Alcatel Lucent Interview Question for Software Engineer / Developers


Country: India
Interview Type: In-Person




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1
of 1 vote

char dummy[10]; // X is data type of unknown size
int size=(X *)dummy[1]-(X *)dummy[0];

- Abhi February 02, 2012 | Flag Reply
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1
of 1 vote

cout << (size_t)((X*)0+1) << endl;

- Anonymous February 02, 2012 | Flag Reply
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0
of 0 vote

1. Declare array of the type X of size 2
2. subtract address of 1st elemement x[0] from 2nd element i.e. x[1]
this will give you size of X

- dongre.avinash February 02, 2012 | Flag Reply
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0
of 0 votes

Almost, first convert the two pointers to char *, otherwise you will get 1 (this is how pointer arithmetic works)

X array[2];
char *first = (char*)array; // which is &array[0]
char *second = (char *)(array+1) // which is &array[1]
return second - first;

This works because sizeof (char) is defined as 1, and it is one of the very few implementation dependent type sizes in C.

- Selmeczy, Péter February 02, 2012 | Flag
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0
of 0 votes

The solution violates "without declaring a variable".

- Saurabh February 02, 2012 | Flag
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0
of 0 votes

The solution violates "without declaring a variable".

- Saurabh February 02, 2012 | Flag
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0
of 0 votes

Well, one could argue that an array of type X is not a variable of type X. One could counterargue, however, that creating an array of type X implicitly creates a pointer to type X.

- eugene.yarovoi February 02, 2012 | Flag
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-1
of 1 vote

But I can't think of any other solution either.

- eugene.yarovoi February 02, 2012 | Flag
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0
of 0 vote

Create an array of two elements, subtract the addresses of second element from first element. Working code:

#include <iostream>
class X{
public:
	int i;
	int j;
	bool k;
	int l;
	int q;
	int* n;
	double* m;
};

int main(){
	X A[2];
	size_t addr1 = reinterpret_cast<size_t>(&(A[1]));
	size_t addr0 = reinterpret_cast<size_t>(&(A[0]));
	size_t size = addr1-addr0;
	
	std::cout << size << std::endl;
}

if you don't reinterpret cast, size would always give 1 due to pointer arithmetic.

- barcod February 02, 2012 | Flag Reply


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