Coding Away

I can’t help it. I just love the nuisances of C++, and some of the weird things you can write with it.

From time to time I will share some of my favorite examples under “Useless Programming Interview Questions” (UPIQ) category.

Why did I pick this name? Well, the aspects of C++ that I am referring to allow you to write code so strange and unreadable that you’d never do it in real life! Right? The only time you might seriously consider these aspects of the language is if you are a twisted individual asking an useless interview question to a job candidate.

Why do I call these questions “useless”? Because the fact that the candidate knows the answer or not tells you very little about his or her skills. You’d better don’t waste precious interview time in such things. I know it’s fun, but I bet there are much better questions you can ask.

Useless Interview Questions:

Mr.Candidate, please look at this code:

int main()
{
	int a[3]={1};
	int b=1;
	int c[3]={0,2,1};

	a[b[c]]=2;

	printf("a[0]=%dn",a[0]);
	printf("a[1]=%dn",a[1]);
	printf("a[2]=%dn",a[2]);
	return 0;
}

1) Is this valid C++? Can you compile it?
2) If so, what is it going to print to stdout?

Answers:

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