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Core Java - Interview Questions and Answers for 'Collection' - 168 question(s) found - Order By Newest

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 Q1. Does garbage collection guarantee that a program will not run out of memory?Core Java
Ans. Garbage collection does not guarantee that a program will not run out of memory. It is possible for programs to use up memory resources faster than they are garbage collected. It is also possible for programs to create objects that are not subject to garbage collection

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 Q2. Why Char array is preferred over String for storing password?Core Java
Ans. String is immutable in java and stored in String pool. Once it's created it stays in the pool until unless garbage collected, so even though we are done with password it's available in memory for longer duration and there is no way to avoid it. It's a security risk because anyone having access to memory dump can find the password as clear text.

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Very frequently asked. Favorite question in Walk in Drive of many Indian service companies.
  Q3. 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.
 Q4. 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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Frequently asked in all types of companies especially Indian Services companies. Frequently asked in CTS (Based on 2 feedback)
  Q5. What is the use of hashcode in Java ?Core Java
Ans. Hashcode is used for bucketing in Hash implementations like HashMap, HashTable, HashSet etc. The value received from hashcode() is used as bucket number for storing elements. This bucket number is the address of the element inside the set/map. when you do contains() then it will take the hashcode of the element, then look for the bucket where hashcode points to and if more than 1 element is found in the same bucket (multiple objects can have the same hashcode) then it uses the equals() method to evaluate if object are equal, and then decide if contain() is true or false, or decide if element could be added in the set or not.

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Very frequently asked across all types of companies.
  Q6. 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)
  Q7. 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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Very frequently asked. Favorite question in Walk in Drive of many Indian service companies.
  Q8. 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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Advanced level question frequently asked in US based companies. Recently asked in EMC and Intuit.
  Q9. 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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 Q10. 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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 Q11. Let's suppose we have an to destroy objects, Design a program to implement garbage collection ?Design
Ans. Step 1 - We can create a Registry Class having Map of all created objects as key and References list as value.

Step 2 - Whenever we create an object , we should update the Registry in the constructor to add the new object.

Step 3 - Whenever we assign a new reference to the object , we need to update the entry in Map. Similarly if the reference get's removed ( end of scope etc ), we need to remove the entry of reference from the list.

Step 4 - We can have threaded code to monitor the Map to see if any object looses all it's references and should call the method to destroy object and clean the memory.

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 Q12. What is a ConcurrentHashMap ?Core Java
Ans. ConcurrentHashMap is a hashMap that allows concurrent modifications from multiple threads as there can be multiple locks on the same hashmap.

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 Q13. Collections.sort can only be performed on ..

a. Set
b. List
c. Map
d. Any Collection implementation		Core Java
Ans. List

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 Q14. Why HashTable has been deprecated ?Core Java
Ans. HashTable has been deprecated. As an alternative, ConcurrentHashMap has been provided. It uses multiple buckets to store data and hence much better performance than HashTable. Moreover, there is already a raw type HashMap. The only difference between the HashTable and HashMap is that Hashtable is synchronized whereas HashMap is not. Most of the synchronized collections have been deprecated and their raw alternative have been presented as preferred.Synchronization has a cost. Using synchronized collection in places where there is no need of it leads to useless utilization of resources. As these collections are rarely used in a static context or shared among threads, Java might have thought it better to just provide the raw collection and let developers implement synchronization if he feels the need to do so. HashMap is now presented as the default and the preferred way of using Map with read optimized hashing, and ConcurrentHashMap has been provided for synchronized access which provides better performance than HashTable. Because of this, Java thought it right to deprecate the use of HashTable.'

Synchronization has a cost. Using synchronized collection at a place where there is hardly any need of it would means useless utilization of resources. As these collections are rarely used in static context or shared among threads, Java might have thought it better to just provide the raw collection and let developer implement synchronization if he feels the need to do so.

As HashMap has been presented as default and preferred way of using Map with read optimized hashing, and ConcurrentHashMap has been provided for synchronized access which provides better performance than HashTable, Java thought it right to deprecate the use of HashTable.

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 Q15. Difference beween HashSet and TreeSet ?Core Java
Ans. 1. HashSet doesnt maintain its elements in any specific order and is all random whereas TreeSet maintains elements in natural order 9 order defined by the equals method of TreeSet element type )

2. TreeSet doesnt allow null elements whereas HashMap does.

3. As TreeSet orders elements and is hence insertion is comparatively slower.

4. HashSet performs basic operations like add(), remove(), contains(), size() etc. in a constant size time. A TreeSet performs these operations at the order of log(n) time.

5. HashMap in Java internally backs a HashSet. A NavigableMap backs a TreeSet internally.

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Frequently asked in high end product companies. Frequently asked in Deloitte.
  Q16. How is Hashmap internally implemented in Java ?Core Java
Ans. https://medium.com/javarevisited/internal-working-of-hashmap-in-java-97aeac3c7beb#:~:text=HashMap%20internally%20uses%20HashTable%20implementation,the%20entries%20into%20the%20map.

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Frequently asked in Indian Service Companies. Tech Mahindra ( Based on 3 inputs ) and Infosys ( 3 inputs )
  Q17. What is the difference between List, Set and Map ?

or

What are the different Java Collections Interfaces ?		Core Java
Ans. List - Members are stored in sequence in memory and can be accessed through index.
Set - There is no relevance of sequence and index. Sets doesn't contain duplicates whereas multiset can have duplicates.
Map - Contains Key , Value pairs.

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 Q18. Can we use null as a key for a map collection ?Core Java
Ans. Yes , for HashMap. HashMap implements Map interface. HashMap allows one null key and any number of null values.

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  Q19. Difference between Vector and ArrayList ?Core Java
Ans. Vectors are synchronized whereas Array lists are not.

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 Q20. Should we override finalize method ?
Ans. Finalize is used by Java for Garbage collection. It should not be done as we should leave the Garbage Collection to Java itself.

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 Q21. What are strong, soft, weak and phantom references in Java ?Core Java
Ans. Garbage Collector wont remove a strong reference.

A soft reference will only get removed if memory is low.

A weak reference will get removed on the next garbage collection cycle.

A phantom reference will be finalized but the memory will not be reclaimed. Can be useful when you want to be notified that an object is about to be collected.

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 Q22. 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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 Q23. Can we call the garbage collector explicitly ?Core Java
Ans. Yes, We can call garbage collector directly but it doesn't guarantees that the gc will start executing immediately. This gc( ) method appears in both Runtime and System classes of java.lang package.

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 Q24. What is comparator interface used for ?Core Java
Ans. The purpose of comparator interface is to compare objects of the same class to identify the sorting order. Sorted Collection Classes ( TreeSet, TreeMap ) have been designed such to look for this method to identify the sorting order, that is why class need to implement Comparator interface to qualify its objects to be part of Sorted Collections.

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 Q25. If I try to add Enum constants to a TreeSet, What sorting order will it use ?
Ans. Tree Set will sort the Values in the order in which Enum constants are declared.

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 Q26. What is ConcurrentModificationException ?Core Java
Ans. This is the exception that is thrown when we try to modify the non concurrent collection class while iterating through it.

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 Q27. What is a BlockingQueue?Data Structures
Ans. BlockingQueue is a Queue that supports operations that wait for the queue to become non-empty when retrieving and removing an element, and wait for space to become available in the queue when adding an element.

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 Q28. Which of the following collections stores its elements in insertion Order ?

a. HashMap
b. TreeMap
c. LinkedHashMap
d. LinkedMap		Core Java
Ans. LinkedHashMap

  Sample Code for LinkedHashMap

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 Q29. In what order the elements of a HashSet are retrieved ?

a. Random Order
b. Insertion Order
c. Natural Sorting Order
d. Inverse Natural Sorting Order
Core Java
Ans. Random Order

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 Q30. Which of the following doesn't extend Collection interface ?

a. Set
b. List
c. Map
d. Queue
Core Java
Ans. Map

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