Java Interview Questions

Print out the prime numbers between 1 and 100. As a first pass, don't worry about writing an efficient algorithm. Just write clear code that is easy to follow. Once you've done that, consider different possible optimizations.

Suppose you have a web form that allows users to upload JPG, GIF or PNG images. Before you store the images in your system, you want to convert them all to the JPG format. Design an image converter API. Sketch out all classes and interfaces that are involved.

Note: the actual code necessary to convert a JPG image to a GIF image is not the point. Just place a comment at the appropriate location where the actual conversion should occur.

Assume that you have access to an employee's email Inbox, and that you can parse the content of their emails, including the email headers.

  1. How can you use this to deduce their first-degree connections?
  2. What kind of heuristics can you come up with to quantify the strength of these first-degree connections?
  3. How can you use this to deduce their second-degree connections?
  4. How can you use this to deduce their third-degree connections?

Suppose you have an array of 99 numbers. The array contains the digits 1 to 100 with one digit missing. Describe four different algorithms to compute the missing number. Two of these should optimize for low storage and two of these should optimize for fast processing.

  1. Describe how you would store a social graph in a relational database.
  2. Describe an efficient algorithm to determine whether or not person X is a 2nd degree connection of person Y.
  3. Describe an efficient algorithm to determine whether or not person X is a 3rd degree connection of person Y.
  4. How can you make #3 very quick. E.g. how does Linked In compute 3rd degree connections quickly?

Write a program to print out a multiplication table, from 1x1 to 12x12. This should look like:

   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9  10  11  12
   2   4   6   8  10  12  14  16  18  20  22  24
   3   6   9  12  15  18  21  24  27  30  33  36
   4   8  12  16  20  24  28  32  36  40  44  48
   5  10  15  20  25  30  35  40  45  50  55  60
   6  12  18  24  30  36  42  48  54  60  66  72
   7  14  21  28  35  42  49  56  63  70  77  84
   8  16  24  32  40  48  56  64  72  80  88  96
   9  18  27  36  45  54  63  72  81  90  99 108
  10  20  30  40  50  60  70  80  90 100 110 120
  11  22  33  44  55  66  77  88  99 110 121 132
  12  24  36  48  60  72  84  96 108 120 132 144

Define the following object oriented concepts:

  • Class, object (and the difference between the two)
  • Instantiation
  • Method (as opposed to, say, a C function)
  • Static methods and classes
  • Destructor/finalizer
  • Inheritance
  • Encapsulation
  • Multiple inheritance (and give an example)
  • Abstract class
  • Interface/protocol (and different from abstract class)
  • Method overriding
  • Method overloading (and difference from overriding)
  • Polymorphism (without resorting to examples)
  • Method visibility (e.g. public/private/other)

Explain big o notation and how it is useful in computer science to classify algorithms.

  • What order is a hash table lookup?
  • What order is determining if a number is even or odd?
  • What order is finding an item in an unsorted list?
  • What order is a binary search?

A user types the following URL into their browser: http://www.foo.com/bar.php

Explain in detail how this would cause a page to appear in their browser, with images, interactive elements (Ajax), styled paragraphs of text etc.

Design a system to efficiently calculate the top 1MM Google search queries and create a report of these. Additionally:

  • You are given twelve servers
  • Each has two processors, 4GB of ram and four 400GB hard drives.
  • The machines are networked
  • The log data as roughly 100 Billion log lines in it.
  • The log data comes in twelve, 320 Gb files.
  • Each line of the files has roughly 40 search queries
  • You can only use open source software or software that you write.

Given an array A[N] containing N numbers. Crate an array Output[N] where Output[i] is equal to the product of all the elements of A[N] except A[i].

For example Output[0] is the product of A[1] to A[N-1] and Output[1] is the product of A[0] and from A[2] to A[N-1].

Do this without using the division operator. Do it in O(n).

You are given a linked list of integers of length N.

N is very large and you don’t know N.

Write a function to return k completely random numbers from the list.

Do this in O(n).

Hint: Use random function rand() (returns a number between 0 and 1) and irand() (return either 0 or 1) 2.

Write a function to efficiently determine the result of a game of Tic Tac Toe.

The function takes as input the game and the sign (x or o) of the player. The function returns if this player has won the game or not.

Carefully consider both the data structure and the algorithm for your answer.

Write a function that takes as input a sorted array and modifies the array to compact it, removing duplicates. Also return the new length of the array.

Notes: The input array might be very large.

For example:

  • input array = [1, 3, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10]
  • transformed array = [1, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10]
  • size = 6

Express the following table as a static structure, and write a function, find_routes(source, destination) that efficiently outputs all possible routes.

Source  | Dest
~~~~~~    ~~~~
Seattle | LA
LA      | Florida
LA      | Maine
Florida | Seattle
Seattle | Florida

The solution for find_routes('Seattle', 'Florida') should be [Seattle -> Florida, Seattle -> LA -> Florida]