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FWIW, pretty much every 3rd (penultimate) year engineering student in India knows the xor-swap, I should think (only they might not call it that, because they'v

FWIW, pretty much every 3rd (penultimate) year engineering student in India knows the xor-swap, I should think (only they might not call it that, because they've just memorised the procedure, and have very little idea why it works... /cynical) This is one of the most common questions in 'technical interviews' when big IT companies are recruiting fresh grads. (See http://www.allinterview.com/showanswers/17145.html http://www.allinterview.com/showanswers/17145.html)

srean 15y ago
I am not sure where your cynicism or contempt is coming from. There is not much to a deeper understanding of xor-swap. If one knows the xor truth table one knows why it works, and knowing the truth table is essentially an act of memorization. I hope they are exposed to digital logic way before 3rd year. On the other hand cases where this will not work in the current form, perhaps needs a somewhat deeper understanding of bit lay out. Say if one were to swap two unicode characters from void * pointers to them.
- shrikant 15y ago
  My cynicism (not contempt - I know that the students are under various sorts of pressures) stems from personal experience. It's not much good explaining how simple it is to understand the xor-swap - it doesn't change the fact that the majority of engineering students go to the link like the one I posted, compile a list of questions and answers, and rattle off answers before the question is even completed in the interviews. It's like knowing [any interesting method] can be used to accomplish a task, without knowing why said method works. edit: I realise all this is OT, but I was downvoted for my earlier post and felt the need to defend it.
  - deleted 15y ago
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MarkMc 15y ago
Am I the only one that thinks this would be a really BAD interview question? There'd be no way to tell if the candidate had memorised the answer or had worked it out on the fly.

srean 15y ago

I am not sure where your cynicism or contempt is coming from. There is not much to a deeper understanding of xor-swap. If one knows the xor truth table one knows why it works, and knowing the truth table is essentially an act of memorization. I hope they are exposed to digital logic way before 3rd year. On the other hand cases where this will not work in the current form, perhaps needs a somewhat deeper understanding of bit lay out. Say if one were to swap two unicode characters from void * pointers to them.

shrikant 15y ago
My cynicism (not contempt - I know that the students are under various sorts of pressures) stems from personal experience. It's not much good explaining how simple it is to understand the xor-swap - it doesn't change the fact that the majority of engineering students go to the link like the one I posted, compile a list of questions and answers, and rattle off answers before the question is even completed in the interviews. It's like knowing [any interesting method] can be used to accomplish a task, without knowing why said method works. edit: I realise all this is OT, but I was downvoted for my earlier post and felt the need to defend it.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

MarkMc 15y ago

Am I the only one that thinks this would be a really BAD interview question? There'd be no way to tell if the candidate had memorised the answer or had worked it out on the fly.