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Top 20 CoreJ avaInterview Questions and Answers asked on Investment Banks

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THURS DAY, AP RI L 7 , 2 0 1 1
Top 20 Core Java Interview Questions and Answers asked on Investment Banks
Core Java Interview Question Answer
This is a new series of sharing core Java interview question and answer on Finance domain and mostly on big
Investment bank.Many of these J ava interview questions are asked on J P Mor gan, Mor gan St anl ey, Bar cl ays
or Gol dman Sachs . Banks mostly asked core J ava interview questions from multi-threading, collection,
serialization, coding and OOPS design principles. Anybody who is preparing for any Java developer Interview
on any Investment bank can be benefited from these set of core J ava Interview questions and answers. I have
collected these J ava questions from my friends and I thought to share with you all. I hope this will be helpful for
both of us. It's also beneficial to practice some programming interview questions because in almost all J ava
interview, there is at-least 1 or 2 coding questions appear. Please share answers for unanswered J ava interview
questions and let us know how good these J ava interview questions are?
These J ava interview questions are mix of easy, tough and tricky J ava questions e.g. Why multiple inheritance is
not supported in J ava is one of the tricky question in java. Most questions are asked on Senior and experienced
level i.e. 3, 4, 5 or 6 years of J ava experience e.g. How HashMap works in J ava, which is most popular on
experienced J ava interviews. By the way recently I was looking at answers and comments made on J ava
interview questions given in this post and I found some of them quite useful to include into main post to benefit
all. By the way apart from blogs and articles, you can also take advantage of some books, which are especially
written for clearing any programming interviews and some focused on J ava programming, two books which
comes in minds are programming interview exposed and J ava/J 2EE interview companion from fellow blogger
Arulkumaran. Former is focused on programming in general and lot of other related topics e.g. data structures,
algorithms, database, sql, networking and behavioral questions, while later is completely dedicated to J ava J 2EE
concepts.
Core Java Interview Questions Answers in Finance domain
1. What is immutable object ? Can you write immutable object ?
Immutable classes are J ava classes whose objects can not
be modified once created. Any modification in Immutable
object result in new object. For example String is immutable
in J ava. Mostly Immutable classes are also final in J ava, in
order to prevent sub classes from overriding methods, which
can compromise Immutability. You can achieve same
functionality by making member as non final but private and
not modifying them except in constructor. Apart form obvious,
you also need to make sure that, you should not expose
internals of Immutable object, especially if it contains a
mutable member. Similarly, when you accept value for
mutable member from client e.g. j ava. ut i l . Dat e, use
clone() method keep separate copy for yourself, to prevent risk of malicious client modifying mutable reference
after setting it. Same precaution needs to be taken while returning value for a mutable member, return another
separate copy to client, never return original reference held by Immutable class. You can see my post How to
create Immutable class in J ava for step by step guide and code examples.
2. Does all property of immutable object needs to be final ?
Not necessary, as stated above you can achieve same functionality by making member as non final but private
and not modifying them except in constructor. Don't provide setter method for them and if it is a mutable object,
then don't ever leak any reference for that member. Remember making a reference variable final, only ensures
that it will not be reassigned a different value, but you can still change individual properties of object, pointed by
that reference variable. This is one of the key point, Interviewer like to hear from candidates. See my post on
J ava final variables, to learn more about them.
3. What is the difference between creating String as new() and literal ?
When we create string with new( ) Oper at or , its created in heap and not added into string pool while St r i ng
created using l i t er al are created in String pool itself which exists in PermGen area of heap.
St r i ng st r = new St r i ng( " Test " ) ;
does not put the object st r in String pool , we need to call St r i ng. i nt er n( ) method which is used to put
Top 20 CoreJ avaInterview Questions and Answers asked on Investment Banks
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them into String pool explicitly. its only when you create String object as String literal e.g. St r i ng s = " Test "
J ava automatically put that into String pool. By the way there is a catch here, Since we are passing arguments
as " Test " , which is a String literal, it will also create another object as " Test " on string pool. This is the one
point, which has gone unnoticed, until knowledgeable readers of J avarevisited blog suggested it.
4. How does substring () inside String works?
Another good J ava interview question, I think answer is not sufficient but here it is Substring creates new object
out of source string by taking a portion of original string. This question was mainly asked to see if developer is
familiar with risk of memory leak, which substring can create. Until J ava 1.7, substring holds reference of original
character array, which means even a substring of 5 character long, can prevent 1GB character array from
garbage collection, by holding a strong reference. This issue is fixed in J ava 1.7, where original character array
is not referenced any more, but that change also made creation of substring bit costly in terms of time. Earlier it
was on the range of O(1), which could be O(n) in worst case on J ava 7. See my post How SubString works in
J ava for detailed answer of this J ava question.
5. Which two method you need to implement to use an Object as key in HashMap ?
In order to use any object as Key in HashMap or Hashtable, it must implements equals and hashcode method in
J ava. Read How HashMap works in J ava for detailed explanation on how equals and hashcode method is used
to put and get object from HashMap. You can also see my post 5 tips to correctly override equals in J ava to
learn more about equals.
6. Where does equals and hashcode method comes in picture during get operation?
This core J ava interview question is follow-up of previous J ava question and candidate should know that once
you mention hashCode, people are most likely ask, how they are used in HashMap.When you provide key object,
first it's hashcode method is called to calculate bucket location. Since a bucket may contain more than one entry
as linked list, each of those Map. Ent r y object are evaluated by using equal s( ) method to see if they contain
the actual key object or not. See How HashMap works in J ava for detailed explanation.
7. How do you handle error condition while writing stored procedure or accessing stored procedure from
java?
This is one of the tough J ava interview question and its open for all, my friend didn't know the answer so he
didn't mind telling me. My take is that stored procedure should return error code if some operation fails but if
stored procedure itself fail than catching SQLExcept i on is only choice.
8. What is difference between Executor.submit() and Executer.execute() method ?
This J ava interview question is from my list of Top 15 J ava multi-threading question answers, Its getting popular
day by day because of huge demand of J ava developer with good concurrency skill. Answer of this J ava
interview question is that former returns an object of Fut ur e which can be used to find result from worker
thread)
By the way @vi ni t Sai ni suggested a very good point related to this core J ava interview question
There is a difference when looking at exception handling. If your tasks throws an exception and if it was
submitted with execut e this exception will go to the uncaught except i on handl er (when you don't have
provided one explicitly, the default one will just print the stack trace to System.err). If you submitted the
task with submi t any thrown exception, checked exception or not, is then part of the task's return status.
For a task that was submitted with submi t and that terminates with an exception, the Future.get will re-
throw this exception, wrapped in an Execut i onExcept i on.
9. What is the difference between factory and abstract factory pattern?
This J ava interview question is from my list of 20 J ava design pattern interview question and its open for all of
you to answer.
@Raj suggested
Abstract Factory provides one more level of abstraction. Consider different factories each extended from
an Abstract Factory and responsible for creation of different hierarchies of objects based on the type of
factory. E.g. Abst r act Fact or y extended by Aut omobi l eFact or y, User Fact or y, Rol eFact or y etc.
Each individual factory would be responsible for creation of objects in that genre.
You can also refer What is Factory method design pattern in J ava to know more details.
Top 20 CoreJ avaInterview Questions and Answers asked on Investment Banks
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10. What is Singleton? is it better to make whole method synchronized or only critical section
synchronized ?
Singleton in J ava is a class with just one instance in whole J ava application, for example j ava. l ang. Runt i me
is a Singleton class. Creating Singleton was tricky prior J ava 4 but once J ava 5 introduced Enum its very easy.
see my article How to create thread-safe Singleton in J ava for more details on writing Singleton using enumand
double checked locking which is purpose of this J ava interview question.
11. Can you write critical section code for singleton?
This core J ava question is followup of previous question and expecting candidate to write J ava singleton using
double checked locking. Remember to use volatile variable to make Singleton thread-safe. check 10 Interview
questions on Singleton Pattern in J ava for more details and questions answers
12. Can you write code for iterating over hashmap in Java 4 and Java 5 ?
Tricky one but he managed to write using while and for loop.
Actually there are four ways to iterate over any Map in J ava, one
involves using keySet ( ) and iterating over key and then using
get() method to retrieve values, which is bit expensive. Second
method involves using ent r ySet ( ) and iterating over them either
by using foreach loop or while with I t er at or . hasNext ( )
method. This one is better approach because both key and value
object are available to you during Iteration and you don't need to
call get() method for retrieving value, which could give O( n)
performance in case of huge linked list at one bucket. See my
post 4 ways to iterate over Map in J ava for detailed explanation
and code examples.
13. When do you override hashcode and equals() ?
Whenever necessary especially if you want to do equality check based upon business logic rather than object
equality e.g. two employee object are equal if they have same emp_i d, despite the fact that they are two
different object, created by different part of code. Also overriding both these methods are must if you want to use
them as key in HashMap. Now as part of equals-hashcode contract in J ava, when you override equals, you
must overide hashcode as well, otherwise your object will not break invariant of classes e.g. Set, Map which
relies on equals() method for functioning properly. You can also check my post 5 tips on equals in J ava to
understand subtle issue which can arise while dealing with these two methods.
14. What will be the problem if you don't override hashcode() method ?
If you don't override equals method, than contract between equals and hashcode will not work, according to
which, two object which are equal by equal s( ) must have same hashcode. In this case other object may return
different hashcode and will be stored on that location, which breaks invariant of HashMap class, because they
are not supposed to allow duplicate keys. When you add object using put ( ) method, it iterate through all
Map. Ent r y object present in that bucket location, and update value of previous mapping, if Map already
contains that key. This will not work if hashcode is not overridden. You can also see my post on tips to override
hashcode in J ava for more details.
15. Is it better to synchronize critical section of getInstance() method or whole getInstance() method
?
Answer is only critical section, because if we lock whole method than every time some some one call this
method, it will have to wait even though we are not creating any object. In other words, synchronization is only
needed, when you create object, which happens only once. Once object has created, there is no need for any
synchronization. In fact, that's very poor coding in terms of performance, as synchronized method reduce
performance upto 10 to 20 times. By the way, there are several ways to create thread-safe singleton in J ava,
which you can also mention as part of this question or any follow-up.
16. What is the difference when String is gets created using literal or new() operator ?
When we create string with new( ) operator, its created in heap only and not added into string pool, while String
created using literal are created in String pool itself which exists in Per mGen area of heap. You can put such
string object into pool by calling i nt er n( ) method. If you happen to create same String object multiple times,
i nt er n( ) can save some memory for you.
17. Does not overriding hashcode() method has any performance implication ?
This is a good question and open to all , as per my knowledge a poor hashcode function will result in frequent
collision in HashMap which eventually increase time for adding an object into Hash Map.
18. Whats wrong using HashMap in multithreaded environment ? When get() method go to infinite loop ?
Top 20 CoreJ avaInterview Questions and Answers asked on Investment Banks
http://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2011/04/top-20-core-java-interview-questions.html[8/3/2014 3:08:01 PM]
Well nothing is wrong, it depending upon how you use. For example if you initialize the HashMap just by one
thread and then all threads are only reading from it, then it's perfectly fine. One example of this is a Map which
contains configuration properties. Real problem starts when at-least one of those thread is updating HashMap
i.e. adding, changing or removing any key value pair. Since put ( ) operation can cause re-sizing and which can
further lead to infinite loop, that's why either you should use Hasht abl e or Concur r ent HashMap, later is better.
19. Give a simplest way to find out the time a method takes for execution without using any profiling
tool ?
this questions is suggested by @Mohi t
Read the system time just before the method is invoked and immediately after method returns. Take the time
difference, which will give you the time taken by a method for execution.
To put it in code
long start = System.currentTimeMillis ();
method ();
long end = System.currentTimeMillis ();
System.out.println (Time taken for execution is + (end start));
Remember that if the time taken for execution is too small, it might show that it is taking zero milliseconds for
execution. Try it on a method which is big enough, in the sense the one which is doing considerable amount of
processing
20. How would you prevent a client from directly instantiating your concrete classes? For example, you
have a Cache interface and two implementation classes Memor yCache and Di skCache, How do you ensure
there is no object of this two classes is created by client using new( ) keyword.
I leave this ququestion for you to practice and think about, before I give answer. I am sure you can figure out
right way to do this, as this is one of the important decision to keep control of classes in your hand, great
from maintenance perspective.
Recommended Books to prepare Java Interviews
Apart from blogs and articles, you can also take help of some books, which are especially written to help with
programming interviews, covering wide range of questions starting from object oriented design, coding, J ava basic
concepts, networking, database, SQL, XML and problem solving skills. Following books are from my personal collection,
which I often used to revise before going for any interview.
Programming Interviews Exposed: Secrets to Landing Your Next J ob
Cracking the Coding Interview: 150 Programming Questions and Solutions
J ava/J 2EE J ob Interview Companion by Arulkumaran Kumaraswamipillai
Elements of Programming Interviews: 300 Questions and Solutions
Top 20 CoreJ avaInterview Questions and Answers asked on Investment Banks
http://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2011/04/top-20-core-java-interview-questions.html[8/3/2014 3:08:01 PM]
all answers related to singletons in Java seem to ignore the "double-checked locking is broken" problem; it is
best to initialize the single instance in the class initializer.
private final SingletonClass INSTANCE = new SingletonClass();
April 11, 2011 at 7:23 PM
Javin Paul said...
Thanks Job good to know that these java interview questions are useful for you.
April 15, 2011 at 7:49 PM
Javin Paul said...
Thanks a lot Anonymous for informing us about subtle details about Substring() method , I guess Interviewer
was looking for that information in his question "How does substring () inside String works?" because if
substring also shares same byte array then its something to be aware of.
April 15, 2011 at 7:51 PM
Javin Paul said...
Hi Scott,
your solution is correct but with the advent of java 5 and now guarantee of volatile keyword and change in
Java memory model guarantees that double checking of singleton will work. another solution is to use Enum
Singeton. you can check my post about Singleton here Singleton Pattern in Java
April 15, 2011 at 7:53 PM
Javin Paul said...
Hi Anand,
Thanks for answering question "How does substring () inside String works?"
April 15, 2011 at 7:54 PM
emt said...
Use can use a static holder to handle the singleton creation instead of double checked mechanism.
public class A {
private static class Holder
{
public static A singleton = new A();
}
public static A getInstance()
{
return Holder.singleton;
}
April 29, 2011 at 11:50 PM
Raj said...
Stored Procedure Error: One way to signal an error is from what is returned.
Factory/Abstract Factory: Abstract Factory provides one more level of abstraction. Consider different factories
each extended from an Abstract Factory and responsible for creation of different hierarchies of objects based
on the type of factory. E.g. AbstractFactory extended by AutomobileFactory, UserFactory, RoleFactory etc.
Each individual factory would be responsible for creation of objects in that genre.
June 9, 2011 at 2:29 AM
Anonymous said...
I only see 18 questions and most of them are answered wrong or not at all....
Also, your english is terrible.
July 24, 2011 at 5:56 PM
kamal said...
Question3 Awnser::::::::
String s = "Test";
Will first look for the String "Test" in the string constant pool. If found s will be made to refer to the found
object. If not found, a new String object is created, added to the pool and s is made to refer to the newly
Top 20 CoreJ avaInterview Questions and Answers asked on Investment Banks
http://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2011/04/top-20-core-java-interview-questions.html[8/3/2014 3:08:01 PM]
created object.
String s = new String("Test");
Will first create a new string object and make s refer to it. Additionally an entry for string "Test" is made in
the string constant pool, if its not already there.
So assuming string "Test" is not in the pool, the first declaration will create one object while the second will
create two objects.
August 3, 2011 at 12:33 AM
javalearner said...
@Kamal, I don't think
String s = new String("Test");
will put the object in String pool , it it does then why do one need String.intern() method which is used to put
Strings into String pool explicitly. its only when you create String objec t as String literal e.g. String s = "Test"
it put the String in pool.
August 3, 2011 at 6:52 PM
Arulkumaran.K said...
Keep up the good work, and a small suggestion,
wrap your code snippets in <pre class="brush: csharp"> code snippet goes here </pre>
it makes your code snippets more readable.
September 29, 2011 at 1:04 PM
Anonymous said...
Abstract Factory vs Factory(Factory method)
AF is used to create a GROUP of logically RELATED objects, AF implemented using FM.
Factory just create one of the subclass.
As I remember in GoF:
AF could create widgets for different types of UI (buttons, windows, labels), but we could have windows, unix
etc. UI types, created objects are related by domain.
October 16, 2011 at 1:57 AM
Jennifer said...
If you want to know the top 50 interview questions in banking plus get word-by-word answers to tough banking
interview questions like Why do you want to do investment banking?, then check out the Free Tutorials at
[www] insideinvesmentbanking [dot] com. Its a really useful site and its made by bankers who know the
interview room inside out. PS full disclosure, I am actually a current student of IIB and I do receive help with
recruiting (eg mock interview) in exchange for letting other students know about the Free Tutorials.
November 10, 2011 at 2:30 PM
Anonymous said...
These Java interview question are equally beneficial for 2 years experience or beginners, 4 years experience
Java developers (intermediate) and more than 6 years experience of Java developer i.e. Advanced level. Most
of the questions comes under 2 to 4 years but some of them are good for 6 years experience guy as well like
questions related to executor framework.
November 15, 2011 at 11:10 PM
seenu said...
I agree most of these java interview questions asked during experienced developers and senior developers
level. though some questions are also good for beginners in Java but most of them are for senior developers in
java
November 24, 2011 at 12:36 AM
Anonymous said...
Another popular Java interview question is why Java does not support multiple inheritance, passing reference,
or operator overloading, can you please provide answers for those questions. these java interview questions
are little tough to me.
January 29, 2012 at 6:24 PM
Anonymous said...
..after more than 2.5 year break in my software career, your blog refreshed most of my java
knowledge..thank u so much..i want u to write more n more for beginners n people like me..all the best
Top 20 CoreJ avaInterview Questions and Answers asked on Investment Banks
http://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2011/04/top-20-core-java-interview-questions.html[8/3/2014 3:08:01 PM]
February 13, 2012 at 9:54 AM
Anonymous said...
Hi I am looking for some real tough Java interview question which explores some advanced concept and make
sense. if you know real tough, challenging and advanced Java interview questions than please post here.
April 9, 2012 at 8:50 PM
Suraj said...
Hi, I am looking for Java interview questions from Investment banks like Nomura, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanly,
Goldman Sachs, UBS, Bank of America or Merrylynch etc. If you have Java questions asked in Nomura or any of
these banks please share.
April 22, 2012 at 8:22 PM
Vineet said...
Can any one please share core java interview questions from morgan stanley , JP Morgan Chase , Nomura, RBS
and Bank of America for experienced professionals of 6 to 7 years experience ? I heard that they mostly asked
Garbage Collection, Generics, Design and profiling related questions to senior candidate but some real
questions from those companies will really help.
June 11, 2012 at 6:31 PM
Buddhiraj said...
Hi Javarevisited, looking core java interview questions and answers for experienced in pdf format so that I can
use if offline, Can you please help to convert these Java questions in pdf ?
June 11, 2012 at 6:43 PM
Rajat said...
@Vineet, few Java programming questions asked in google :
1) Difference between Hashtable and HashMap?
2) difference between final, finalize and finaly?
3) write LRU cache in Java ?
let me know if you get more Java questions from google.
June 18, 2012 at 2:25 AM
Anand VijayaKumar said...
Javin
For question 7 -we usually handle the exception and divert the user to a standard error page with the
exception trace as a page variable. The user will have an option to email the support team through a button
click and the error trace gets sent to support. This way we can know what went wrong in the application and
fix it.
Typically these kind of errors are due to poor data error handling in stored procedure like a missed null check
or a char variable of incorrect size etc which are exposed only when I consistent data flows into the app
which was never tested during development or uat.
Anand
June 27, 2012 at 6:01 AM
Javin said...
@Anand, you bring an important point. size and value of variables are major cause of error in Stored
procedure and if not handle correctly may break Java application. I guess purpose of that java interview
question is to check whether you verify inputs in Java or not before passing to Stored procedure and similarly
when you receive response. Thanks for your comment mate.
Javin
June 27, 2012 at 6:27 AM
Anonymous said...
1.When we create string with new () its created in heap and not added into string pool while String created
using literal are created in String pool itself which exists in Perm area of heap.
2.String s = new String("Test");
will put the object in String pool , it it does then why do one need String.intern() method which is used to put
Top 20 CoreJ avaInterview Questions and Answers asked on Investment Banks
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Strings into String pool explicitly. its only when you create String object as String literal e.g. String s = "Test"
it put the String in pool.
The above 1 & 2 Stmts are contradicting... when it will in pool and when it will be in heap?
July 24, 2012 at 5:19 AM
Bogdan said...
...aad here's some more:
+1
0
vote
Answer #1
Hey!
Ill try to give you some examples, differentiated by the level of the candidate applying:
**UPDATE**: If you are a junior java developer or an aspiring one, I strongly recommend you to take first the
OCJP certification before going to an interview. This can increase your chances to succes big time, as well as
your entry salary proven and tested by myself! :)
1) Junior java developer
a) Basic ocjp (former scjp) questions:
What does static, final mean, purposes;
How many accesibility modifiers exist? Please describe them.
Why do you need a main method?
How many constructors can you have?
Define overwriting and overloading
Give java API implementations for overwriting and overloading
Describe the String class unique properties
StringBuilder vs StringBuffer
Collections : please describe, give some examples and compare them to eachother
ArrayList vs Vector
HashMap vs HashTable
Whats a tree
Whats a map
Multithreading: describe the management in java
Whats a semaphone?
How many states are there for threads?
Describe the usage for synchronized word (2)
Serialization in java a descrition and usage
Garbage collection in java description and usage
Can you guarantee the garbage collection process?
b) Simple design pattern questions:
Singleton please describe main features and coding
Factory please describe main features and coding
Have you used others? please describe them
2) Intermediate and Senior level depending on rate of good responses, additional questions to 1):
http://centraladvisor.com/programming-2/java/java-developer-interview
August 1, 2012 at 7:25 AM
Bhanu P. said...
Thanks dude, most of your Java interview question is asked on Interview on Sapient, Capagemini, Morgan
Stanley and Nomura.I was giving interview on HSBC last weekend and they ask me How SubString works in Java
:). Infosys, TCS, CTS, Barclays Java interview questions at-least one from your blog. We were giving client side
interview for UBS hongkong and they ask How HashMap works in Java, I don't have word to thank you. Please
keep us posting some more tough Java interview question from 2011 and 2012 , which is recent.
August 31, 2012 at 3:20 AM
Prabha kumari said...
Can anyone please share Java interview Question asked on Tech Mahindra, Patni, LnT Infotech and Mahindra
Satyam. Urgently required, interview scheduled in two days.
August 31, 2012 at 3:22 AM
Karan said...
Some Java programmer ask for Java questions for 2 years experience, Java questions for 4 years experience,
questions for Beginners in Java, questions for experienced Java programmer etc etc. Basically all these are
Top 20 CoreJ avaInterview Questions and Answers asked on Investment Banks
http://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2011/04/top-20-core-java-interview-questions.html[8/3/2014 3:08:01 PM]
just short cut, you should be good on what are you doing. You automatically gain experience while working in
Java and should be able to answer any Java question up-to your level.
September 2, 2012 at 11:43 PM
Putti said...
Hi Guys, Can some one share Java interview questions from Directi, Thoughtworks, Wipro, TCS and Capegemini
for experienced Java programmer 6+ years experience ?
September 18, 2012 at 8:46 PM
Sonam said...
Hi , Does Amazon or Microsoft ask questions on Java ? I am looking for some Java questions asked on
Microsoft, Amazon and other technology companies, if you know please share.
September 25, 2012 at 11:57 PM
Arulkumaran Kumaraswamipillai said...
You have no control over what questions get asked in job interviews. All you can do is brush up on the key
fundamentals.
October 17, 2012 at 6:50 PM
Anonymous said...
your questions are good but answers are not satisfactory. we know better than your answer. try to give some
new answer so that someone will read with a interest.
January 6, 2013 at 8:01 PM
Ravi said...
Hi Javin,
I'd like to thank you for putting huge effort in creating such nice collection.
Kindly update following in your blog:
Regarding Question-3. you wrote:
String s = new String("Test"); does not put the object in String pool
This is not correct. using new will create two objects one in normal heap and another in Pool and s will point
to object in heap.
It will be nice for others if you can update this in your blog.
January 28, 2013 at 12:16 AM
Javin @ ClassLoader in Java said...
Hi Ravi, where did you read that? I have never heard about String object created on both heap and pool.
Object is placed into pool when you call intern method on String object.
January 28, 2013 at 4:09 AM
Anonymous said...
Can you please suggest some latest Java interview questions from 2012, 2011 and what is trending now days.
Questions like Iterator vs Enumeration is way older and I think latest question on Java is more on Concurrency.
January 28, 2013 at 10:47 PM
garima said...
Hi Javin,
String s = new String("Test"); // creates two objects and one reference variable
In this case, because we used the new keyword, Java will create a new String object
in normal (nonpool) memory, and s will refer to it. In addition, the literal "Test" will
be placed in the pool.
January 30, 2013 at 7:19 AM
Anonymous said...
Although, questions are good, you can add lot more interview questions form Java 5, 6 and Java 7. Even lamda
expression from Java 8 can be a nice question. I remember, having interview with Amazon, Google and
Microsoft, there were hardly any Java question, but when I interviewed by Nomura, HeadStrong, and Citibank,
there are lots of questions from Java, Generics, Enum etc. Lesson learned, always research about what kind of
question asked in a company, before going to interview.
Top 20 CoreJ avaInterview Questions and Answers asked on Investment Banks
http://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2011/04/top-20-core-java-interview-questions.html[8/3/2014 3:08:01 PM]
March 12, 2013 at 11:04 PM
Dheeraj said...
Can you please post latest Java Interview Questions from Investment banks like Citibank, Credit Suisse,
Barclays, ANZ, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanly, CLSA, JP Morgan and some high frequency hedge funds like
Millenium? I am preparing for Java interview, and looking for recent questions asked in 2012, 2013 or may be
in last couple of month. If you can get question from Singapore, HongKong or London, that would be really
helpful, but I don't mind question form Pune, Bangalore or Mumbai even.
Cheers
Dheeraj
March 28, 2013 at 2:46 AM
Thorsten Hoeger said...
Hi, for number 19 it might be better to use System.nanoTime() as currentTimeMillis may have problems with
small intervals.
March 30, 2013 at 2:31 AM
Peter said...
Surprised to See no questions from Java IO or NIO. I think, Investment banks used lot of non blocking I/O code
for socket programming, connecting system with TCP/IP. In Exchange Connectivity code, I have seen lot of use
ByteBuffer for reading positional protocol. I think, you should also include questions from Garbage Collection
tuning, Java concurrency package, very hot at the moment.
March 31, 2013 at 9:01 PM
jv said...
q3. What is the difference between creating String as new() and literal?
ans is not correct bcz String x=new String("abc")-
creates two object.one is in heap memory and second is in constant string pool.
April 2, 2013 at 8:23 PM
Deepak said...
Hello, Can some one please share interview questions from ANZ Banglore and Singapore location, I need it
urgently.
April 9, 2013 at 9:30 PM
Anonymous said...
There is lot more difference in Java Interviews in India and other countries like USA (NewYork), UK(London),
Singapore, Hongkong or any other europian counties. India is mostly about theoretical knowledge e.g
difference between StringBuffer and StirngBuilder, final, finalize or finally , bla bla bla............
USA in particular is more about Code, they will give you a problem and ask you to code solution , write unit
test, produce design document in limited time usually 3 to 4 hours. One of the example is coding solution for
Vending Machine, CoffeMaker, ATM Machine, PortfolioManager, etc .
Trends on other countries are also more balanced towards code e.g. writing code to prevent deadlock (that's a
tricky one), So be prepare accordingly.
RAJAT
April 11, 2013 at 9:02 PM
Anonymous said...
Hi Javin, Can you please share some Core Java questions from Java 6 and Java 7? I heard they are asking new
features introduced in Java 6 as well as Java 7. Please help
April 19, 2013 at 1:07 AM
Anonymous said...
How HashMap works, this question was asked to me on Barclays Capital Java Interview question, would hae
read this article before, surely helped me.
April 22, 2013 at 12:04 AM
Gourav Yadav said...
@Ravi,Garima,Javin
its regarding String creation in Pool
Top 20 CoreJ avaInterview Questions and Answers asked on Investment Banks
http://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2011/04/top-20-core-java-interview-questions.html[8/3/2014 3:08:01 PM]
I tested a small code and giving results like below:
String s="Test";
String s1=new String("Test");
System.out.println(s==s1);//return false
System.out.print(s==s1.intern()); //retun true
If we go by concept that string creation adds string to pool also then first result should be true as if already
same string(mean s) is present in pool then same object is returned back so s1 should point to s but the result
is coming as false.
On the contrary,when we invoke intern method on s1 and then compare it returns true as it adds string to
pool which is normal working of intern method.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
April 22, 2013 at 1:19 AM
Anonymous said...
hi Javin, Can you please share some Citibank Java Interview questions? I have an interview with Citibank
Singapore for Algorithmic trading developer position, and expecting few Java questions? Would be great if you
could share some questions from Citibank, Credit Suisse, UBS or ANZ, these are my target companies. Cheers
April 29, 2013 at 11:41 PM
Gautam said...
@Anonymous, are you asking for Citigroup Java developer position or Citibank?
May 1, 2013 at 7:18 PM
supriya marathe said...
one question commonly asked is why JVM or why is jvm platform independent
May 24, 2013 at 6:28 AM
Anonymous said...
@supriya, JVM is platform dependent, only bytecode is platform independent.
May 29, 2013 at 5:30 AM
Nikhil said...
Nikhil: Question 19 To find out time taken by method to execute
System.currentTimeInMillis() will not be accurate as it will also include time for which current thread waited
due to context switch. Below approach should be used:
ThreadMXBean threadMX = ManagementFactory.getThreadMXBean();
long start = threadMX.getCurrentThreadUserTime();
// time-consuming operation here
long finish = threadMX.getCurrentThreadUserTime();
http://nadeausoftware.com/articles/2008/03/java_tip_how_get_cpu_and_user_time_benchmarking
June 1, 2013 at 8:55 AM
Ravi said...
@Javin,
I read it in SCJP for Java 6 book by Kathy Sierra page 434. I am copying and pasting same here..
----------------------
String s = "abc";
// creates one String object and one reference variable. In this simple case, "abc" will go in the pool and s
will refer to it.
String s = new String("abc");
// creates two objects, and one reference variable. In this case, because we used the new keyword, Java will
create a new String object
in normal (nonpool) memory, and s will refer to it. In addition, the literal "abc" will
be placed in the pool.
Top 20 CoreJ avaInterview Questions and Answers asked on Investment Banks
http://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2011/04/top-20-core-java-interview-questions.html[8/3/2014 3:08:01 PM]
----------------------
June 9, 2013 at 3:24 AM
Xhotery said...
These questions are quite basic and only useful for freshers or beginners Java developers. I wouldn't say, you
can expect this question as Senior Java developer. Everyone knows answers, there is nothing special about it.
definitely not TOP questions in my opinion.
August 14, 2013 at 7:33 PM
Anonymous said...
I agree with Xhotery, this questions are from 2012 and 2011 years, now it's 2013. In order to crack Java
interview today, you need to focus extensively on JVM internals, deeper knowledge of Java Concurrency,
sophisticated open source library and good knowledge of frameworks like Spring, Hibernate, Maven, and even
bit of functional programming knowledge is required. In recent Java interviews, peoples are asking about
lambdas of Java 8 and How it's going to improve performance, questions about functional interface and new
date and time library. Even questions from Java 7 e.g. try with resource and String in Switch are quite popular
nowadays. So be more advanced and prepare relevant questions, which is popular in 2013, not two years back.
August 26, 2013 at 7:41 PM
Anonymous said...
Some of the Interview questions for senior developers :
1. Difference between Abstract & Interface - given a situation what would you choose between abstration &
interface
2) Difference between inheritance & composition
3. Difference between Arraylist and linked list
4. difference between sleep and wait
5. Explain about hashmap ( methods in hashmap & the project in which we have used the hashmap more
about equalsto and hashcode)
6. Explain about the methods in Object
7. What is coupling
8. Struts config file - can there be multiple configs
9. Design patterns - factory , abstract factory, singleton implemented?
August 27, 2013 at 4:31 AM
Anonymous said...
These questions and answers are ok, but they look more suited for junior developers than senior engineers to
me.
Just few quick remarks from me:
1. Immutability in Java is not that easy to achieve, as long as we have reflexion. Of course, in theory,
reflexion can be disabled from a security provider. But in practice, a Java application uses several
technologies that rely on reflexion (anything that does dependency injection (Spring, EJB containers etc.),
anything that uses "convention over configuration" (ex: expression language etc.)), so in practice it's not
possible to disable reflexion most of the times.
10. In Java a java-core environment, singleton means single instance per class loader (not per application!). In
other contexts it may mean single instance per container, etc.
19. Your answer here is absolutely wrong. On one hand, if you just invoke that method for the very first time,
you'll not find the net amount of time taken by method execution, but the gross amount of time including
method execution plus class loading time for all classes that are referred for the first time inside that method.
Second thing, by measuring that way, you completely ignore how java works: all the adaptive optimization the
JIT does at runtime dramatically changes the execution time after a number of method calls. Actually, the
first call of a method is the wrongest way to measure its execution time.
September 16, 2013 at 1:57 AM
jitu said...
Hi Javin,
I'd like to thank you for putting huge effort in creating such nice collection.
Kindly update following in your blog:
Regarding Question-3. you wrote:
String s = new String("Test"); does not put the object in String pool
This is not correct. using new will create two objects one in normal heap and another in Pool and s will point
Top 20 CoreJ avaInterview Questions and Answers asked on Investment Banks
http://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2011/04/top-20-core-java-interview-questions.html[8/3/2014 3:08:01 PM]
to object in heap.
Reference : Effective Java second edition item 5 or 6
It will be nice for others if you can update this in your blog.
October 20, 2013 at 9:47 AM
Anand Vijay Kumar said...
Given it's 2013, Java Interviews has changed a lot with more focus on JVM internals, Garbage Collection tuning
and performance improvement. Here is a list of questions, which I have faced recently in Java interviews :
1) What is Composite design pattern?
2) Explain Liskov substitution principle ?
3) Write a Java program to convert bytes to long?
4) What is false sharing in multithreading Java?
5) Can we make an array volatile in Java? What is effect of making it volatile?
6) What is advantage and disadvantage of busy spin waiting strategy?
7) Difference between DOM and SAX parser in Java?
8) Write wait notify code for producer consumer problem?
9) Write code for thread-safe Singleton in Java?
10) What are 4 ways to iterate over Map in Java? Which one is best and why?
11) Write code to remove elements from ArrayList while iterating?
12) is Swing thread-safe?
13) What is thread local variable in Java?
14) How do you convert an String to date in Java?
15) Can we use String in switch case?
16) What is constructor chaining in Java?
17) Explain Java Heap space and Garbage collection?
18) Difference between major and minor GC?
19) Difference between -Xmx and -Xms JVM option?
20) How to check if a String contains only numeric digits?
21) Difference between poll() and remove() method of Queue in Java?
22) Difference between Comparator and Comparable in Java?
23) Why you need to override hashcode, when you override equals in Java?
24) How HashSet works internally in Java?
25) How do you print Array in Java?
All the best for your Java Interviews.
December 25, 2013 at 8:13 PM
Anonymous said...
Some exercises for an interview that I had with Morgan Stanley(in 2014):
1. Explain what 'path to root' means in the context of garbage collection. What are roots?
2. Write code for a simple implementation of HashMap/Hashtable
3. Write a short program to illustrate the concept of deadlock
4. Explain why recursive implementation of QuickSort will require O(log n) of additional space
5. Explain the design pattern used in Java and .NET io stream/reader APIs.
6. Create an Iterator filtering framework: an IObjectTest interface with a single boolean test(Object o) method
and an Iterator sub-class which is initialized with another Iterator and an IObjectTest instance. Your iterator
will then allow iteration over the original, but skipping any objects which don't pass the test. Create a simple
unit test for this framework.
January 15, 2014 at 7:15 PM
Surendar said...
Hi,
The Answer to 3. question is wrong. When creating string using new will create two copies one in heap and
another in string pool. And the object reference will be initially in heap. Inorder to make the object reference
to string pool we need to call intern() on the string.
February 19, 2014 at 2:00 AM
cbp said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
March 22, 2014 at 7:17 AM
cbp said...
First of all, thank you so much for putting this page together. It is a great starting point to refresh some
concepts before going into an interview. I would also recommend that everyone study the book 'Effective Java'
Top 20 CoreJ avaInterview Questions and Answers asked on Investment Banks
http://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2011/04/top-20-core-java-interview-questions.html[8/3/2014 3:08:01 PM]
too. I wanted to bring up a point that JCIP discusses in Chapter 16.
"Double checked locking is an anti-pattern..." -Java Concurrency in Practice p. 213
Yes, since Java 5 we can use the volatile keyword for the instance variable and this fixes a rather fatal flaw
(explained below), but the need to use this ugly anit-pattern doesn't exist when you can just synchronize the
getInstance() method.
//ALL YOU NEED
public static synchronized getInstance() {
if (INSTANCE == null) {
//create instance
}
return INSTANCE;
}
"The real problem with DCL is the assumption that the worst thing that can happen when reading a shared
object reference without synchronization is to erroneously see a stale value (in this case, null); in that case
the DCL idiom compensates for this risk by trying again with the lock held. But the worst case is actually
considerably worse - it is possible to see a current value of the reference but stale values for the object's
state, meaning that the object could be seen to be in an invalid or incorrect state." -Java Threads In Practice
p. 214
March 22, 2014 at 8:19 AM
Anonymous said...
Method submit extends base method Executor.execute(java.lang.Runnable) by creating and returning a Future
that can be used to cancel execution and/or wait for completion. Methods invokeAny and invokeAll perform
the most commonly useful forms of bulk execution, executing a collection of tasks and then waiting for at
least one, or all, to complete. (Class ExecutorCompletionService can be used to write customized variants of
these methods.)
March 28, 2014 at 12:34 PM
Anonymous said...
Hi all
i have an interview in RAK bank for the post java developer..if anyone know about the interview questions
please help
May 21, 2014 at 3:42 AM
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