available stack space , not to mention the time overhead involved in repeatedly calling the function. Therefore, a recursive function is not an appropriate answer. -- modified at 11:08 Tuesday 24th July, 2007
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
recursive, how WTFworthy. :rolleyes:
-- You have to explain to them [VB coders] what you mean by "typed". their first response is likely to be something like, "Of course my code is typed. Do you think i magically project it onto the screen with the power of my mind?" --- John Simmons / outlaw programmer
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Actually, it's not so much a "can-you-do-it" question as much as it is a "how-would-you-approach-it" question.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001I had to look up null terminated. I suck.. :( Seriously, I've been programming for 8 years (not including the 10,20 basic way back in the day), yet every time I see something like this I wonder what the hell I've really learned in all that time. It's discouraging.
Michael J. Collins Web Application Programmer
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Actually, it's not so much a "can-you-do-it" question as much as it is a "how-would-you-approach-it" question.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
it is a "how-would-you-approach-it" question
That would make more sense. To see what kind of thinker one is.
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer
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I had to look up null terminated. I suck.. :( Seriously, I've been programming for 8 years (not including the 10,20 basic way back in the day), yet every time I see something like this I wonder what the hell I've really learned in all that time. It's discouraging.
Michael J. Collins Web Application Programmer
Michael, Back in ancient times (ca.1966) my friend Richard Pratt and I had a little contest, coding a binary search in IBM 360 assembler. At the end we were fighting to remove individual cycles from the loop. When we agreed he had won, reaching the irreducible minimum loop time, Dick Giering showed up with a faster method in hand. His algorithm wasted "lots" of time at the start building a halving table. Once he had the table built, his search ran almost twice as fast as our best effort, because he didn't have a divide instruction inside the loop. Don't feel bad. As the saying goes, "Ve get too soon oldt, und too late schmart." JimT
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Memory must have been an issue. Otherwise, the requirement would not have been stated the way it was. I could have knocked two more cycles off the cpu load, but it would have cost them 4 more bytes of memory.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
Write a function that reverses the contents of a null-terminated string in place. The only limitation is that you can't allocate a new string during any part of the process. This is what I gave them:
void ReverseString(char* str)
{
int len = strlen(str);
int delta = len / 2;
char pivot;
for (int i = 0; i < delta; i++)
{
pivot = str[i];
str[i] = str[len - i - 1];
str[len - i - 1] = pivot;
}
}I know, it's not all that impressive, but the interviewer told me I'm the only person he's seen do it that way (which seemed odd to me). BTW, I feel that both of the interviews I did today went well. I fully expect to get offers on from each company.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001I don't have a c++ compiler on hand to prove it, but I think this code does the trick for single-byte character sets: void ReverseString(char* str) { char* end = strrchr(str, 0); while(str < --end) { str ^= end; end ^= str; str++ ^= end--; } }
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
Memory must have been an issue. Otherwise, the requirement would not have been stated the way it was.
Maybe they just wanted to have you think about a solution from a different perspective? Not sure why they would have a seasoned programmer like yourself write code example to prove yourself.
"I've seen more information on a frickin' sticky note!" - Dave Kreskowiak
Joel on Software suggested reversing a string as an interview question as an article some time ago. I got the same question in an interview almost 12 months ago and I think more developers are using it in interviews based on the Joel on Software article. He also gave some explanation of the conclusions you can draw from the solution given by the interviewee. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000073.html -- modified at 5:39 Wednesday 25th July, 2007
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Write a function that reverses the contents of a null-terminated string in place. The only limitation is that you can't allocate a new string during any part of the process. This is what I gave them:
void ReverseString(char* str)
{
int len = strlen(str);
int delta = len / 2;
char pivot;
for (int i = 0; i < delta; i++)
{
pivot = str[i];
str[i] = str[len - i - 1];
str[len - i - 1] = pivot;
}
}I know, it's not all that impressive, but the interviewer told me I'm the only person he's seen do it that way (which seemed odd to me). BTW, I feel that both of the interviews I did today went well. I fully expect to get offers on from each company.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001Hi, Very Good question and i having 3 1/2 years experience also could not get a clue.Really felt guilty. Thanks for sharing this Q&A. Thanks Prashant
prashant_vijaywada
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I don't have a c++ compiler on hand to prove it, but I think this code does the trick for single-byte character sets: void ReverseString(char* str) { char* end = strrchr(str, 0); while(str < --end) { str ^= end; end ^= str; str++ ^= end--; } }
(amended from previous post) I don't have a c++ compiler on hand to prove it, but I think this code does the trick for single-byte character sets: void ReverseString(char* str) { char* end = strrchr(str, 0); while(str < --end) { *str ^= *end; *end ^= *str; *str++ ^= *end--; } }
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(amended from previous post) I don't have a c++ compiler on hand to prove it, but I think this code does the trick for single-byte character sets: void ReverseString(char* str) { char* end = strrchr(str, 0); while(str < --end) { *str ^= *end; *end ^= *str; *str++ ^= *end--; } }
(amended from previous post -- again) I don't have a c++ compiler on hand to prove it, but I think this code does the trick for single-byte character sets: void ReverseString(char* str) { char* end = strrchr(str, 0); while(str < --end) { *str ^= *end; *end ^= *str; *str++ ^= *end; } }
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Write a function that reverses the contents of a null-terminated string in place. The only limitation is that you can't allocate a new string during any part of the process. This is what I gave them:
void ReverseString(char* str)
{
int len = strlen(str);
int delta = len / 2;
char pivot;
for (int i = 0; i < delta; i++)
{
pivot = str[i];
str[i] = str[len - i - 1];
str[len - i - 1] = pivot;
}
}I know, it's not all that impressive, but the interviewer told me I'm the only person he's seen do it that way (which seemed odd to me). BTW, I feel that both of the interviews I did today went well. I fully expect to get offers on from each company.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001function = std::reverse( sz, sz + strlen(sz)); Regards, Not Joel or pointer arithmetic interviewer
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Joel on Software suggested reversing a string as an interview question as an article some time ago. I got the same question in an interview almost 12 months ago and I think more developers are using it in interviews based on the Joel on Software article. He also gave some explanation of the conclusions you can draw from the solution given by the interviewee. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000073.html -- modified at 5:39 Wednesday 25th July, 2007
Like John had said, it was more about how to think out the problem rather than can you do it or not.
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer
