Interview Questions and Answers for 'AT' | Search Interview Question

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Very frequently asked. Favorite question in Walk in Drive of many Indian service companies.

Q31. Difference between TreeMap and HashMap ?

Core Java

Ans. They are different the way their elements are stored in memory. TreeMap stores the Keys in order whereas HashMap stores the key value pairs randomly.

Sample Code for treemap

Sample Code for hashmap

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Very frequently asked across all types of companies.

Q32. Difference between HashMap and Hashtable?

Core Java

Ans. Hashtable is synchronized whereas HashMap is not.HashMap allows null values whereas Hashtable doesnt allow null values.

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Advanced level question usually asked in High end product companies. Have been asked in Google and Amazon (Based on 1 Feedback)

Q33. Describe, in general, how java's garbage collector works ?

Core Java

Ans. The Java runtime environment deletes objects when it determines that they are no longer being used. This process is known as garbage collection. The Java runtime environment supports a garbage collector that periodically frees the memory used by objects that are no longer needed. The Java garbage collector is a mark-sweep garbage collector that scans Java dynamic memory areas for objects, marking those that are referenced. After all possible paths to objects are investigated, those objects that are not marked (i.e. are not referenced) are known to be garbage and are collected.

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Frequently asked question in companies using hibernate.

Q34. Difference between first level and second level cache in hibernate ?

Hibernate

Ans. 1. First level cache is enabled by default whereas Second level cache needs to be enabled explicitly.

2. First level Cache came with Hibernate 1.0 whereas Second level cache came with Hibernate 3.0.

3. First level Cache is Session specific whereas Second level cache is shared by sessions that is why First level cache is considered local and second level cache is considered global.

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Q35. What are the advantages and disadvantages of static variables and static methods ?

Core Java

Ans. Advantages

Can do meta object operations ( like validating something before creating objects , keep count of number of objects )

Can do operations which have nothing to do with objects but still you want them to be tied to Class.

Disadvantages

Commonly used to static variables sometime leads to problems due to access by different objects.

Are not tied to objects so doesn't reflect pure Object Oriented approach.

Needs to be synchronized so as to avoid update conflicts by mutiple objects and threads.

Some limitation in testing as not all frameworks have facility to mock them. Powermock has but Mockito doesnt

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Very frequently asked. Favorite question in Walk in Drive of many Indian service companies.

Q36. What is a final method ?

Core Java

Ans. Its a method which cannot be overridden. Compiler throws an error if we try to override a method which has been declared final in the parent class.

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Q37. What is casting?

Core Java

Ans. There are two types of casting, casting between primitive numeric types and casting between object references. Casting between numeric types is used to convert larger values, such as double values, to smaller values, such as byte values. Casting between object references is used to refer to an object by a compatible class, interface, or array type reference

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Frequently asked. Favorite question in Walk in Drive of many Indian service companies.

Q38. What are the methods of Object Class ?

Core Java

Ans. clone() - Creates and returns a copy of this object.

equals() - Indicates whether some other object is "equal to" this one.

finalize() - Called by the garbage collector on an object when garbage collection determines that there are no more references to the object.

getClass() - Returns the runtime class of an object.

hashCode() - Returns a hash code value for the object.

toString() - Returns a string representation of the object.

notify(), notifyAll(), and wait() - Play a part in synchronizing the activities of independently running threads in a program.

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Q39. Can we use both "this()" and "super()" in a constructor ?

Core Java

Ans. No, because both this and super should be the first statement.

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Q40. Why every object constructor automatically call super() in Object before its own constructors?

Core Java

Ans. Derived object carries the body of its class as well as the body of the parent class. Its body ( member elements ) is initialized using its own class constructor whereas the body ( member elements ) carried from the parent class are initialized using super class constructor. So In order to initialize the elements of the parent class before its own elements are even initialized, super is called.

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Almost sure to be asked in every company using any Dependency Injection framework ( Spring, Guice etc )

Q41. What is Dependency Injection or IOC ( Inversion of Control ) ?

Design

Ans. It is a Design Pattern that facilitates loose coupling by sending the dependency information ( object references of dependent object ) while building the state of the object. Objects are designed in a manner where they receive instances of the objects from other pieces of code, instead of constructing them internally and hence provide better flexibility.

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Usually asked in relation to casting and ClassCastException.

Q42. What is instanceOf operator ? Explain it's use ?

Core Java

Ans. The operator instanceOf is used to verify if the specified object is the instance of specified class or interface.

Syntax if(x instanceOf ABC)

where x is an object reference and ABC could be a class name or interface name. The above statement will be true if x holds an object that is an instance of ABC or any of the child class of ABC or if x holds an object that implements ABC.

instanceOf operator is used to verify in case of downcasting. For ex -

DerivedClass extends BaseClass

x is the reference of BaseClass but holds DerivedClass object ( Polymorphism )

There is an operation that is defined in Derived Class, let's say derivedClassMethod()

We cannot call derivedClassMethod() directly using x as x is reference of BaseClass and not DerivedClass and hence can only access methods that are defined in BaseClass and overridden in derived class.

Though we can cast it to DerivedClass as following
((DerivedClass)x).derivedClassMethod();

But it may throw ClassCastException in case x doesn't hold an instance of DerivedClass at that point.

So before casting it to DerivedClass we may like to make sure that it is an instance of DerivedClass and hence won't throw ClassCastException.

So we make a check for it

if(x instanceOf DerivedClass) {
((DerivedClass)x).derivedClassMethod();
}

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Q43. What are concepts introduced with Java 5 ?

Core Java

Ans. Generics , Enums , Autoboxing , Annotations and Static Import.

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Q44. Describe what happens when an object is created in Java ?

Core Java

Ans. 1. Memory is allocated from heap to hold all instance variables and implementation-specific data of the object and its superclasses. Implemenation-specific data includes pointers to class and method data.
2. The instance variables of the objects are initialized to their default values.
3. The constructor for the most derived class is invoked. The first thing a constructor does is call the constructor for its superclasses. This process continues until the constructor for java.lang.Object is called,as java.lang.Object is the base class for all objects in java.
4. Before the body of the constructor is executed, all instance variable initializers and initialization blocks are executed. Then the body of the constructor is executed. Thus, the constructor for the base class completes first and constructor for the most derived class completes last.

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Q45. What is the use of Transient Keyword ?

Core Java

Ans. It in Java is used to indicate that a field should not be serialized.

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Very frequently asked.Usually among first few questions.

Q46. What is MVC ?

Design

Ans. MVC is a Design Pattern that facilititates loose coupling by segregating responsibilities in a Web application

1. Controller receives the requests and handles overall control of the request
2. Model holds majority of the Business logic, and
3. View comprise of the view objects and GUI component

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Q47. What is session tracking and how do you track a user session in servlets?

Java EE

Ans. Session tracking is a mechanism that servlets use to maintain state about a series requests from the same user across some period of time. The methods used for session tracking are:

User Authentication - occurs when a web server restricts access to some of its resources to only those clients that log in using a recognized username and password

Hidden form fields - fields are added to an HTML form that are not displayed in the client's browser. When the form containing the fields is submitted, the fields are sent back to the server

URL rewriting - every URL that the user clicks on is dynamically modified or rewritten to include extra information. The extra information can be in the form of extra path information, added parameters or some custom, server-specific URL change.

Cookies - a bit of information that is sent by a web server to a browser and which can later be read back from that browser.

HttpSession- places a limit on the number of sessions that can exist in memory.

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Advanced level question usually asked to senior developers , leads and architects.

Q48. How does volatile affect code optimization by compiler?

Core Java

Ans. Volatile is an instruction that the variables can be accessed by multiple threads and hence shouldn't be cached. As volatile variables are never cached and hence their retrieval cannot be optimized.

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Q49. How to find whether a given integer is odd or even without use of modulus operator in java?

Core Java

Ans. public static void main(String ar[])
{
int n=5;
if((n/2)*2==n)
{
System.out.println("Even Number ");
}
else
{
System.out.println("Odd Number ");
}
}

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Advanced level question frequently asked in US based companies. Recently asked in EMC and Intuit.

Q50. Can you provide some implementation of a Dictionary having large number of words ?

Solution

Ans. Simplest implementation we can have is a List wherein we can place ordered words and hence can perform Binary Search.

Other implementation with better search performance is to use HashMap with key as first character of the word and value as a LinkedList.

Further level up, we can have linked Hashmaps like ,

hashmap {
a ( key ) -> hashmap (key-aa , value (hashmap(key-aaa,value)
b ( key ) -> hashmap (key-ba , value (hashmap(key-baa,value)
....................................................................................
z( key ) -> hashmap (key-za , value (hashmap(key-zaa,value)
}

upto n levels ( where n is the average size of the word in dictionary.

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Frequently asked to fresh graduates and less experienced.

Q51. Why do we write public static void main ? Can we use some other syntax too for main ?

Core Java

Ans. 1. public is the access modifier that makes the method accessible from anywhere, static is the keyword that makes it accessible even without creating any object, void means it doesn't return anything , String args[] is the array of argument that the method receives.

2. If we use main without the string args , it will compile correctly as Java will treat it as just another method. It wont be the method "main" which Java looks for when it looks to execute the class and hence will throw

Error: Main method not found in class , please define the main method as:
public static void main(String[] args)

3. Main is not a keyword but a special string that Java looks for while initiating the main thread.

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Frequently asked to fresh graduates.

Q52. What is ACID ?

Database

Ans. ACID stands for Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability is a set of properties of database transactions.

Atomicity means all or nothing. i.e parts of a transaction shouldn't commit if any one of them fails. Either the whole transaction should succeed or it should be complete rollback.

Consistency means that any transaction should lead database from one stabe state to another.

Isolation means that the execution of transaction results in a system state that would be obtained if transactions were executed serially.

Durability means that when a transaction is committed it forms the permanent state of database.

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Q53. Can constructors be synchronized in Java ?

Core Java

Ans. No. Java doesn't allow multi thread access to object constructors so synchronization is not even needed.

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Q54. what is the use of cookie and session ? and What is the difference between them ?

Java EE

Ans. Cookie and Session are used to store the user information. Cookie stores user information on client side and Session does it on server side. Primarily, Cookies and Session are used for authentication, user preferences, and carrying information across multiple requests. Session is meant for the same purpose as the cookie does. Session does it on server side and Cookie does it on client side. One more thing that quite differentiates between Cookie and Session. Cookie is used only for storing the textual information. Session can be used to store both textual information and objects.

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Q55. Difference between Static and Singleton Class ?

Core Java

Ans. 1. Static class is a class which cannot be instantiated and all its members are static whereas Singleton is the class that only permit creation of single object and then the object is reused.

2. As there is no object in Static class, it cannot participate in runtime Polymorphism.

3. As Static class doesnt allow creating objects and hence it cannot be serialized.

4. Static class body is initialized eagerly at application load time whereas Singleton object can be initiated eagerly using static blocks or lazily on first need.

5. Its not recommended to use pure static class as it fails to use many OOPs concepts.

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Very frequently asked in companies using SOA.

Q56. What are RESTful Web Services ?

Rest

Ans. REST or Representational State Transfer is a flexible architecture style for creating web services that recommends the following guidelines -

1. http for client server communication,
2. XML / JSON as formatiing language ,
3. Simple URI as address for the services and,
4. stateless communication.

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Frequently asked to experienced developers. Recently asked in many US interviews.

Q57. What is database deadlock ? How can we avoid them?

Database

Ans. When multiple external resources are trying to access the DB locks and runs into cyclic wait, it may makes the DB unresponsive.

Deadlock can be avoided using variety of measures, Few listed below -

Can make a queue wherein we can verify and order the request to DB.

Less use of cursors as they lock the tables for long time.

Keeping the transaction smaller.

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Frequently asked. Among first few questions in the J2EE segment of interview.

Q58. What is deployment descriptor ?

or

What is the use of deployment descriptor ?

Java EE

Ans. Deployment Descriptor which is usually web.xml is used to specify the classes, resources and configuration of the application and how the web server uses them to serve web requests.This file is usually added to WEB-INF folder and contains following

* Servlet entries and url mapping
* Plugins
* Some info regarding authentication / filters
* Landing Page
* Event Handlers

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Frequently asked Generic Question.

Q59. Why do you want to work for our company ?

General

Ans. [Open Ended Answer]

Usually answered stating your keen interest in the role offered and challenges and opportunities the role offers.

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Q60. Can we declare static variables as transient ?

Core Java

Ans. It's weird that compiler doesn't complain if we declare transient with static variable because it makes no sense. At least a warning message saying "transient is useless in this situation" would have helped with code cleaning.

Static variables are never serialized and transient is an indication that the specified variable shouldn't be serialized so its kind of double enforcement not to serialize.

It could be that as it makes no different to the variable behavior and hence using both keywords with a variable are permitted.

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