1、C/C++ Programming interview questions and answers By Satish Shetty, July 14th, What is encapsulation?? Containing and hiding information about an object, such as internal data structures and code. Encapsulation isolates the internal complexity of an object's operation from the rest of the a
2、pplication. For example, a client component asking for net revenue from a business object need not know the data's origin. What is inheritance? Inheritance allows one class to reuse the state and behavior of another class. The derived class inherits the properties and method implementations of t
3、he base class and extends it by overriding methods and adding additional properties and methods. What is Polymorphism?? Polymorphism allows a client to treat different objects in the same way even if they were created from different classes and exhibit different behaviors. You can use implement
4、ation inheritance to achieve polymorphism in languages such as C++ and Java. Base class object's pointer can invoke methods in derived class objects. You can also achieve polymorphism in C++ by function overloading and operator overloading. What is constructor or ctor? Constructor creates an o
5、bject and initializes it. It also creates vtable for virtual functions. It is different from other methods in a class. What is destructor? Destructor usually deletes any extra resources allocated by the object. What is default constructor? Constructor with no arguments or all the arguments
6、has default values. What is copy constructor? Constructor which initializes the it's object member variables ( by shallow copying) with another object of the same class. If you don't implement one in your class then compiler implements one for you. for example: Boo Obj1(10); // calling Boo con
7、structor Boo Obj2(Obj1); // calling boo copy constructor Boo Obj2 = Obj1;// calling boo copy constructor When are copy constructors called? Copy constructors are called in following cases: a) when a function returns an object of that class by value b) when the object of that class is passed
8、by value as an argument to a function c) when you construct an object based on another object of the same class d) When compiler generates a temporary object What is assignment operator? Default assignment operator handles assigning one object to another of the same class. Member to member co
9、py (shallow copy) What are all the implicit member functions of the class? Or what are all the functions which compiler implements for us if we don't define one.?? default ctor copy ctor assignment operator default destructor address operator What is conversion constructor? constructor w
10、ith a single argument makes that constructor as conversion ctor and it can be used for type conversion. for example: class Boo { public: Boo( int i ); }; Boo BooObject = 10 ; // assigning int 10 Boo object What is conversion operator?? class can have a public method for specif
11、ic data type conversions. for example: class Boo { double value; public: Boo(int i ) operator double() { return value; } }; Boo BooObject; double i = BooObject; // assigning object to variable i of type double. now conversion operator gets called to assign
12、the value. What is diff between malloc()/free() and new/delete? malloc allocates memory for object in heap but doesn't invoke object's constructor to initiallize the object. new allocates memory and also invokes constructor to initialize the object. malloc() and free() do not support object
13、semantics Does not construct and destruct objects string * ptr = (string *)(malloc (sizeof(string))) Are not safe Does not calculate the size of the objects that it construct Returns a pointer to void int *p = (int *) (malloc(sizeof(int))); int *p = new int; Are not extensible new and
14、 delete can be overloaded in a class "delete" first calls the object's termination routine (i.e. its destructor) and then releases the space the object occupied on the heap memory. If an array of objects was created using new, then delete must be told that it is dealing with an array by preceding
15、the name with an empty []:- Int_t *my_ints = new Int_t[10]; ... delete []my_ints; what is the diff between "new" and "operator new" ? "operator new" works like malloc. What is difference between template and macro?? There is no way for the compiler to verify that the macro parameters
16、are of compatible types. The macro is expanded without any special type checking. If macro parameter has a postincremented variable ( like c++ ), the increment is performed two times. Because macros are expanded by the preprocessor, compiler error messages will refer to the expanded macro, rather
17、than the macro definition itself. Also, the macro will show up in expanded form during debugging.
for example:
Macro:
#define min(i, j) (i < j ? i : j)
template:
template
18、xtern auto: the default. Variables are automatically created and initialized when they are defined and are destroyed at the end of the block containing their definition. They are not visible outside that block register: a type of auto variable. a suggestion to the compiler to use a CPU register fo
19、r performance static: a variable that is known only in the function that contains its definition but is never destroyed and retains its value between calls to that function. It exists from the time the program begins execution extern: a static variable whose definition and placement is determined
20、when all object and library modules are combined (linked) to form the executable code file. It can be visible outside the file where it is defined. What are storage qualifiers in C++ ? They are.. const volatile mutable Constkeyword indicates that memory once initialized, should not be alte
21、red by a program. volatilekeyword indicates that the value in the memory location can be altered even though nothing in the program code modifies the contents. for example if you have a pointer to hardware location that contains the time, where hardware changes the value of this pointer variable a
22、nd not the program. The intent of this keyword to improve the optimization ability of the compiler. mutable keyword indicates that particular member of a structure or class can be altered even if a particular structure variable, class, or class member function is constant. struct data { char
23、name[80]; mutable double salary; } const data MyStruct = { "Satish Shetty", 1000 }; //initlized by complier strcpy ( MyStruct.name, "Shilpa Shetty"); // compiler error MyStruct.salaray = ; // complier is happy allowed What is reference ?? reference is a name that acts as an alias, or alt
24、ernative name, for a previously defined variable or an object. prepending variable with "&" symbol makes it as reference. for example: int a; int &b = a; What is passing by reference? Method of passing arguments to a function which takes parameter of type reference. for example: void s
25、wap( int & x, int & y ) { int temp = x; x = y; y = temp; } int a=2, b=3; swap( a, b ); Basically, inside the function there won't be any copy of the arguments "x" and "y" instead they refer to original variables a and b. so no extra memory needed to pass arguments and it is more efficie
26、nt. When do use "const" reference arguments in function? a) Using const protects you against programming errors that inadvertently alter data. b) Using const allows function to process both const and non-const actual arguments, while a function without const in the prototype can only acce
27、pt non constant arguments. c) Using a const reference allows the function to generate and use a temporary variable appropriately. When are temporary variables created by C++ compiler? Provided that function parameter is a "const reference", compiler generates temporary variable in followin
28、g 2 ways. a) The actual argument is the correct type, but it isn't Lvalue double Cube(const double & num) { num = num * num * num; return num; } double temp = 2.0; double value = cube(3.0 + temp); // argument is a expression and not a Lvalue; b) The actual argument is of the wrong typ
29、e, but of a type that can be converted to the correct type long temp = 3L; double value = cuberoot ( temp); // long to double conversion What is virtual function? When derived class overrides the base class method by redefining the same function, then if client wants to access redefined
30、 the method from derived class through a pointer from base class object, then you must define this function in base class as virtual function. class parent { void Show() { cout << "i'm parent" << endl; } }; class child: public parent { void Show() { cout << "i'm child" << end
31、l; } }; parent * parent_object_ptr = new child; parent_object_ptr->show() // calls parent->show() i now we goto virtual world... class parent { virtual void Show() { cout << "i'm parent" << endl; } }; class child: public parent { void Show() { cout << "i'm child" <<
32、 endl; } }; parent * parent_object_ptr = new child; parent_object_ptr->show() // calls child->show() What is pure virtual function? or what is abstract class? When you define only function prototype in a base class without implementation and do the complete implementation in derive
33、d class. This base class is called abstract class and client won't able to instantiate an object using this base class. You can make a pure virtual function or abstract class this way.. class Boo { void foo() = 0; } Boo MyBoo; // compilation error What is Memory alignment?? The term a
34、lignment primarily means the tendency of an address pointer value to be a multiple of some power of two. So a pointer with two byte alignment has a zero in the least significant bit. And a pointer with four byte alignment has a zero in both the two least significant bits. And so on. More alignment m
35、eans a longer sequence of zero bits in the lowest bits of a pointer. What problem does the namespace feature solve? Multiple providers of libraries might use common global identifiers causing a name collision when an application tries to link with two or more such libraries. The namespace feat
36、ure surrounds a library's external declarations with a unique namespace that eliminates the potential for those collisions. namespace [identifier] { namespace-body } A namespace declaration identifies and assigns a name to a declarative region. The identifier in a namespace declaration must be un
37、ique in the declarative region in which it is used. The identifier is the name of the namespace and is used to reference its members. What is the use of 'using' declaration? A using declaration makes it possible to use a name from a namespace without the scope operator. What is an Iterator c
38、lass? A class that is used to traverse through the objects maintained by a container class. There are five categories of iterators: input iterators, output iterators, forward iterators, bidirectional iterators, random access. An iterator is an entity that gives access to the contents of a container
39、 object without violating encapsulation constraints. Access to the contents is granted on a one-at-a-time basis in order. The order can be storage order (as in lists and queues) or some arbitrary order (as in array indices) or according to some ordering relation (as in an ordered binary tree). The i
40、terator is a construct, which provides an interface that, when called, yields either the next element in the container, or some value denoting the fact that there are no more elements to examine. Iterators hide the details of access to and update of the elements of a container class. Something like
41、a pointer. What is a dangling pointer? A dangling pointer arises when you use the address of an object after its lifetime is over. This may occur in situations like returning addresses of the automatic variables from a function or using the address of the memory block after it is freed. What
42、 do you mean by Stack unwinding? It is a process during exception handling when the destructor is called for all local objects in the stack between the place where the exception was thrown and where it is caught. Name the operators that cannot be overloaded?? sizeof, ., .*, .->, ::, ?: Wh
43、at is a container class? What are the types of container classes? A container class is a class that is used to hold objects in memory or external storage. A container class acts as a generic holder. A container class has a predefined behavior and a well-known interface. A container class is a suppo
44、rting class whose purpose is to hide the topology used for maintaining the list of objects in memory. When a container class contains a group of mixed objects, the container is called a heterogeneous container; when the container is holding a group of objects that are all the same, the container is
45、called a homogeneous container. What is inline function?? The __inline keyword tells the compiler to substitute the code within the function definition for every instance of a function call. However, substitution occurs only at the compiler's discretion. For example, the compiler does not inlin
46、e a function if its address is taken or if it is too large to inline. What is overloading?? With the C++ language, you can overload functions and operators. Overloading is the practice of supplying more than one definition for a given function name in the same scope. - Any two functions in
47、 a set of overloaded functions must have different argument lists. - Overloading functions with argument lists of the same types, based on return type alone, is an error. What is Overriding? To override a method, a subclass of the class that originally declared the method must declare a meth
48、od with the same name, return type (or a subclass of that return type), and same parameter list. The definition of the method overriding is: · Must have same method name. · Must have same data type. · Must have same argument list. Overriding a method means that replacing a method functio
49、nality in child class. To imply overriding functionality we need parent and child classes. In the child class you define the same method signature as one defined in the parent class. What is "this" pointer? The this pointer is a pointer accessible only within the member functions of a class, str
50、uct, or union type. It points to the object for which the member function is called. Static member functions do not have a this pointer. When a nonstatic member function is called for an object, the address of the object is passed as a hidden argument to the function. For example, the following fun






