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Core Java - Interview Questions and Answers for 'Arrays' - 69 question(s) found - Order By Newest

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Very frequently asked. Favorite question in Walk in Drive of many Indian service companies.
  Q1. What is the difference between ArrayList and LinkedList ?Core Java
Ans. Underlying data structure for ArrayList is Array whereas LinkedList is the linked list and hence have following differences -

1. ArrayList needs continuous memory locations and hence need to be moved to a bigger space if new elements are to be added to a filled array which is not required for LinkedList.

2. Removal and Insertion at specific place in ArrayList requires moving all elements and hence leads to O(n) insertions and removal whereas its constant O(1) for LinkedList.

3. Random access using index in ArrayList is faster than LinkedList which requires traversing the complete list through references.

4. Though Linear Search takes Similar Time for both, Binary Search using LinkedList requires creating new Model called Binary Search Tree which is slower but offers constant time insertion and deletion.

5. For a set of integers you want to sort using quicksort, it's probably faster to use an array; for a set of large structures you want to sort using selection sort, a linked list will be faster.

  Sample Code for ArrayList

  Sample Code for LinkedList

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Frequently asked.
 Q2. If you are given a choice to use either ArrayList and LinkedList, Which one would you use and Why ?Core Java
Ans. ArrayList are implemented in memory as arrays and hence allows fast retrieval through indices but are costly if new elements are to be inserted in between other elements. LinkedList allows for constant-time insertions or removals using iterators, but only sequential access of elements

1. Retrieval - If Elements are to be retrieved sequentially only, Linked List is preferred.

2. Insertion - If new Elements are to be inserted in between other elements , Linked List is preferred.

3. Search - Binary Search and other optimized way of searching is not possible on Linked List.

4. Sorting - Initial sorting could be pain but lateral addition of elements in a sorted list is good with linked list.

5. Adding Elements - If sufficiently large elements needs to be added very frequently ,Linked List is preferable as elements don't need consecutive memory location.

  Sample Code for ArrayList

  Sample Code for LinkedList

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 Q3. Will this code give error if i try to add two heterogeneous elements in the arraylist. ? and Why ?

List list1 = new ArrayList<>();
list1.add(5);
list1.add("5");
Ans. If we don't declare the list to be of specific type, it treats it as list of objects.

int 1 is auto boxed to Integer and "1" is String and hence both are objects.

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 Q4. If arrays cannot be resized , Why is this code valid

String[] strArray = new String[2];
strArray = new String[5];
Core Java
Ans. We are not resizing the first array here but assigning the reference strArray to a new Array with size 5.

So after line 2, We have 2 arrays in memory, one with size 2 and other with size 5 with strArray referring to second array with size 5.

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  Q5. Difference between Vector and ArrayList ?Core Java
Ans. Vectors are synchronized whereas Array lists are not.

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 Q6. What are the disadvantages of using arrays ?Core Java
Ans. Arrays are of fixed size and have to reserve memory prior to use. Hence if we don't know size in advance arrays are not recommended to use.

Arrays can store only homogeneous elements.

Arrays store its values in contentious memory location. Not suitable if the content is too large and needs to be distributed in memory.

There is no underlying data structure for arrays and no ready made method support for arrays, for every requriment we need to code explicitly

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 Q7. What are the Disadvantages of using Collection Classes over Arrays ?Core Java
Ans. Collections can only hold objects, It can't hold primitive data types.

Collections have performance overheads as they deal with objects and offer dynamic memory expansion. This dynamic expansion could be a bigger overhead if the collection class needs consecutive memory location like Vectors.

Collections doesn't allow modification while traversal as it may lead to concurrentModificationException.

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  Q8. Advantage of Collection classes over Arrays ?Core Java
Ans. Collections are re-sizable in nature. We can increase or decrease the size as per recruitment.
Collections can hold both homogeneous and heterogeneous data's.
Every collection follows some standard data structures.
Collection provides many useful built in methods for traversing,sorting and search.

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 Q9. Difference between ArrayList and LinkedList ?
Ans. LinkedList and ArrayList are two different implementations of the List interface. LinkedList implements it with a doubly-linked list. ArrayList implements it with a dynamically resizing array.

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 Q10. Implement the following method ?

int findMax(int[] items)
Core Java
Ans. int findMax(int[] items){
   int maxNumber = 0;
   for(int x:items){
      if(x > maxNumber){
         maxNumber = x;
      }
   }
      
   return maxNumber;
}

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 Q11. What is meant by "Vector is synchronized and ArrayList isn't " ?Core Java
Ans. It means that only 1 thread can access have access to Vector at a time and no parallel access is allowed whereas Array List allows parallel access by multiple threads.

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  Q12. Difference between Arrays and ArrayList ?Core Java
Ans. Both Arrays and ArrayLists are used to store elements. Elements can be either primitives or objects in case of Arrays, but only objects can be stored in Arraylist. Array is a fixed length data structure while arraylist is variable length collection class. Once created, you cannot change the size of the arrays, but arraylists can dynamically resize itself when needed.Another notable difference between Arrays and Arrayslist is that arary is part of core java programming and array list is part of collection classes

  Sample Code for arrays arraylist

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 Q13. Can we declare an array without assigning the size of an array? Core Java
Ans. No, It will throw compile time error saying "must provide either dimension expressions or an array initializer"

Alternatively we can provide array initializer like

String[] strArray = new String[]{"Buggy","Bread"};

which will initialize it to size 2 with values as "Buggy" and "Bread"


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 Q14. Why doesn't this code give compile time error when we are clearly trying to add an integer element to an array of Strings

Object[] strArray = new String[2];
strArray[0] = 5;
Core Java
Ans. Because the reference is of Object Array and the resolution of what it holds is identified at the runtime.

String[] strArray = new String[2];
strArray[0] = 5;

would have given the compile time array as the reference is of String array.

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 Q15. What is the advantage of using arrays over variables ?
Ans. Arrays provide a structure wherein multiple values can be accessed using single reference and index. This helps in iterating over the values using loops.

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 Q16. What is the difference between int[] x; and int x[]; ?Core Java
Ans. No Difference. Both are the acceptable ways to declare an array.

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 Q17. What is CopyOnWriteArrayList ?
Ans. Its a type of ArrayList in which all Write operations , i.e add and set are performed by creating a new copy. This array never changes during the lifetime of the iterator, so it never throws ConcurrentModificationException

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 Q18. What are the advantages and disadvantages of CopyOnWriteArrayList ?Core Java
Ans. This collections class has been implemented in such a manner that it can never throw ConcurrentModificationException. As it performs update and write operations by creating a new copy of ArrayList, It's slower compared to ArrayList.

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 Q19. What is ArrayIndexOutOfBoundException ?Core Java
Ans. Exception thrown by the application is we try to access an element using an index which is not within the range of array i.e lower than 0 or greater than the size of the array.

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 Q20. What will the following code result ?

List> intList = new ArrayList>();

intList.add(Optional.empty());
intList.add(Optional.of(2));
intList.add(Optional.of(3));
intList.add(Optional.of(4));

System.out.println(intList.get(null));
Ans. Compile time error at last line as the get method expect argument of type native int.

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 Q21. What will the following code result ? Will it compile ?

List> intList = new ArrayList>();

intList.add(Optional.empty());
intList.add(Optional.of(2));
intList.add(Optional.of(3));
intList.add(Optional.of(4));

System.out.println(intList.get((Integer)null));
Ans. Yes but the last line will throw NullPointerException upon execution.

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 Q22. Can we add more elements to an array list that has been marked as final ?
Ans. Yes, the array list can hold more elements. Final only puts the restriction that the array list reference cannot hold any other array list.

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 Q23. Does an ArrayList allow elements of different types ? If not, Why the following code works List list1 = new ArrayList<>(); list1.add(1); list1.add("1");Core Java
Ans. With Java 7 or Later. If you don't declare the list to be of specific type , it treats it as list of objects. int 1 is auto boxed to Integer and "1" is String and hence both are objects.

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 Q24. Explain what happens when insertion is performed in case of ArrayList and LinkedList.Data Structure
Ans. Array List works on Array and when we add an element in middle of the list, Array List need to update the index of all subsequent elements. I the capacity is full, it even may need to move the whole list to a new memory location . Linked List works on Double linked list algorithm and all it has to do is to adjust the address of the previous and next elements.

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  Q25. Difference between Array and ArrayList ?Core Java
Ans. <a href="http://javahungry.blogspot.com/2015/03/difference-between-array-and-arraylist-in-java-example.html" rel="nofollow">http://javahungry.blogspot.com/2015/03/difference-between-array-and-arraylist-in-java-example.html</a>

  Sample Code for ArrayList

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 Q26. Write code to find second largest number in an array of integers.Core Java
Ans. int arr[]={1,3,5,6,4,8,9,2,10};
Arrays.sort();
System.out.println(arr[arr.length-1]);

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 Q27. Write a Program to merge two sorted arrays ?Data Structure
Ans. We can merge two sorted array by using quick sort algorithm

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 Q28. Is array an object in Java ? How can you prove that ?

Core Java
Ans. Yes.

There are 2 ways this can be confirmed

1. Accessing object class methods using array reference.

2. Checking if the array is an instance of Object class

if (arrayRef instanceof Object)


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 Q29. How can we get an array out of ArrayList ?Core Java
Ans. We can get an array out of ArrayList by using toArray() method of an array list.

String a[] = arrayList.toArray();

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 Q30. What is the trade off between using Collections.synchronizedList() on an ArrayList and a CopyOnWriteArrayList?Core Java
Ans. Synchronized List locks the whole list to provide synchronization and thread safety during the read or write operation, while, CopyOnWriteArrayList doesn’t lock the whole list during these operations.
The CopyOnWriteArrayList class works according to its name i.e. copy-on-write which performs different actions for reading and write operations. For every write operation (add, set, remove, etc), it makes a new copy of the elements in the list. and for the read operations (get, iterator, listIterator, etc), it works on a different copy. So there is no additional overhead during a read operation and its read operation is faster than Collections.SynchronizedList(). Thus, COWAL is better for reading operation than Synchronized List.

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