C++ interview preparation [closed]

Answer 1

I have interviewed several candidates specifically focusing on their C++ knowledge, and if there was one question that worked well to put peoples' knowledge of C++ on a gradient, it was this one:

Fix this memory leak as robustly as you can:

void doSomething()
{
Foo* pFoo = new Foo();
[do some stuff]
}

• +1 for putting delete pFoo at the end
• +2 for putting pFoo in a std::auto_ptr
• +3 for knowing what RAII is - the concept, if not the acronym
• +4 for mentioning exception-safety guarantees of the auto_ptr
• +5 for putting pFoo in a boost:shared_ptr
• +6 for knowing when a shared_ptr might not be freed.
• +7 for talking about garbage collection techniques to fix circular references

This always worked to show how long someone had been working with C++. This is one datapoint you can use to tell where you are in the scale of C++ knowledge.

Edit: I would recommend someone for hire at level 3 or above.