Linked lists are an interviewers favourite subject matter. Whilst they are pretty easy to understand, at least in principle, they do require a little bit of brain warping to get your head around what’s going on under the hood. Of the common questions about linked lists I’ve come across, this quiz tackles the most common: how to reverse a linked list.
Tag: cpp
Which STL Container?
Included as part of the C++ Standard Template Library (STL) is a collection of generic containers. Each of these containers serves a different purpose and has different pros and cons. It is often difficult to decide which container to use and when to use it.
C++ Smart pointers
This article is a discussion on smart pointers, what they are and why they are important to C++ programmers. Following the primary discussion I present a simple implementation of a reference counted smart pointer and show a simple example of using it. Although this article does not go into detail about how to develop a reference counted smart pointer the example code at the end is very well commented and that should be enough to aid understanding.
Exceptions to exceptions
Sometimes, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Unfortunately, the C++ Standards Council missed that memo when they ratified the exception specifiers. To find out why, try this little quiz.
Storing pointers in STL containers
Need to store objects in an STL container? Need polymorphic behaviour meaning you’ll need to store pointers to a base class? Want to use a smart pointer to avoid memory leaks? Planning on using auto_ptr because it’s available as part of C++? Before you go any further, try this little quiz.
Unsafe use of smart pointers
Ubiquitous use of smart pointers can prevent memory leaks and make for much easier to read and understand code. Unfortunately, as with most things C++, there are some caveats you need to be aware of otherwise your attempts to write robust code could very well come back to bite you. This little quiz shows how careless misuse of auto_ptr could open up a big can of worms.
The dangers of iterators
When working with STL containers we generally use iterators to access, manipulate and enumerate the contents. This almost becomes second nature and it’s very easy to go on auto-pilot and end up coding an innocuous looking bit of code that can contain a rather nasty surprise. This little quiz shows just one example of how such a surprise might come back to bite you.
How to add properties to standard C++ classes
One feature missing from standard C++ that you will find in many other Object Oriented Programming languages is something called a Property. These are like data members except they can have preconditions imposed on them prior to getting or setting their value.
Continue reading “How to add properties to standard C++ classes”
Definition or a declaration?
The C++ language is a context sensitive language, which means a compiler cannot always decide the semantics of a line of code in isolation. Sometimes, though, it is impossible for the compiler to make up it’s mind so it just guesses. Yup, that’s right, it guesses. To find out more try this little quiz.
Order of initialization
In general, it’s pretty obvious what order the compiler will initialize variables: it’s the order in which they appear in the translation unit. What happens, though, when you have a global variable in one translation unit depending on the the initialization of a global variable in another translation unit? This little quiz explores just that.
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