Job Interview - Practical C test

witnessmenow

Hey Guys,

I'm a recent college grad and I've a Job interview early next week.

They guy said there would be a practical C programing test on it. I would have done C in college alright, but i basically have not programmed in about 9 months so im a tad rusty :P

What do you guys recommend I should priortise learning ?

Like im still ok on the basic of basics (loops, variables , I/O etc)

But i know that i need to do work on pointers and by association link lists, functions that pass arrays, writing/reading from files.

Is there anything else that I haven't mentioned that you guys would recommend?

And does anyone have an example of the type of question that may be asked (not the answer, just the actually question)

Thanks in advance

padraig_f

The concepts you don't forget, but what I tend to forget after a break are syntax details. So would just brush up by writing some small programs.

e.g. write a program to sort an array of numbers (bubble sort or whatever). I've seen this asked before and it would cover a lot of things, arrays, loops, pointers etc.

another one I saw was: write a function that accepts an integer and returns the string equivalent (without using library functions like itoa()).

This is the kind of thing that tends to get asked....algorithm type questions that test your understanding of the core elements of the language. I wouldn't bother with things like file I/O, that's more library stuff and not part of the core language.

Also don't forget about memory allocation/deallocation. I made this mistake when I'd been doing a lot of Java and went for a C++ exam, forgot to look out for memory leaks.

The purpose of the practical test is not really to wow them, but to show you're not spoofing and you possess the basic skills, so I'd just concentrate on sharpening up on the fundamentals.

Jiri

witnessmenow wrote: »

Hey Guys,

I'm a recent college grad and I've a Job interview early next week.

They guy said there would be a practical C programing test on it. I would have done C in college alright, but i basically have not programmed in about 9 months so im a tad rusty :P

What do you guys recommend I should priortise learning ?

Like im still ok on the basic of basics (loops, variables , I/O etc)

But i know that i need to do work on pointers and by association link lists, functions that pass arrays, writing/reading from files.

Is there anything else that I haven't mentioned that you guys would recommend?

And does anyone have an example of the type of question that may be asked (not the answer, just the actually question)

Thanks in advance

Hi,
I was in similar situation six months ago when i prepared for the job interview (with C/C++ skills) and I spent the last week before it doing exercises from the books: The C Puzzle Book, Alan R. Feuer
- and I succeeded :-)
Good luck

pauldiv

Visit cprogramming.com and practice

TheWaterboy

I think you will be asked something handy enough - mostly to see that you have a basic understanding of the language and also its a good indication of how you code.

A coding exam in a job interview is also a good indication of how you will work under pressure. I worked in a company that gave practical programming exams during interview and the amount of candidates that fluffed it under pressure was alarming. Some just got up and left. It wasnt overly complex problem but when you had to do it under pressure without any books or internet then it scared people.

Padraig_f has given some good advice. Good luck with it.

Zombrex

Most programming tests I've had have involved manipulating arrays.

Learn sorting algorithms, bubble sort, heap sort etc etc and how to write them in C. Good experience for array manipulation and you may actually be asked about sort algorithms as this topic is used to see if you understand algorithm design and how efficient an algorithm is.

witnessmenow

Guys thanks for all the advice, I actually had the interview on tuesday. Strangely enough there was no practical test!

Even better than that though is i got the call that i got the job today

AARRRGH

I would also recommend you try to freshen up on the kind of things they do themselves. For example, if they're a cryptography company, play around with bit shifting/flipping.