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133CoreJavaInterviewQuestionsAnswersFromLast5YearsTheMEGAList

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133 Core Java Interview Questions Answers From Last 5 Years The MEGA List

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Last Updated Date: 30th October 2015

Time is changing and so is Java interviews. Gone are the days, when knowing the difference
between String and StringBuffer can help you to go through the second round of interview,
questions are becoming more advanced and interviewers are asking more deep questions.
When I started my career, questions like Vector vs Arrayand HashMap vs Hashtable were the
most popular ones and just memorizing them gives you a good chance to do well in
interviews, but not anymore. Nowadays, you will get questions from the areas where not
many Java programmer looks e.g. NIO, patterns, sophisticated unit testing or those which are
hard to master e.g. concurrency, algorithms, data structures and coding.
Since I like to explore interview questions, I have got this huge list of questions with me,
which contains lots and lots of questions from different topics. I have been preparing this
MEGA list from quite some time and now It's ready to share with you guys. It contains
interview questions not only from classic topics like threads, collections, equals and
hashcode, sockets but also from NIO, array, string, java 8 and many more.

data structure and algorithm (43)

Coding Interview Question (32)
SQL Interview Questions (24)
database interview questions (18)
thread interview questions (18)
servlet interview questions (17)
collections interview questions (15)
spring interview questions (9)
Programming interview question (4)
hibernate interview questions (4)

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Java Tutorials

It has questions for both entry level Java programmers and senior developers with years of
experience. No matter whether you are a Java developer of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 or even 10
years of experience, you will find something interesting in this list. It contains questions
which are super easy to answer, and also, a question which is tricky enough for even seasoned
Java programmers.

date and time tutorial (16)

FIX protocol tutorial (16)
java collection tutorial (52)
java IO tutorial (25)
Java JSON tutorial (6)
Java multithreading Tutorials (29)
Java Programming Tutorials (27)
Java xml tutorial (9)

Given the list is long and we have questions from everywhere, it's imperative that answers
must be short, concise and crisp, no fluffing at all. So apart from this paragraph, you will only
hear from me is the questions and answers, no more context, no more feedback and no more
evaluation. For that, I have already written blog posts, where you can find my views on a
particular question, e.g. why I like that question, what makes them challenging and what kind
of answer you should expect from candidates.
This list is a little bit different and I encourage you to share questions and answers in a similar
way so that it should be easy to revise. I hope this list can be a great use for both interviewer
and candidates, the interviewer can, of course, put a little variety on questions to bring
novelty and surprise element, which is important for a good interview. While a candidate, can
expand and test their knowledge about key areas of Java programming language and
platform. In 2015 and in coming years the focus will be more on advanced concurrency
concept, JVM internals, 32bit vs 64bit JVM, unit testing, and clean code. I am sure, once you
read through this MEGA list of Java interview question, you should be able to do well on both
telephonic and face to face programming interviews.

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2016 ( 144 )
2015 ( 127 )

Important Topics for Java Interviews

Apart from quantity, as you can see with a huge number of questions, I have worked hard to
maintain quality as well. I have not only shared questions from all important topics but also
ensured to include socalled advanced topics which many programmers do not prefer to
prepare or just left out because they have not worked on that. Java NIO and JVM internals
questions are best examples of that. You can keep design patterns also on the same list but
growing number of an experienced programmer are now well aware of GOF design patterns
and when to use them. I have also worked hard to keep this list uptodate to include what
interviewers are asking in 2015 and what will be their core focus on coming years. To give you
an idea, this list of Java interview questions includes following topics:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Multithreading, concurrency and thread basics

Date type conversion and fundamentals
Garbage Collection
Java Collections Framework

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5. Array
6. String
7. GOF Design Patterns
8. SOLID design principles
9. Abstract class and interface

20 Questions You can ask to Interviewer in

Program...
Share Your Interview Experience with
Javarevisited...
How to convert java.util.Date to java.sql.Date
J...

10. Java basics e.g. equals() and hashcode

11. Generics and Enum

September ( 9 )

12. Java IO and NIO

13. Common Networking protocols

July ( 18 )

14. Data structure and algorithm in Java

May ( 5 )

15. Regular expressions

16. JVM internals

April ( 4 )

17. Java Best Practices

18. JDBC

August ( 11 )

June ( 16 )

March ( 10 )
February ( 12 )
January ( 16 )

19. Date, Time, and Calendar

20. XML Processing in Java

2014 ( 102 )

21. JUnit
22. Programming

2012 ( 214 )

2013 ( 128 )

2011 ( 136 )
2010 ( 30 )

You guys are also lucky that nowadays there are some good books available to prepare for
Java interviews, one of them which I particularly find useful and interesting to read isJava
Programming Interview Exposed by Markham. It will take you to some of the most important
topics for Java and JEE interviews, worth reading even if you are not preparing for Java
interview.

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Top 120 Java Interview Questions Answers

So now the time has come to introduce you to this MEGA list of 120 Java questions collected
from various interviews of last 5 years. I am sure you have seen many of these questions
personally on your interviews and many of you would have answered them correctly as well.

Multithreading, Concurrency and Thread basics Questions

1) Can we make array volatile in Java?
This is one of the tricky Java multithreading questions you will see in senior Java developer
Interview. Yes, you can make an array volatile in Java but only the reference which is
pointing to an array, not the whole array. What I mean, if one thread changes the reference
variable to points to another array, that will provide a volatile guarantee, but if multiple
threads are changing individual array elements they won't be having happens before
guarantee provided by the volatile modifier.

2) Can volatile make a nonatomic operation to atomic?

This another good question I love to ask on volatile, mostly as a followup of the previous
question. This question is also not easy to answer because volatile is not about atomicity, but
there are cases where you can use a volatile variable to make the operation atomic.
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One example I have seen is having a long field in your class. If you know that a long field is
accessed by more than one thread e.g. a counter, a price filed or anything, you better make
it volatile. Why? because reading to a long variable is not atomic in Java and done in two
steps, If one thread is writing or updating long value, it's possible for another thread to see
half value (fist 32bit). While reading/writing a volatile long or double (64 bit) is atomic.

3) What are practical uses of volatile modifier?

One of the practical use of the volatile variable is to make reading double and long atomic.
Both double and long are 64bit wide and they are read in two parts, first 32bit first time and
next 32bit second time, which is nonatomic but volatile double and long read is atomic in
Java. Another use of the volatile variable is to provide a memory barrier, just like it is used in
Disrupter framework. Basically, Java Memory model inserts a write barrier after you write to
a volatile variable and a read barrier before you read it. Which means, if you write to volatile
field then its guaranteed that any thread accessing that variable will see the value you wrote
and anything you did before doing that write into the thread is guaranteed to have happened
and any updated data values will also be visible to all threads, because the memory barrier
flushed all other writes to the cache.

4) What guarantee volatile variable provides? (answer)

volatile variables provide the guarantee about ordering and visibility e.g. volatile assignment
cannot be reordered with other statements but in the absence of any synchronization
instruction compiler, JVM or JIT are free to reorder statements for better performance.
volatile also provides the happensbefore guarantee which ensure changes made in one thread
is visible to others. In some cases volatile also provide atomicity e.g. reading 64bit data
types like long and double are not atomic but read of volatile double or long is atomic.

5) Which one would be easy to write? synchronization code for 10 threads or 2 threads?
In terms of writing code, both will be of same complexity because synchronization code is
independent of a number of threads. Choice of synchronization though depends upon a
number of threads because the number of thread present more contention, so you go for
advanced synchronization technique e.g. lock stripping, which requires more complex code
and expertise.

6) How do you call wait() method? using if block or loop? Why? (answer)
wait() method should always be called in loop because it's possible that until thread gets
CPU to start running again the condition might not hold, so its always better to check
condition in loop before proceeding. Here is the standard idiom of using wait and notify
method in Java:
//Thestandardidiomforusingthewaitmethod
synchronized(obj){
while(conditiondoesnothold)
obj.wait();//(Releaseslock,andreacquiresonwakeup)
...//Performactionappropriatetocondition
}

See Effective Java Item 69 to learn more about why wait method should call in the loop.

7) What is false sharing in the context of multithreading?

false sharing is one of the wellknown performance issues on multicore systems, where each
process has its local cache. false sharing occurs when threads on different processor modify
variables that reside on same cache line as shown in the following image:

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False sharing is very hard to detect because the thread may be accessing completely different
global variables that happen to be relatively close together in memory. Like many
concurrency issues, the primary way to avoid false sharing is careful code review and aligning
your data structure with the size of a cache line.

8) What is busy spin? Why should you use it?

Busy spin is one of the technique to wait for events without releasing CPU. It's often done to
avoid losing data in CPU cached which is lost if the thread is paused and resumed in some
other core. So, if you are working on low latency system where your order processing thread
currently doesn't have any order, instead of sleeping or calling wait(), you can just loop and
then again check the queue for new messages. It's only beneficial if you need to wait for a
very small amount of time e.g. in micro seconds or nano seconds. LMAX Disrupter framework,
a highperformance interthread messaging library has a BusySpinWaitStrategy which is
based on this concept and uses a busy spin loop for EventProcessors waiting on the
barrier.

9) How do you take thread dump in Java?

You can take a thread dump of Java application in Linux by using kill3PID, where PID is
the process id of Java process. In Windows, you can press Ctrl+Break. This will instruct
JVM to print thread dump in standard out or err and it could go to console or log file
depending upon your application configuration. If you have used Tomcat then when

10) is Swing threadsafe? (answer)

No, Swing is not threadsafe. You cannot update Swing components e.g. JTable, JList or
JPanel from any thread, in fact, they must be updated from GUI or AWT thread. That's why
swings provide invokeAndWait() and invokeLater() method to request GUI update from
any other threads. This methods put update request in AWT threads queue and can wait till
update or return immediately for an asynchronous update. You can also check the detailed
answer to learn more.

11) What is a thread local variable in Java? (answer)

Threadlocal variables are variables confined to a thread, its like thread's own copy which is
not shared between multiple threads. Java provides a ThreadLocal class to support thread
local variables. It's one of the many ways to achieve threadsafety. Though be careful while
using thread local variable in manged environment e.g. with web servers where worker thread
out lives any application variable. Any thread local variable which is not removed once its
work is done can potentially cause a memory leak in Java application.

12) Write waitnotify code for producerconsumer problem? (answer)

Please see the answer for a code example. Just remember to call wait() and notify() method
from synchronized block and test waiting for condition on the loop instead of if block.

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13) Write code for threadsafe Singleton in Java? (answer)

Please see the answer for a code example and step by step guide to creating threadsafe
singleton class in Java. When we say threadsafe, which means Singleton should remain
singleton even if initialization occurs in the case of multiple threads. Using Java enum as
Singleton class is one of the easiest ways to create a threadsafe singleton in Java.

14) The difference between sleep and wait in Java? (answer)

Though both are used to pause currently running thread, sleep() is actually meant for short
pause because it doesn't release lock, while wait() is meant for conditional wait and that's
why it release lock which can then be acquired by another thread to change the condition on
which it is waiting.

15) What is an immutable object? How do you create an Immutable object in Java?
(answer)
Immutable objects are those whose state cannot be changed once created. Any modification
will result in a new object e.g. String, Integer,and other wrapper class. Please see the
answer for step by step guide to creating Immutable class in Java.

16) Can we create an Immutable object, which contains a mutable object?

Yes, its possible to create an Immutable object which may contain a mutable object, you just
need to be a little bit careful not to share the reference of the mutable component, instead,
you should return a copy of it if you have to. Most common example is an Object which
contain the reference of java.util.Date object.

Date types and Basic Java Interview Questions

17) What is the right data type to represent a price in Java? (answer)
BigDecimal if memory is not a concern and Performance is not critical, otherwise double with
predefined precision.

18) How do you convert bytes to String? (answer)

you can convert bytes to the string using string constructor which acceptsbyte[], just make
sure that right character encoding otherwise platform's default character encoding will be
used which may or may not be same.

19) How do you convert bytes to long in Java? (answer)

This questions if for you to answer :)

20) Can we cast an int value into byte variable? what will happen if the value of int is
larger than byte?
Yes, we can cast but int is 32 bit long in java while byte is 8 bit long in java so when you cast
an int to byte higher 24 bits are lost and a byte can only hold a value from 128 to 128.

21) There are two classes B extends A and C extends B, Can we cast B into C e.g. C = (C)
B; (answer)

22) Which class contains clone method? Cloneable or Object? (answer)

java.lang.Cloneable is marker interface and doesn't contain any method clone method is
defined in the object class. It is also knowing that clone() is a native method means it's
implemented in C or C++ or any other native language.

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23) Is ++ operator is threadsafe in Java? (answer)

No it's not a thread safe operator because its involve multiple instructions like reading a
value, incriminating it and storing it back into memory which can be overlapped between
multiple threads.

24) Difference between a = a + b and a += b ? (answer)

The+= operator implicitly cast the result of addition into the type of variable used to hold
the result. When you add two integral variable e.g. variable of type byte, short, or int then
they are first promoted to int and them addition happens. If result of addition is more than
maximum value of a then a+ b will give compile time error but a+= b will be ok as shown
below
bytea=127;
byteb=127;
b=a+b;//error:cannotconvertfrominttobyte
b+=a;//ok

25) Can I store a double value in a long variable without casting? (answer)
No, you cannot store a double value into a long variable without casting because the range of
double is more that long and you we need to type cast. It's not dificult to answer this
question but many develoepr get it wrong due to confusion on which one is bigger between
double and long in Java.

26) What will this return 3*0.1 == 0.3? true or false? (answer)
This is one of the really tricky questions. Out of 100, only 5 developers answered this question
and only of them have explained the concept correctly. The short answer is false because
some floating point numbers can not be represented exactly.

27) Which one will take more memory, an int or Integer? (answer)
An Integer object will take more memory an Integer is the an object and it store meta data
overhead about the object and int is primitive type so its takes less space.

28) Why is String Immutable in Java? (answer)

One of my favorite Java interview question. The String is Immutable in java because java
designer thought that string will be heavily used and making it immutable allow some
optimization easy sharing same String object between multiple clients. See the link for the
more detailed answer. This is a great question for Java programmers with less experience as
it gives them food for thought, to think about how things works in Java, what Jave designers
might have thought when they created String class etc.
29) Can we use String in the switch case? (answer)
Yes from Java 7 onward we can use String in switch case but it is just syntactic sugar.
Internally string hash code is used for the switch. See the detaiedl answer for more
explanation and discussion.
30) What is constructor chaining in Java? (answer)
When you call one constructor from other than it's known as constructor chaining in Java. This
happens when you have multiple, overloaded constructor in the class.

JVM Internals and Garbage Collection Interview Questions

In the year 2015 I have seen increased focus on JVM internal and Garbage collection tuning,
monitoring Java appliation, dealing with Java performance issues on various Java interviews.
This is actually become the prime topic for interviewing any experienced Java developer for
senior position e.g. technical lead, VP or team lead. If you feel you are short of experience
and knowledge in this area then you should read atleast one book mentioned in my list of
Java Performance books. I vote goes to Java Performance, The Definitive guide by Scott.
31) What is the size of int in 64bit JVM?
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The size of an int variable is constant in Java, it's always 32bit irrespective of platform.
Which means the size of primitive intis same in both 32bit and 64bit Java virtual machine.
32) The difference between Serial and Parallel Garbage Collector? (answer)
Even though both the serial and parallel collectors cause a stoptheworld pause during
Garbage collection.The main difference between them is that a serial collector is a default
copying collector which uses only one GC thread for garbage collection while a parallel
collector uses multiple GC threads for garbage collection.
33) What is the size of an int variable in 32bit and 64bit JVM? (answer)
The size of int is same in both 32bit and 64bit JVM, it's always 32 bits or 4 bytes.
34) A difference between WeakReference and SoftReference in Java? (answer)
Though both WeakReference and SoftReference helps garbage collector and memory
efficient, WeakReference becomes eligible for garbage collection as soon as last strong
reference is lost but SoftReference even thought it can not prevent GC, it can delay it until
JVM absolutely need memory.
35) How do WeakHashMap works? (answer)
WeakHashMap works like a normal HashMap but uses WeakReference for keys, which means if
the key object doesn't have any reference then both key/value mapping will become eligible
for garbage collection.
36) What isXX:+UseCompressedOopsJVM option? Why use it? (answer)
When you go migrate your Java application from 32bit to 64bit JVM, the heap requirement
suddenly increases, almost double, due to increasing size of ordinary object pointer from 32
bit to 64 bit. This also adversely affect how much data you can keep in CPU cache, which is
much smaller than memory. Since main motivation for moving to 64bit JVM is to specify large
heap size, you can save some memory by using compressed OOP. By using
XX:+UseCompressedOops, JVM uses 32bit OOP instead of 64bit OOP.

37) How do you find if JVM is 32bit or 64bit from Java Program? (answer)
You can find that by checking some system properties likesun.arch.data.model or os.arch

38) What is the maximum heap size of 32bit and 64bit JVM? (answer)
Theoretically, the maximum heap memory you can assign to a 32bit JVM is 2^32 which is 4GB
but practically the limit is much smaller. It also varies between operating systems e.g. form
1.5GB in Windows to almost 3GB in Solaris. 64bit JVM allows you to specify larger heap size,
theoretically 2^64 which is quite large but practically you can specify heap space up to
100GBs. There are even JVM e.g. Azul where heap space of 1000 gigs is also possible.

39) What is the difference between JRE, JDK, JVM and JIT? (answer)
JRE stands for Java runtime and it's required to run Java application. JDK stands for Java
development kit and provides tools to develop Java program e.g. Java compiler. It also
contains JRE. The JVM stands for Java virtual machine and it's the process responsible for
running Java application. The JIT stands for Just In Time compilation and helps to boost the
performance of Java application by converting Java byte code into native code when the
crossed certain threshold i.e. mainly hot code is converted into native code.

40) Explain Java Heap space and Garbage collection?(answer)

When a Java process is started using java command, memory is allocated to it. Part of this
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memory is used to create heap space, which is used to allocate memory to objects whenever
they are created in the program. Garbage collection is the process inside JVM which reclaims
memory from dead objects for future allocation.

41) Can you guarantee the garbage collection process?(answer)

No, you cannot guarantee the garbage collection, though you can make a request using
System.gc() or Runtime.gc() method.

42) How do you find memory usage from Java program? How much percent of the heap is
used?
You can use memory related methods from java.lang.Runtime class to get the free memory,
total memory and maximum heap memory in Java. By using these methods, you can find out
how many percents of the heap is used and how much heap space is remaining.
Runtime.freeMemory() return amount of free memory in bytes,
Runtime.totalMemory() returns total memory in bytes and Runtime.maxMemory()
returns maximum memory in bytes.

43) What is the difference between stack and heap in Java?(answer)

Stack and heap are different memory areas in the JVM and they are used for different
purposes. The stack is used to hold method frames and local variables while objects are
always allocated memory from the heap. The stack is usually much smaller than heap memory
and also didn't shared between multiple threads, but heap is shared among all threads in JVM.

Basic Java concepts Interview Questions

44) What's the difference between "a == b" and "a.equals(b)"? (answer)
The a = b does object reference matching if both a and b are an object and only return true if
both are pointing to the same object in the heap space, on the other hand, a.equals(b) is
used for logical mapping and its expected from an object to override this method to provide
logical equality. For example, String class overrides this equals() method so that you can
compare two Strings, which are the different object but contains same letters.

45) What is a.hashCode() used for? How is it related to a.equals(b)? (answer)

hashCode() method returns an int hash value corresponding to an object. It's used in hash
based collection classes e.g Hashtable, HashMap, LinkedHashMap and so on. It's very tightly
related to equals() method. According to Java specification, two objects which are equal to
each other using equals() method must have same hash code.

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46) Difference between final, finalize and finally?(answer)

The final is a modifier which you can apply to variable, methods and classes. If you make a
variable final it means its value cannot be changed once initialized. finalize is a method,
which is called just before an object is a garbage collected, giving it last chance to resurrect
itself, but the call to finalize is not guaranteed. finally is a keyword which is used in
exception handling along with try and catch. the finally block is always executed irrespective
of whether an exception is thrown from try block or not.

47) What is a compile time constant in Java? What is the risk of using it?
public static final variables are also known as a compile time constant, the public is optional
there. They are replaced with actual values at compile time because compiler know their
value upfront and also knows that it cannot be changed during runtime. One of the problem
with this is that if you happened to use a public static final variable from some inhouse or
third party library and their value changed later than your client will still be using old value
even after you deploy a new version of JARs. To avoid that, make sure you compile your
program when you upgrade dependency JAR files.

Java Collections Framework Interview Questions

It also contains Data structure and algorithm Interview question in Java, questions on array,
linked list, HashMap, ArrayList, Hashtable, Stack, Queue, PriorityQueue, LinkedHashMap and
ConcurrentHashMap.
48) The difference between List, Set, Map, and Queue in Java? (answer)
The list is an ordered collection which allows duplicate. It also has an implementation which
provides constant time index based access, but that is not guaranteed by List interface. Set is
unordered collection which

49) Difference between poll() and remove() method?

Both poll() and remove() take out the object from the Queue but if poll() fails then it returns
null but if remove fails it throws Exception.

50) The difference between LinkedHashMap and PriorityQueue in Java? (answer)

PriorityQueue guarantees that lowest or highest priority element always remain at the head
of the queue, but LinkedHashMap maintains the order on which elements are inserted. When
you iterate over a PriorityQueue, iterator doesn't guarantee any order but iterator of
LinkedHashMap does guarantee the order on which elements are inserted.

51) Difference between ArrayList and LinkedList in Java? (answer)

The obvious difference between them is that ArrrayList is backed by array data structure,
supprots random access and LinkedList is backed by linked list data structure and doesn't
supprotrandom access. Accessing an element with the index is O(1) in ArrayList but its O(n)
in LinkedList. See the answer for more detailed discussion.

52) What is a couple of ways that you could sort a collection? (answer)
You can either use the Sorted collection like TreeSet or TreeMap or you can sort using the
ordered collection like a list and using Collections.sort() method.

53) How do you print Array in Java? (answer)

You can print an array by using the Arrays.toString() and Arrays.deepToString() method. Since
array doesn't implement toString() by itself, just passing an array to System.out.println() will
not print its contents but Arrays.toString() will print each element.
54) LinkedList in Java is doubly or singly linked list? (answer)
It's a doubly linked list, you can check the code in JDK. In Eclipse, you can use the shortcut,
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Ctrl+ T to directly open this class in Editor.

55) Which kind of tree is used to implement TreeMap in Java? (answer)
A Red Black tree is used to implement TreeMap in Java.

56) What is the difference between Hashtable and HashMap? (answer)

There are many differences between these two classes, some of them are following:
a) Hashtable is a legacy class and present from JDK 1, HashMap was added later.
b) Hashtable is synchronized and slower but HashMap is not synchronized and faster.
c) Hashtable doesn't allow null keys but HashMap allows one null key.
See the answer for more differences between HashMap and Hashtable in Java.

57) How HashSet works internally in Java? (answer)

HashSet is internally implemented using an HashMap. Since a Map needs key and value, a
default value is used for all keys. Similar to HashMap, HashSet doesn't allow duplicate keys
and only one null key, I mean you can only store one null object in HashSet.

58) Write code to remove elements from ArrayList while iterating? (answer)
Key here is to check whether candidate uses ArrayList's remove() or Iterator's remove(). Here
is the sample code which uses right way o remove elements from ArrayList while looping over
and avoids ConcurrentModificationException.

59) Can I write my own container class and use it in the foreach loop?
Yes, you can write your own container class. You need to implement the Iterable interfaceif
you want to loop over advanced for loop in Java, though. If you implement Collection then
you by default get that property.

60) What is default size of ArrayList and HashMap in Java? (answer)

As of Java 7 now, default size of ArrayList is 10 and default capacity of HashMap is 16, it must
be power of 2. Here is code snippet from ArrayList and HashMap class :
//fromArrayList.javaJDK1.7
privatestaticfinalintDEFAULT_CAPACITY=10;
//fromHashMap.javaJDK7
staticfinalintDEFAULT_INITIAL_CAPACITY=1<<4;//aka16

61) Is it possible for two unequal objects to have the same hashcode?
Yes, two unequal objects can have same hashcode that's why collision happen in a hashmap.
the equal hashcode contract only says that two equal objects must have the same hashcode it
doesn't say anything about the unequal object.
62) Can two equal object have the different hash code?
No, thats not possible according to hash code contract.

63) Can we use random numbers in the hashcode() method? (answer)

No, because hashcode of an object should be always same. See the answer to learning more
about things to remember while overriding hashCode() method in Java.

64) What is the difference between Comparator and Comparable in Java? (answer)
The Comparable interface is used to define the natural order of object while Comparator is
used to define custom order. Comparable can be always one, but we can have multiple
comparators to define customized order for objects.
65) Why you need to override hashcode, when you override equals in Java? (answer)
Because equals have code contract mandates to override equals and hashcode together
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.since many container class like HashMap or HashSet depends on hashcode and equals
contract.

Java IO and NIO Interview questions

IO is very important from Java interview point of view. You should have a good knowledge of
old Java IO, NIO, and NIO2 alsong with some operating system and disk IO fundamentals. Here
are some frequently asked questions form Java IO.
66) In my Java program, I have three sockets? How many threads I will need to handle that?
67) How do you create ByteBuffer in Java?
68) How do you write and read from ByteBuffer in Java?
69) Is Java BIG endian or LITTLE endian?
70) What is the byte order of ByteBuffer?
71) The difference between direct buffer and nondirect buffer in Java? (answer)
72) What is the memory mapped buffer in Java? (answer)
73) What is TCP NO DELAY socket option?
74) What is the difference between TCP and UDP protocol? (answer)
75) The difference between ByteBuffer and StringBuffer in Java? (answer)

Java Best Practices Interview question

Contains best practices from different parts of Java programming e.g. Collections, String, IO,
Multithreading, Error and Exception handling, design patterns etc. This section is mostly for
experience Java developer, technical lead, AVP, team lead and coders who are responsible
for products. If you want to create quality products you must know and follow the best
practices.
76) What best practices you follow while writing multithreaded code in Java? (answer)
Here are couple of best practices which I follow while writing concurrent code in Java:
a) Always name your thread, this will help in debugging.
b) minimize the scope of synchronization, instead of making whole method synchronized, only
critical section should be synchronized.
c) prefer volatile over synchronized if you can can.
e) use higher level concurrency utilities instead of waitn() and notify for inter thread
communication e.g. BlockingQueue, CountDownLatch and Semeaphore.
e) Prefer concurrent collection over synchronized collection in Java. They provide better
scalability.

77) Tell me few best practices you apply while using Collections in Java? (answer)
Here are couple of best practices I follow while using Collectionc classes from Java:
a) Always use the right collection e.g. if you need nonsynchronized list then use ArrayList and
not Vector.
b) Prefer concurrent collection over synchronized collection because they are more scalable.
c) Always use interface to a represent and access a collection e.g. use List to store ArrayList,
Map to store HashMap and so on.
d) Use iterator to loop over collection.
e) Always use generics with collection.

78) Can you tell us at least 5 best practice you use while using threads in Java? (answer)
This is similar to the previous question and you can use the answer given there. Particularly
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with thread, you should:

a) name your thread
b) keep your task and thread separate, use Runnable or Callable with thread pool executor.
c) use thread pool
d) use volatile to indicate compiler about ordering, visibility, and atomicity.
e) avoid thread local variable because incorrect use of ThreadLocal class in Java can create a
memory leak.
Look there are many best practices and I give extra points to the developer which bring
something new, something even I don't know. I make sure to ask this question to Java
developers of 8 to 10 years of experience just to gauge his hands on experience and
knowledge.

79) Name 5 IO best practices? (answer)

IO is very important for performance of your Java application. Ideally you should avoid IO in
critical path of your application. Here are couple of Java IO best practices you can follow:
a) Use buffered IO classes instead of reading individual bytes and char.
b) Use classes from NIO and NIO2
c) Always close streams in finally block or use trywithresource statements.
d) use memory mapped file for faster IO.
If a Java candidate doesn't know about IO and NIO, especially if he has at least2 to 4 years of
experience, he needs some reading.

80) Name 5 JDBC best practices your follow? (answer)

Another good Java best practices for experienced Java developer of 7 to 8 years experience.
Why it's important? because they are the ones which set the trend in the code and educate
junior developers. There are many best practices and you can name as per your confort and
conviniece. Here are some of the more common ones:
a) use batch statement for inserting and updating data.
b) use PreparedStatement to avoid SQL exception and better performance.
c) use database connection pool
d) access resultset using column name instead of column indexes.
e) Don't generate dynamic SQL by concatenating String with user input.

81) Name couple of method overloading best practices in Java? (answer)

Here are some best practices you can follow while overloading a method in Java to avoid
confusion with autoboxing:
a) Don't overload method where one accepts int and other accepts Integer.
b) Don't overload method where number of argument is same and only order of argument is
different.
c) Use varargs after overloaded methods has more than 5 arguments.

Date, Time and Calendar Interview questions in Java

82) Does SimpleDateFormat is safe to use in the multithreaded program? (answer)
No, unfortunately, DateFormat and all its implementations including SimpleDateFormat is not
threadsafe, hence should not be used in the multithreaded program until external thread
safety measures are applied e.g. confining SimpleDateFormat object into a ThreadLocal
variable. If you don't do that, you will get an incorrect result while parsing or formatting
dates in Java. Though, for all practical date time purpose, I highly recommend jodatime
library.

83) How do you format a date in Java? e.g. in the ddMMyyyy format? (answer)
You can either use SimpleDateFormat class or jodatime library to format date in Java.
DateFormat class allows you to format date on many popular formats. Please see the answer
for code samples to format date into different formats e.g. ddMMyyyy or ddMMyyyy.

84) How do you show timezone in formatted date in Java? (answer)

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85) The difference between java.util.Date and java.sql.Date in Java? (answer)

86) How to you calculate the difference between two dates in Java? (program)
87) How do you convert a String(YYYYMMDD) to date in Java? (answer)

Unit testing JUnit Interview questions

89) How do you test static method? (answer)
You can use PowerMock library to test static methods in Java.
90) How to do you test a method for an exception using JUnit? (answer)
91) Which unit testing libraries you have used for testing Java programs? (answer)
92) What is the difference between @Before and @BeforeClass annotation? (answer)

Programming and Coding Questions

93) How to check if a String contains only numeric digits? (solution)
94) How to write LRU cache in Java using Generics? (answer)
95) Write a Java program to convert bytes to long? (answer)
96) How to reverse a String in Java without using StringBuffer? (solution)
97) How to find the word with the highest frequency from a file in Java? (solution)
98) How do you check if two given String are anagrams? (solution)
99) How to print all permutation of a String in Java? (solution)
100) How do you print duplicate elements from an array in Java? (solution)
101) How to convert String to int in Java? (solution)
102) How to swap two integers without using temp variable? (solution)

Java Interview questions from OOP and Design Patterns

It contains Java Interview questions from SOLID design principles, OOP fundamentals e.g.
class, object, interface, Inheritance, Polymorphism, Encapsulation, and Abstraction as well as
more advanced concepts like Composition, Aggregation, and Association. It also contains
questions from GOF design patterns.
103) What is the interface? Why you use it if you cannot write anything concrete on it?
The interface is used to define API. It tells about the contract your classes will follow. It also
supports abstraction because a client can use interface method to leverage multiple
implementations e.g. by using List interface you can take advantage of random access of
ArrayList as well as flexible insertion and deletion of LinkedList. The interface doesn't allow
you to write code to keep things abstract but from Java 8 you can declare static and default
methods inside interface which are concrete.

104) The difference between abstract class and interface in Java? (answer)
There are multiple differences between abstract class and interface in Java, but the most
important one is Java's restriction on allowing a class to extend just one class but allows it to
implement multiple interfaces. An abstract class is good to define default behavior for a
family of class, but the interface is good to define Type which is later used to leverage
Polymorphism. Please check the answer for a more thorough discussion of this question.
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105) Which design pattern have you used in your production code? apart from Singleton?
This is something you can answer from your experience. You can generally say about
dependency injection, factory pattern, decorator pattern or observer pattern, whichever you
have used. Though be prepared to answer followup question based upon the pattern you
choose.

106) Can you explain Liskov Substitution principle? (answer)

This is one of the toughest questions I have asked in Java interviews. Out of 50 candidates, I
have almost asked only 5 have managed to answer it. I am not posting an answer to this
question as I like you to do some research, practice and spend some time to understand this
confusing principle well.

107) What is Law of Demeter violation? Why it matters? (answer)

Believe it or not, Java is all about application programming and structuring code. If you have
good knowledge ofcommon coding best practices, patterns and what not to do than only you
can write quality code. Law of Demeter suggests you "talk to friends and not stranger", hence
used to reduce coupling between classes.

108) What is Adapter pattern? When to use it?

Another frequently asked Java design pattern questions. It provides interface conversion. If
your client is using some interface but you have something else, you can write an Adapter to
bridge them together. This is good for Java software engineer having 2 to 3 years experience
because the question is neither difficult nor tricky but requires knowledge of OOP design
patterns.

109) What is "dependency injection" and "inversion of control"? Why would someone use
it? (answer)
110) What is an abstract class? How is it different from an interface? Why would you use
it? (answer)
One more classic question from Programming Job interviews, it is as old as chuck Norris. An
abstract class is a class which can have state, code and implementation, but an interface is a
contract which is totally abstract. Since I have answered it many times, I am only giving you
the gist here but you should read the article linked to answer to learn this useful concept in
much more detail.

111) Which one is better constructor injection or setter dependency injection? (answer)
Each has their own advantage and disadvantage. Constructor injection guaranteed that class
will be initialized with all its dependency, but setter injection provides flexibility to set an
optional dependency. Setter injection is also more readable if you are using an XML file to
describe dependency. Rule of thumb is to use constructor injection for mandatory
dependency and use setter injection for optional dependency.

112) What is difference between dependency injection and factory design pattern?
(answer)
Though both patterns help to take out object creation part from application logic, use of
dependency injection results in cleaner code than factory pattern. By using dependency
injection, your classes are nothing but POJO which only knows about dependency but doesn't
care how they are acquired. In the case of factory pattern, the class also needs to know about
factory to acquire dependency. hence, DI results in more testable classes than factory
pattern. Please see the answer for a more detailed discussion on this topic.

113) Difference between Adapter and Decorator pattern? (answer)

Though the structure of Adapter and Decorator pattern is similar, the difference comes on the
intent of each pattern. The adapter pattern is used to bridge the gap between two interfaces,
but Decorator pattern is used to add new functionality into the class without the modifying
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existing code.

114) Difference between Adapter and Proxy Pattern? (answer)

Similar to the previous question, the difference between Adapter and Proxy patterns is in
their intent. Since both Adapter and Proxy pattern encapsulate the class which actually does
the job, hence result in the same structure, but Adapter pattern is used for interface
conversion while the Proxy pattern is used to add an extra level of indirection to support
distribute, controlled or intelligent access.

115) What is Template method pattern? (answer)

Template pattern provides an outline of an algorithm and lets you configure or customize its
steps. For examples, you can view a sorting algorithm as a template to sort object. It defines
steps for sorting but let you configure how to compare them using Comparable or something
similar in another language. The method which outlines the algorithms is also known as
template method.

116) When do you use Visitor design pattern? (answer)

The visitor pattern is a solution of problem where you need to add operation on a class
hierarchy but without touching them. This pattern uses double dispatch to add another level
of indirection.

117) When do you use Composite design pattern? (answer)

Composite design pattern arranges objects into tree structures to represent partwhole
hierarchies. It allows clients treat individual objects and container of objects uniformly. Use
Composite pattern when you want to represent partwhole hierarchies of objects.

118) The difference between Inheritance and Composition? (answer)

Though both allows code reuse, Composition is more flexible than Inheritance because it
allows you to switch to another implementation at runtime. Code written using Composition
is also easier to test than code involving inheritance hierarchies.

119) Describe overloading and overriding in Java? (answer)

Both overloading and overriding allow you to write two methods of different functionality but
with the same name, but overloading is compile time activity while overriding is runtime
activity. Though you can overload a method in the same class, but you can only override a
method in child classes. Inheritance is necessary for overriding.

120) The difference between nested public static class and a top level class in Java?
(answer)
You can have more than one nested public static class inside one class, but you can only have
one toplevel public class in a Java source file and its name must be same as the name of
Java source file.

121) Difference between Composition, Aggregation and Association in OOP? (answer)

If two objects are related to each other, they are said to be associated with each other.
Composition and Aggregation are two forms of association in objectoriented programming.
The composition is stronger association than Aggregation. In Composition, one object is
OWNER of another object while in Aggregation one object is just USER of another object. If an
object A is composed of object B then B doesn't exist if A ceased to exists, but if object A is
just an aggregation of object B then B can exists even if A ceased to exist.

122) Give me an example of design pattern which is based upon open closed principle?
(answer)
This is one of the practical questions I ask experienced Java programmer. I expect them to
know about OOP design principles as well as patterns. Open closed design principle asserts
that your code should be open for extension but closed for modification. Which means if you
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want to add new functionality, you can add it easily using the new code but without touching
already tried and tested code. There are several design patterns which are based upon open
closed design principle e.g. Strategy pattern if you need a new strategy, just implement the
interface and configure, no need to modify core logic. One working example
isCollections.sort()method which is based on Strategy pattern and follows the open
closed principle, you don't modify sort() method to sort a new object, what you do is just
implement Comparator in your own way.

123) Difference between Abstract factory and Prototype design pattern? (answer)
This is the practice question for you, If you are feeling bored just reading and itching to write
something, why not write the answer to this question. I would love to see an example the,
which should answer where you should use the Abstract factory pattern and where is the
Prototype pattern is more suitable.

124) When do you use Flyweight pattern? (answer)

This is another popular question from the design pattern. Many Java developers with 4 to 6
years of experience know the definition but failed to give any concrete example. Since many
of you might not have used this pattern, it's better to look examples from JDK. You are more
likely have used them before and they are easy to remember as well. Now let's see the
answer.
Flyweight pattern allows you to share object to support large numbers without actually
creating too many objects. In order touse Flyweight pattern, you need to make your object
Immutable so that they can be safely shared. String pool and pool of Integer and Long object
in JDK are good examples of Flyweight pattern.

Miscellaneous Java Interview Questions

It contains XML Processing in Java Interview question, JDBC Interview question, Regular
expressions Interview questions, Java Error and Exception Interview Questions, Serialization,
125) The difference between nested static class and top level class? (answer)
One of the fundamental questions from Java basics. I ask this question only to junior Java
developers of 1 to 2 years of experience as it's too easy for an experience Java programmers.
The answer is simple, a public top level class must have the same name as the name of the
source file, there is no such requirement for nested static class. A nested class is always
inside a top level class and you need to use the name of the toplevel class to refer nested
static class e.g. HashMap.Entry is a nested static class, where HashMap is a top level class and
Entryis nested static class.

126) Can you write a regular expression to check if String is a number? (solution)
If you are taking Java interviews then you should ask at least one question on the regular
expression. This clearly differentiates an average programmer with a good programmer. Since
one of the traits of a good developer is to know tools, regex is the best tool for searching
something in the log file, preparing reports etc. Anyway, answer to this question is, a numeric
String can only contain digits i.e. 0 to 9 and+ and sign that too at start of the String, by
using this information you can write following regular expression to check if given String is
number or not

127) The difference between checked and unchecked Exception in Java? (answer)
checked exception is checked by the compiler at compile time. It's mandatory for a method to
either handle the checked exception or declare them in their throws clause. These are the
ones which are a sub class of Exception but doesn't descend from RuntimeException. The
unchecked exception is the descendant of RuntimeException and not checked by the compiler
at compile time. This question is now becoming less popular and you would only find this with
interviews with small companies, both investment banks and startups are moved on from this
question.

128) The difference between throw and throws in Java? (answer)

the throw is used to actually throw an instance of java.lang.Throwable class, which
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means you can throw both Error and Exception using throw keyword e.g.

thrownewIllegalArgumentException("sizemustbemultipleof2")

On the other hand, throws is used as part of method declaration and signals which kind of
exceptions are thrown by this method so that its caller can handle them. It's mandatory to
declare any unhandled checked exception in throws clause in Java. Like the previous
question, this is another frequently asked Java interview question from errors and exception
topic but too easy to answer.

129) The difference between Serializable and Externalizable in Java? (answer)

This is one of the frequently asked questions from Java Serialization. The interviewer has
been asking this question since the day Serialization was introduced in Java, but yet only a
few good candidate can answer this question with some confidence and practical knowledge.
Serializable interface is used to make Java classes serializable so that they can be transferred
over network or their state can be saved on disk, but it leverages default serialization builtin
JVM, which is expensive, fragile and not secure. Externalizable allows you to fully control the
Serialization process, specify a custom binary format and add more security measure.

130) The difference between DOM and SAX parser in Java? (answer)
Another common Java question but from XML parsing topic. It's rather simple to answer and
that's why many interviewers prefers to ask this question on the telephonic round. DOM parser
loads the whole XML into memory to create a tree based DOM model which helps it quickly
locate nodes and make a change in the structure of XML while SAX parser is an event based
parser and doesn't load the whole XML into memory. Due to this reason DOM is faster than SAX
but require more memory and not suitable to parse large XML files.

131) Tell me 3 features introduced on JDK 1.7? (answer)

This is one of the good questions I ask to check whether the candidate is aware of recent
development in Java technology space or not. Even though JDK 7 was not a big bang release
like JDK 5 or JDK 8, it still has a lot of good feature to count on e.g. trywithresource
statements, which free you from closing streams and resources when you are done with that,
Java automatically closes that. ForkJoin pool to implement something like the Mapreduce
pattern in Java. Allowing String variable and literal into switch statements. Diamond operator
for improved type inference, no need to declare generic type on the righthand side of
variable declaration anymore, results in more readable and succinct code. Another worth
noting feature introduced was improved exception handling e.g. allowing you to catch
multiple exceptions in the same catch block.

132) Tell me 5 features introduced in JDK 1.8? (answer)

This is the followup question of the previous one. Java 8 is path breaking release in Java's
history, here are the top 5 features from JDK 8 release
Lambda expression, which allows you pass an anonymous function as object.
Stream API, take advantage of multiple cores of modern CPU and allows you to write
succinct code.
Date and Time API, finally you have a solid and easy to use date and time library right
into JDK
Extension methods, now you can have static and default method into your interface
Repeated annotation, allows you apply the same annotation multiple times on a type

133) What is the difference between Maven and ANT in Java? (answer)
Another great question to check the all round knowledge of Java developers. It's easy to
answer questions from core Java but when you ask about setting things up, building Java
artifacts, many Java software engineer struggles. Coming back to the answer of this question,
Though both are build tool and used to create Java application build, Maven is much more
than that. It provides standard structure for Java project based upon "convention over
configuration" concept and automatically manage dependencies (JAR files on which your
application is dependent) for Java application. Please see the answer for more differences
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between Maven and ANT tool.

That's all guys, lots of Java Interview questions? isn't it? I am sure if you can answer this list
of Java questions you can easily crack any core Java or advanced Java interview. Though I
have not included questions from Java EE or J2EE topics e.g. Servlet, JSP, JSF, JPA, JMS, EJB
or any other Java EE technology or from major web frameworks like Spring MVC, Struts 2.0,
Hibernate or both SOAP and RESTful web services, it's still useful for Java developers
preparing for Java web developer position, because every Java interview starts with questions
from fundamentals and JDK API. If you think, I have missed any popular Java question here
and you think it should be in this list then feel free to suggest me. My goal is to create the
best list of Java Interview Questions with latest and greatest question from recent interviews.

Related Java EE Interview Questions

For my Java EE friends, here are web development specific questions, which you can use to
prepare for JEE part:
Top 10 Spring Framework Interview Questions with Answers (see here)
10 Great XML Interview Questions for Java Programmers (read here)
20 Great Java Design Pattern Questions asked on Interviews (see here)
10 popular Struts Interview Questions for Java developers (list)
20 Tibco Rendezvous and EMS Interview Questions (read more)
10 frequently asked Servlet Interview Questions with Answers (see here)
20 jQuery Interview Questions for Java Web Developers (list)
10 Great Oracle Interview Questions for Java developers (see here)
Top 10 JSP Questions from J2EE Interviews (read here)
12 Good RESTful Web Services Questions from Interviews (read here)
Top 10 EJB Interview Questions and Answers (see here)
Top 10 JMS and MQ Series Interview Questions and Answers (list)
10 Great Hibernate Interview Questions for Java EE developers (see here)
10 Great JDBC Interview Questions for Java Programmers (questions)
15 Java NIO and Networking Interview Questions with Answers (see here)
Top 10 XSLT Interview Questions with Answers (read more)
15 Data Structure and Algorithm Questions from Java Interviews (read here)
Top 10 Trick Java Interview Questions and Answers (see here)
Top 40 Core Java Phone Interview Questions with answers (list)

Recommended Books for Java Programmers

If you are looking for some goods to prepare for your Java Interviews, You can take a look at
following books to cover both theory and coding questions:
9
5
5
5
5
5

Must Read Books for Java Developers (see book)

Java Performance Tuning Books for Experienced Programmers (see book)
Good Books for Java JEE Interviews (see book)
Books to learn Data Structure and Algorithms (see book)
Hibernate Books for Java Developers (see book)
Spring Books for Java Developers (see book)

References
The Java Virtual Machine Spefication (see here)
The Java language Specification (Java SE 8) (see here)
Java SE 8 API Specification (see here)

Posted by Javin Paul

+254 Recommend this on Google

Labels: core java interview question , java interview questions

24 comments :
Vijay Tidake said...
Hurrah... That what exactly I was waiting for..Good work Javin..Best Luck and Keep it up.
October 19, 2015 at 8:34 AM
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Tim Boudreau said...

The answers to a few of these are not very good. Particularly 89 you do not need any mocking library to test a
static method just write a test for it.
October 20, 2015 at 8:34 PM
Ravi Prakash said...
Thank a lot for this really commendable work.:)
October 21, 2015 at 12:26 AM
Karo said...
Hi, why 0.1 == 0.1 (Q26) will return false? Simple usage will always return true.
October 21, 2015 at 12:45 AM
Javin Paul said...
@karo, you are correct, actually the question was about 3*0.1 == 0.3, which returns false, due to 3*0.1 being
0.30000000000000004
October 21, 2015 at 8:15 AM
Unknown said...
can we have option to download as pdf?
October 21, 2015 at 9:27 AM
Javin Paul said...
@Unknown, not yet, but I'll surely add the PDF version which you can download for offline reading.
October 22, 2015 at 5:27 AM
Shailesh Chaskar said...
Commendable job, thanks Javin
October 31, 2015 at 4:37 AM
subuhi said...
1) Why one has to use volatile var in multithreaded environment .
Can't same task be achieved by using static var ?
because in static var all threads would see the latest written value of that var .
and static var would be one per class and hence one instance of that var will be shared among threads .

2) Why ThreadLocal was introduced in java , when the motive is to provide each thread its own local copy , can't
normal instance variables do the same by default ?
October 31, 2015 at 10:12 AM
Anonymous said...
Not many questions from NIO or Exception handling and data structures. I would love to ask how a Java developer
will use fundamental data structure e.g. array, linked list, tree, stack and queues, their time and space complexity
and when to use one over other.
December 2, 2015 at 11:43 PM
Anonymous said...
Thank you so much, it's the best list of java interview questions I have ever seen.
December 20, 2015 at 10:42 PM
Anonymous said...
big list, almost cover all topics required for Java interviews. Good Job Javin, keep it up, you are inspiration for
many Java developers.
December 27, 2015 at 9:31 PM
Anonymous said...
massive list, can you also post PDF copy for downloading and offline reading?
January 5, 2016 at 6:44 PM
himanshu saini said...
thanks a ton.
can you also post PDF copy for downloading and offline reading?
January 25, 2016 at 8:00 AM
ashish narote said...
Thank You
February 16, 2016 at 11:11 PM
Anonymous said...
Why should someone remember the syntax and code for formatting date or time zone in an interview? Arent these
kind of questions pointless??
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May 24, 2016 at 9:54 AM

Javin Paul said...
@Anonymous, it's not about remember syntax and cod, but its about experience. It's perfectly ok to check if
candidate has ever used Date, Time and TimeZone features in Java or not. Given they are very important concept,
you surely don't want to overlook them.
May 28, 2016 at 5:31 AM
TEJPAL BORKAR said...
Nice set of questions. Surely it will help for fresher's as well as experienced candidates. Dear author please keep it
up. Thanks.
June 9, 2016 at 6:51 PM
Javin Paul said...
@Tejpal, thank you very much.
June 10, 2016 at 4:59 AM
Prakash Thorat said...
hi javin good job... very nice collection
June 13, 2016 at 2:54 AM
Javin Paul said...
Thanks @Prakash, if you like please share with your friends and colleagues, it does make a difference.
June 13, 2016 at 4:51 AM
jitender kumar said...
ur work is really commendable..sure will share it..
August 24, 2016 at 10:54 AM
jitender kumar said...
very good
August 24, 2016 at 10:55 AM
Anjali Chaudhary said...
Really good job perfect questions for core JAVA.
September 2, 2016 at 12:40 PM

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