Coding interview questions

CODING
INTERVIEW
QUESTIONS

-To All Hard Working Job Hunters

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Copyright ©2012 CareerMonk Publications. All rights reserved.

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means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or
author

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to many people who saw me through this book, to all those who provided
support, talked things over, read, wrote, offered comments, allowed me to quote their remarks and assisted in
the editing, proofreading and design. In particular, I would like to thank the following individuals.

[ ], for his encouragement during my stay at
.

[ ], [ , ] for
spending their valuable time in reviewing the book, suggestions and encouragement.

& [Founders of ], for approaching me for teaching
at their training centers.

, and have contributed greatly to the quality of this book. I thank all of
for your help and suggestions.

Last but not least, I would like to thank of ,
& [ ], [ of ],
[ , ],
[ ], [ , ]& for helping me and
my family during our studies.

-
M-Tech,
Founder of

Preface
Dear Reader,

Please Hold on! I know many people do not read preface. But I would like to strongly recommend reading
preface of this book at least. This preface has from regular prefaces.

This book assumes you have some basic knowledge about computer science. Main objective of the book is not to
provide you all the interview questions. I have followed a pattern of improving the problem solutions with
different complexities (for each problem, you observe multiple solutions with different improved complexities
in data structure and algorithmic problems). Basically, it is an enumeration of possible solutions. With this
approach, even if we get a new question it gives us a way to think about all possible solutions. For all other
topics, it will act as refreshment. This book is very much useful for interview preparation, competitive exams
preparation and campus preparations.
As a if you read complete book with good understanding, I am sure you will challenge the
interviewers and that is the objective of this book.
This book is very much useful for the of and during their academic
preparations. All the chapters of this book contain theory and their related problems as many as possible. If you
read as a preparing for competition exams for Computer Science/Information Technology], the content
of this book covers the topics in full details. While writing the book, an intense care has been
taken to help students who are preparing for these kinds of exams.

In most the chapters you will see more importance given to and analyzing them instead of
concentrating more on theory. For each chapter, first you will see the basic required theory and then followed
by problems.
For many of the problems, solutions are provided with different complexities. We start with
solution and slowly move towards the possible for that problem. For each problem
we will try to understand how much time the algorithm is taking and how much memory the algorithm is
taking.
It is that, at least one complete reading of this book is required to get full understanding of all
the topics. In the subsequent readings, you can directly go to any chapter and refer. Even though, enough
readings were given for correcting the errors, due to human tendency there could be some minor typos in the
book. If any such typos found, they will be updated at . I request you to constantly
monitor this site for any corrections, new problems and solutions. Also, please provide your valuable
suggestions at: .
Wish you all the best. Have a nice reading.

-
M-Tech,
Founder of

Table of Contents

1. Programming Basics ----------------------------------------------------------------------9
2. Introduction ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 39
3. Recursion and Backtracking ------------------------------------------------------------ 58
4. Linked Lists------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 63
5. Stacks ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 99
6. Queues ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 122
7. Trees ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 132
8. Priority Queue and Heaps ------------------------------------------------------------- 202
9. Graph Algorithms ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 218
10. Sorting ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 246
11. Searching ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 266
12. Selection Algorithms [Medians] ------------------------------------------------------- 291
13. Symbol Tables -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 300
14. Hashing -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 302
15. String Algorithms --------------------------------------------------------------------- 316
16. Algorithms Design Techniques -------------------------------------------------------- 337
17. Greedy Algorithms --------------------------------------------------------------------- 340
18. Divide and Conquer Algorithms ------------------------------------------------------ 349
19. Dynamic Programming --------------------------------------------------------------- 355
20. Complexity Classes --------------------------------------------------------------------- 392
21. Design Interview Questions ----------------------------------------------------------- 398
22. Operating System Concepts------------------------------------------------------------ 454
23. Computer Networking Basics ---------------------------------------------------------- 461
24. Database Concepts --------------------------------------------------------------------- 474
25. Brain Teasers --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 480
26. Non-Technical Help ------------------------------------------------------------------- 483
27. Miscellaneous Concepts---------------------------------------------------------------- 488

CODING INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

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Coding Interview Questions Programming Basics

Chapter-1
PROGRAMMING BASICS

The objective of this chapter is to explain the basics of programming. In this chapter you will know about data types,
pointers, scoping rules, memory layout of program, parameter passing techniques, types of languages and problems
related to them.

1.1 Variables
Before going to the definition of variables, let us relate them to old mathematical equations. All of us have solved
many mathematical equations since childhood. As an example, consider the below equation:

We don’t have to worry about the use of above equation. The important thing that we need to understand is, the
equation has some names ( and ) which hold values (data). That means, the ( and ) are the place holders
for representing data. Similarly, in computer science we need something for holding data and are the
facility for doing that.

1.2 Data types
In the above equation, the variables and can take any values like integral numbers ( , etc...), real numbers
( etc…) or just and . To solve the equation, we need to relate them to kind of values they can take and
is the name being used in computer science for this purpose. A in a programming language is a
set of data with values having predefined characteristics. Examples of data types are: integer, floating point unit
number, character, string etc...
Computer memory is all filled with zeros and ones. If we have a problem and wanted to code it, it’s very difficult to
provide the solution in terms of zeros and ones. To help users, programming languages and compilers are providing the
facility of data types. For example, takes bytes (actual value depends on compiler), takes bytes etc…
This says that, in memory we are combining bytes ( bits) and calling it as . Similarly, combining bytes
( bits) and calling it as . A data type reduces the coding effort. Basically, there are two types of data types:
 System defined data types (also called data types)
 User defined data types
System defined data types (Primitive data types): Data types which are defined by system are called data
types. The primitive data types which are provided by many programming languages are: int, float, char, double, bool,
etc… The number of bits allocated for each primitive data type depends on the programming languages, compiler and
operating system. For the same primitive data type, different languages may use different sizes. Depending on the size
of the data types the total available values (domain) will also changes. For example, “ ” may take bytes or bytes.
If it takes bytes ( bits) then the total possible values are - to + (- -1). If it takes, bytes (
bits), then the possible values are between to (- -1). Same is the case with
remaining data types too.
User defined data types: If the system defined data types are not enough then most programming languages allows the
users to define their own data types called as user defined data types. Good example of user defined data types are:
structures in and classes in .

1.1 Variables 9

Coding Interview Questions

For example, in the below case, we are combining many system defined data types and called it as user defined data
type with name “ ”. This gives more flexibility and comfort in dealing with computer memory.
struct newType {
int data1;
float data 2;
…
char data;
};

1.3 Data Structure
Based on the above discussion, once we have data in variables, we need some mechanism for manipulating that data to
solve problems. is a particular way of storing and organizing data in a computer so that it can be used
efficiently. That means, a is a specialized format for organizing and storing data. General data
structure types include arrays, files, linked lists, stacks, queues, trees, graphs and so on.
Depending on the organization of the elements, data structures are classified into two types:
1) Elements are accessed in a sequential order but it is not compulsory to store all
elements sequentially (say, Linked Lists). : Linked Lists, Stacks and Queues.
2) : Elements of this data structure are stored/accessed in a non-linear order.
: Trees and graphs.

1.4 Abstract Data Types (ADTs)
Before defining abstract data types, let us consider the different view of system defined data types. We all know that,
by default, all primitive data types (int, float, et..) supports basic operations like addition, subtraction etc… The system
is providing the implementations for the primitive data types. For user defined data types also we need to define
operations. The implementation for these operations can be done when we want to actually use them. That means, in
general user defined data types are defined along with their operations.
To simplify the process of solving the problems, we generally combine the data structures along with their operations
and are called (ADTs). An ADT consists of parts:
1. Declaration of data
2. Declaration of operations
Commonly used ADTs : Linked Lists, Stacks, Queues, Priority Queues, Binary Trees, Dictionaries, Disjoint Sets
(Union and Find), Hash Tables, Graphs, and many other. For example, stack uses LIFO (Last-In-First-Out) mechanism
while storing the data in data structures. The last element inserted into the stack is the first element that gets deleted.
Common operations of it are: creating the stack, pushing an element onto the stack, popping an element from stack,
finding the current top of the stack, finding number of elements in the stack etc...
While defining the ADTs do not care about implementation details. They come in to picture only when we want to
use them. Different kinds of ADTs are suited to different kinds of applications, and some are highly specialized to
specific tasks. By the end of this book, we will go through many of them and you will be in a position to relate the data
structures to the kind of problems they solve.

1.5 Memory and Variables
First let’s understand the way memory is organized in a computer. We can treat the memory as an array of bytes. Each
location is identified by an address (index to array). In general, the address is not a valid memory location. It is
important to understand that the address of any byte (location) in memory is an integer. In the below diagram value
depends on the main memory size of the system.

1.3 Data Structure 10


To read or write any location, CPU accesses it by sending its address to the memory controller. When we create a
variable (for example, in : ), the compiler allocates a block of contiguous memory locations and its size depends
on the size of the variable. The compiler also keeps an internal tag that associates the variable name with the address
of the first byte allocated to it (sometimes called as ). So when we want to access that variable like this:
, the compiler knows where that variable is located and it writes the value .

Address Memory Value

0 Memory Value
1
X
2 ...
… …
2000
…

Size of a Variable: operator is used to find size of the variable (how much memory a variable occupies). For
example, on some computers, ( ) gives the value . This means an integer needs contiguous bytes in memory.
If the address of would be , then the actual memory locations used by are: and .
Address of a Variable: In language, we can get the address of a variable using operator ( ). The below
code prints the address of variable. In general, addresses are printed in hexadecimal as they are compact and also
easy to understand if the addresses are big.
int X;
printf("The address is: %un", &X);

0 Memory Value X

2 ...
… …
&XAddress of X 2000
is 2000 …

1.6 Pointers
Pointers are also variables which can hold the address of another variable.
Declaration of Pointers: To declare a pointer, we have to specify the type of the variable it will point to. That means
we need to specify the type of the variable whose address it’s going to hold. The declaration is very simple. Let us see
some examples of pointer declarations below:
int *ptr1;
float *ptr2;
unsigned int *ptr3;
char *ptr4; void *ptr5;
Here is a pointer that can point to an variable, can point to a , to an , and
to a . Finally is a pointer that can point to anything. These pointers are called pointers, and there are
some restrictions on what we can do with void pointers.
Pointers Usage: As we said, pointers hold addresses. That means, we can assign the address of a variable to it. Let us
consider the below sample code:

1.6 Pointers 11


int X = 10;
int *ptr = &X;
Here, we first declare an integer named and initialize it to the value . Then we create a pointer to named
and assign the address of to it. This is called, “ .” A common operation we can do
with a pointer is what is called and it is a way to access the contents of the memory that it points to. The
indirection operator is represented by the asterisk symbol. Do not confuse this operator with the use of the same
asterisk symbol in the declaration of pointers, they are not the same thing.

&ptrAddress of 0 Memory Value
ptr is 2 1 ptr
2
… 2000
…
&XAddress of X X
2000
is 2000
…

If we would like to access the contents of the memory where points to, we would do it like this: Let’s see a
small code that shows pointer indirections.
int X = 10;
int *ptr = &X;
printf("X contains the value %dn", X);
printf("ptr points to %pn", ptr);
printf("there lies the value %dn", *ptr);
*ptr = 25;
printf("now X contains the value %dn", X);
Here we first declare and just like before. Then we print (which is ), followed by , i.e., the contents of
the variable which is an address; the address of . And finally we print , which is the value of the memory
location where points to (again 10, since it points to the location occupied by the variable in memory). Finally
we change the contents of the location where points to by writing , this means assign the value to
wherever is pointing to. Note that when we do that, what actually happening is modifying the value of . This is
because, holds the address of , and changing the contents of the memory at that address changes the value of .
One limitation of pointers, i.e. pointers that can point to any type, is that they cannot be . This is
because of the fact that each variable type takes different amount of memory. On a -bit computer for example
usually an int needs bytes, while a short bytes. So in order to read the actual value stored there, the compiler has to
know how many consecutive memory locations to read in order to get the full value.
Pointer Manipulation: Another very useful thing we can do with pointers is to perform arithmetic operations on them.
This might be obvious to the careful reader, since we said that pointers are just integers. However, there are a few
small differences on pointer arithmetic that make their use even more intuitive and easy. Try the following code:
char *cptr = (char*)2;
printf("cptr before: %p ", cptr);
cptr++;
printf("and after: %pn", cptr);
We declare a pointer named and assign the address to it. We print the contents of the pointer (i.e. the address
), increment it, and print again. Sure enough the first time it prints and then , and that was exactly what we
expected. However try this one as well:

1.6 Pointers 12


int *iptr = (int*)2;
printf("iptr before: %p ", iptr);
iptr++;
printf("and after: %pn", iptr);
Now the output, on my computer, is before: and after: Why does this pointer point to the address 6 after
incremented it by one and not to as the previous pointer? The answer lies with what we said about the
variables. An int is bytes on my computer. This means that if we have an int at the address , then that int occupies
the memory locations and . In order to access to the next int we have to look at the address and . Thus
when we add one to a pointer, it is not the same as adding one to any integer, it means give me a pointer to the next
variable which for variables of type int, in this case, is bytes ahead.
The reason that in the first example with the char pointer, the actual address after incrementing, was one more than
the previous address is because the size of char is exactly . So the next char can indeed be found on the next address.
Another limitation of void pointers is that we cannot perform arithmetic on them, since the compiler cannot know
how many bytes ahead is the next variable located. So void pointers can only be used to keep addresses that we have to
convert later on to a specific pointer type, before using them.
Arrays and Pointers: There is a strong connection between arrays and pointers. So strong in fact, that most of the time
we can treat them as the same thing. The name of an array can be considered just as a pointer to the beginning of a
memory block as big as the array. So for example, making a pointer point to the beginning of an array is done in
exactly the same way as assigning the contents of a pointer to another:
short *ptr;
short array[10];
ptr = array;
and then we can access the contents of the array through the pointer as if the pointer itself was that array. For
example this: is perfectly legal. Furthermore, we can treat the array itself as a pointer, for example,
is equivalent to In general is equivalent to .
The only difference between an array, and a pointer to the beginning of an array, is that the compiler keeps some extra
information for the arrays, to keep track of their storage requirements. For example if we get the size of both an array
and a pointer using the operator, sizeof(ptr) will give us how much space does the pointer itself occupies ( on
my computer), while sizeof array will give us, the amount of space occupied by the whole array (on my computer
elements of bytes each).
Dynamic Memory Allocation: In the earlier sections, we have seen that pointers can hold addressed of another
variables. There is another use of pointers: pointers can hold addresses of memory locations that do not have a specific
compile-time variable name, but are allocated dynamically while the program runs (sometimes such memory is called
).
To allocate memory during runtime, language provides us the facility interns of function. This function
allocates the requested amount of memory, and returns a pointer to that memory. To deallocate that block of memory,
supports it by providing function. This function takes the pointer as an argument. For example, in the below
code, an array of 5 integers is allocated dynamically, and then deleted.
int count = 5;
int *A = malloc(count * sizeof(int));
………
free(arr);
In this example, the calculates the amount of bytes we need to allocate for the array, by
multiplying the number of elements, to the size of each element (i.e. the size of one integer).
Function Pointers: Like data, executable code (including functions) also stored in memory. We can get the address of a
function. But the question is what type of pointers we use for that purpose?

1.6 Pointers 13


In general, we use function pointers and they store the address of functions. Using function pointers we can call the
function indirectly. But, function pointers manipulation has limitation: limited to assignment and indirection and
cannot do arithmetic on function pointers. Because for function pointers there no ordering (functions can be stored
anywhere in memory). The following example illustrates how to create and use function pointers.
int (*fptr)(int);
fptr = function1;
printf("function1of 0 is: %dn", fptr(5));
fptr = function2;
printf("function2 of 0 is: %dn", fptr(10));
First we create a pointer that can point to functions accepting an as an argument and returning int, named .
Then we make point to the , and proceed to call it through the pointer, to print the of
. Finally, we change to point to , and call it again in exactly the same manner, to print the
of .

1.7 Parameter Passing Techniques
Before starting our discussion on parameter passing techniques, let us concentrate on the terminology we use.
Actual and Formal Parameters: Let us assume that a function is called from another function . In this case, is
called the “caller function” and is called the “called function or callee function”. Also, the arguments which sends
to are called actual arguments and the parameters of function are called formal arguments. In the below example,
the is called from function. is the caller function and is the called function. Also, the
arguments and are formal arguments and of function are actual arguments.
int main() {
long i = 1;
double j = 2;
func( i, j ); // Call func with actual arguments i and j.
}
// func with formal parameters param1 and param2.
void func( long param1, double param2 ){
}
Semantics of Parameter Passing: Logically, parameter passing uses the following semantics:
 IN: Passes info from caller to . Formal arguments can take values from actual arguments, but cannot
send values to actual arguments.
 OUT: Callee writes values in the caller. Formal arguments can send values from actual arguments, but cannot
take values from actual arguments.
 IN/OUT: Caller tells callee value of variable, which may be updated by callee. Formal arguments can send
values from actual arguments, and also can take values from actual arguments.
Language Support for Parameter Passing Techniques

Passing Technique Supported by Languages
Pass by value
Pass by result
Pass by value-result , sometimes
Pass by reference (achieves through pointers),
Pass by name

Pass by Value: This method uses in-mode semantics. A formal parameter is like a new local variable that exists within
the scope of the procedure/function/subprogram. Value of actual parameter is used to initialize the formal parameter.

1.7 Parameter Passing Techniques 14


Changes made to formal parameter get transmitted back to the caller. If pass by value is used then the formal
parameters will be allocated on stack like a normal local variable. This method is sometimes called as .
Advantage of this method is that, it allows the actual arguments not to modify.
In general the pass by value technique is implemented by copy and it has the following disadvantages:
 Inefficiency in storage allocation
 Inefficiency in copying value
 For objects and arrays, the copy semantics are costly
Example: In the following example, main passes func two values: and . The function func receives copies of these
values and accesses them by the identifiers a and b. The function func changes the value of a. When control passes
back to main, the actual values of and are not changed.
void func (int a, int b) {
a += b;
printf("In func, a = %d b = %dn", a, b);
}
int main(void) {
int x = 5, y = 7;
func(x, y);
printf("In main, x = %d y = %dn", x, y);
return 0;
}
The output of the program is: In func, a = 12 b = 7. In main, x = 5 y = 7
Pass by Result: This method uses out-mode semantics. A formal parameter is a new local variable that exists within the
scope of the function. No value is transmitted from actual arguments to formal arguments. Just before control is
transferred back to the caller, the value of the formal parameter is transmitted back to the actual parameter. This
method is sometimes called as Actual parameter be a variable. and are fine but
not or .
Parameter collisions can occur: That means, suppose let us assume that there is a function If the two
formal parameters in write had different names, which value should go into ? Order in which actual parameters are
copied determines their value. In general the pass by result technique is implemented by copy and it has the following
disadvantages:
 Inefficiency in storage allocation
 Inefficiency in copying value
 For objects and arrays, the copy semantics are costly
 We cannot use the value of actual argument for initializing the formal argument
Example: Since does not support this technique, let us assume that the below syntax is not specific to any language.
In the following example, main uses two variable and . They both were passed to . Since this is pass by result
technique, the values of and will not be copied to formal arguments. As a result, the variables and of
should be initialized. But in the function only is initialized. For this reason, the value of a is unknown, whereas the
value of is . After the function execution, the values of a and b will be copied to and .
void func (int a, int b) {
b = 5;
a += b;
printf("In func, a = %d b = %dn", a, b);
}
int main(void) {
int x = 5, y = 7;
1.7 Parameter Passing Techniques 15

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