Data Structures Interview Questions Set -1 

What is data structure?

A data structure is a way of organizing data that considers not only the items stored, but also their relationship to each other. Advance knowledge about
the relationship between data items allows designing of efficient algorithms for the manipulation of data.

List out the areas in which data structures are applied extensively?
Compiler Design, Operating System, Database Management System, Statistical analysis package, Numerical Analysis, Graphics, Artificial Intelligence,
Simulation

If you are using C language to implement the heterogeneous linked list, what pointer type will you use?
The heterogeneous linked list contains different data types in its nodes and we need a link, pointer to connect them. It is not possible to use ordinary
pointers for this. So we go for void pointer. Void pointer is capable of storing pointer to any type as it is a generic pointer type.

What is the data structures used to perform recursion?

Stack. Because of its LIFO (Last In First Out) property it remembers its caller, so knows whom to return when the function has to return. Recursion makes
use of system stack for storing the return addresses of the function calls. Every recursive function has its equivalent iterative (non-recursive) function.
Even when such equivalent iterative procedures are written, explicit stack is to be used.

What are the methods available in storing sequential files ?

Straight merging, Natural merging,  Polyphase sort, Distribution of Initial runs.

List out few of the Application of tree data-structure?

The manipulation of Arithmetic expression, Symbol Table construction, Syntax analysis.

In RDBMS, what is the efficient data structure used in the internal storage representation?
B+ tree. Because in B+ tree, all the data is stored only in leaf nodes, that makes searching easier. This corresponds to the records that shall be stored in
leaf nodes.

What is a spanning Tree?

A spanning tree is a tree associated with a network. All the nodes of the graph appear on the tree once. A minimum spanning tree is a spanning tree
organized so that the total edge weight between nodes is minimized.

Does the minimum spanning tree of a graph give the shortest distance between any 2 specified nodes?
Minimal spanning tree assures that the total weight of the tree is kept at its minimum. But it doesn't mean that the distance between any two nodes
involved in the minimum-spanning tree is minimum.

Whether Linked List is linear or Non-linear data structure?

According to Access strategies Linked list is a linear one. According to Storage Linked List is a Non-linear one.

What is the quickest sorting method to use?

The answer depends on what you mean by quickest. For most sorting problems, it just doesn't matter how quick the sort is because it is done
infrequently or other operations take significantly more time anyway. Even in cases in which sorting speed is of the essence, there is no one answer. It
depends on not only the size and nature of the data, but also the likely order. No algorithm is best in all cases. There are three sorting methods in this
author's toolbox that are all very fast and that are useful in different situations. Those methods are quick sort, merge sort, and radix sort.

The Quick Sort

The quick sort algorithm is of the divide and conquer type. That means it works by reducing a sorting problem into several easier sorting problems and
solving each of them. A dividing value is chosen from the input data, and the data is partitioned into three sets: elements that belong before the dividing
value, the value itself, and elements that come after the dividing value. The partitioning is performed by exchanging elements that are in the first set but
belong in the third with elements that are in the third set but belong in the first Elements that are equal to the dividing element can be put in any of the
three sets the algorithm will still work properly.

The Merge Sort

The merge sort is a divide and conquer sort as well. It works by considering the data to be sorted as a sequence of already-sorted lists (in the worst case,
each list is one element long). Adjacent sorted lists are merged into larger sorted lists until there is a single sorted list containing all the elements. The
merge sort is good at sorting lists and other data structures that are not in arrays, and it can be used to sort things that don't fit into memory. It also can
be implemented as a stable sort.

The Radix Sort

The radix sort takes a list of integers and puts each element on a smaller list, depending on the value of its least significant byte. Then the small lists are
concatenated, and the process is repeated for each more significant byte until the list is sorted. The radix sort is simpler to implement on fixed-length
data such as ints.

How can I search for data in a linked list?

Unfortunately, the only way to search a linked list is with a linear search, because the only way a linked list's members can be accessed is sequentially.
Sometimes it is quicker to take the data from a linked list and store it in a different data structure so that searches can be more efficient.

What is the heap?

The heap is where malloc(), calloc(), and realloc() get memory.

Getting memory from the heap is much slower than getting it from the stack. On the other hand, the heap is much more flexible than the stack. Memory
can be allocated at any time and deallocated in any order. Such memory isn't deallocated automatically; you have to call free().
Recursive data structures are almost always implemented with memory from the heap. Strings often come from there too, especially strings that could be
very long at runtime. If you can keep data in a local variable (and allocate it from the stack), your code will run faster than if you put the data on the
heap. Sometimes you can use a better algorithm if you use the heap faster, or more robust, or more flexible. Its a tradeoff.
If memory is allocated from the heap, its available until the program ends. That's great if you remember to deallocate it when you're done. If you forget,
it's a problem. A �memory leak is some allocated memory that's no longer needed but isn't deallocated. If you have a memory leak inside a loop, you can
use up all the memory on the heap and not be able to get any more. (When that happens, the allocation functions return a null pointer.) In some
environments, if a program doesn't deallocate everything it allocated, memory stays unavailable even after the program ends.
What is the easiest sorting method to use?
The answer is the standard library function qsort(). It's the easiest sort by far for several reasons:
It is already written.
It is already debugged.
It has been optimized as much as possible (usually).
Void qsort(void *buf, size_t num, size_t size, int (*comp)(const void *ele1, const void *ele2));

Data Structures Interview Questions Set -2

 

What is the bucket size, when the overlapping and collision occur at same time?
One. If there is only one entry possible in the bucket, when the collision occurs, there is no way to accommodate the colliding value. This results in the
overlapping of values.

In an AVL tree, at what condition the balancing is to be done?

If the pivotal value (or the Height factor) is greater than 1 or less than 1.

Minimum number of queues needed to implement the priority queue?

Two. One queue is used for actual storing of data and another for storing priorities.

How many different trees are possible with 10 nodes ?

1014 - For example, consider a tree with 3 nodes(n=3), it will have the maximum combination of 5 different (ie, 23 - 3 =? 5) trees.

What is a node class?

A node class is a class that, relies on the base class for services and   implementation, provides a wider interface to users than its base class, relies
primarily on virtual functions in its public interface depends on all its direct and indirect base class can be understood only in the context of the base
class can be used as base for further derivation
can be used to create objects. A node class is a class that has added new services or functionality beyond the services inherited from its base class.

When can you tell that a memory leak will occur?

A memory leak occurs when a program loses the ability to free a block of dynamically allocated memory.

What is placement new?

When you want to call a constructor directly, you use the placement new. Sometimes you have some raw memory that?s already been allocated, and you
need to construct an object in the memory you have. Operator new?s special version placement new allows you to do it.
class Widget
{
public :
Widget(int widgetsize);
?
Widget* Construct_widget_int_buffer(void *buffer,int widgetsize)
{
return new(buffer) Widget(widgetsize);
}
};
This function returns a pointer to a Widget object that?s constructed within the buffer passed to the function. Such a function might be useful for
applications using shared memory or memory-mapped I/O, because objects in such applications must be placed at specific addresses or in memory
allocated by special routines.

List out the areas in which data structures are applied extensively ?
Compiler Design, Operating System, Database Management System, Statistical analysis package, Numerical Analysis, Graphics, Artificial Intelligence,
Simulation

If you are using C language to implement the heterogeneous linked list, what pointer type will you use?
The heterogeneous linked list contains different data types in its nodes and we need a link, pointer to connect them. It is not possible to use ordinary
pointers for this. So we go for void pointer. Void pointer is capable of storing pointer to any type as it is a generic pointer type.

What is the data structures used to perform recursion?

Stack. Because of its LIFO (Last In First Out) property it remembers its caller so knows whom to return when the function has to return. Recursion makes
use of system stack for storing the return addresses of the function calls. Every recursive function has its equivalent iterative (non-recursive) function.
Even when such equivalent iterative procedures are written, explicit stack is to be used.

Whether Linked List is linear or Non-linear data structure?

According to Access strategies Linked list is a linear one.

According to Storage Linked List is a Non-linear one

Tell how to check whether a linked list is circular ?

Create two pointers, each set to the start of the list. Update each as follows:

while (pointer1)

{
pointer1 = pointer1->next;
pointer2 = pointer2->next; if (pointer2) pointer2=pointer2->next;
if (pointer1 == pointer2)

? ?? ? ?? {
print (\?circular\n\?);
}
}
What is the difference between ARRAY and STACK?
STACK follows LIFO. Thus the item that is first entered would be the last removed.

In array the items can be entered or removed in any order. Basically each member access is done using index. No strict order is to be followed here to
remove a particular element.

What is the difference between NULL AND VOID pointer?

NULL can be value for pointer type variables.
VOID is a type identifier which has not size.
NULL and void are not same. Example: void* ptr = NULL;

What is precision?
Precision refers the accuracy of the decimal portion of a value. Precision is the number of digits allowed after the decimal point.

What is impact of signed numbers on the memory?

Sign of the number is the first bit of the storage allocated for that number. So you get one bit less for storing the number. For example if you are storing
an 8-bit number, without sign, the range is 0-255. If you decide to store sign you get 7 bits for the number plus one bit for the sign. So the range is
-128 to +127.

How memory is reserved using a declaration statement ?

Memory is reserved using data type in the variable declaration. A programming language implementation has predefined sizes for its data types.

For example, in C# the declaration int i; will reserve 32 bits for variable i.

A pointer declaration reserves memory for the address or the pointer variable, but not for the data that it will point to. The memory for the data pointed
by a pointer has to be allocated at runtime.

The memory reserved by the compiler for simple variables and for storing pointer address is allocated on the stack, while the memory allocated for
pointer referenced data at runtime is allocated on the heap.