From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: *** X-Spam-Status: No, score=3.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, RATWARE_MS_HASH,RATWARE_OUTLOOK_NONAME autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 109fba,baaf5f793d03d420 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: fc89c,97188312486d4578 X-Google-Attributes: gidfc89c,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,97188312486d4578 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,6154de2e240de72a X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public From: "Tim Behrendsen" Subject: Re: What's the best language to start with Date: 1996/08/13 Message-ID: <01bb891c$0f2b34c0$87ee6fce@timpent.airshields.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 174039901 references: <199608110535.WAA18572@pioneer.nevada.edu> <4up0ar$pim@news.ccit.arizona.edu> content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 organization: A-SIS mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.unix.programmer Date: 1996-08-13T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Frank Manning wrote in article <4up0ar$pim@news.ccit.arizona.edu>... > In article > Tim Behrendsen writes: > > [ Bonus interview question ] > > ---- > > You are writing a preprocessor program that takes C source as > > its input. The preprocessor replaces all variables and symbols > > in the program with unique names of the form VARxxxxxx, where > > "xxxxxx" is an incrementing decimal number. Describe what is > > needed to handle the case where the input source file already > > contains a variable of that form. > ---- > > OK, I'll bite. I'd say that particular case is handled just like any > other case. The input variable/symbol is a completely separate entity > from output string "VARxxxxxx" you replace it with, except for the > 1:1 mapping of input vs. output strings. Examples: > > INPUT OUTPUT > > abc VAR000001 > Color_Value VAR000002 > VAR000001 VAR000003 > VAR000004 VAR000004 > X_Prime VAR000005 > > Nah...that was too easy. I musta missed something... Nope, you got it. :) The typical wrong answer (when they make an answer at all) is to start describing a list they keep of the ones that are already of the form, etc. Occasionally I'll get someone go off the deep end and describe incredibly elaborate data structures. Heh heh. I don't count it too much, because it's so stacked to lead the person down the wrong path. "Trick" questions rarely tell you anything significant, except where the "wrong" answer is really confused. -- Tim Behrendsen (tim@airshields.com)