Code Reading Interview Questions

Idea from this blog:

I've experimented with many types of interviews, but one thing I really dig lately is code reading. I print out 10-15 code snippets (not just code, but also UNIX commands, regular expressions, SQL queries and many other things). I then go through and ask: what does this snippet do, how does it work, are there any bugs, etc.? Reading code (as opposed to writing) means I can cover a lot of ground extremely quickly, spending no more than a minute or two on each problem.

Snippets

1.  go build -ldflags "-X main.BuildSha=$CIRCLE_SHA1 -X main.BuildNum=$CIRCLE_BUILD_NUM" -o $BR/apiserver

2.  func producer(chnl chan int) {  
        for i := 0; i < 10; i++ {
            chnl <- i
        }
        close(chnl)
    }
    func main() {  
        ch := make(chan int)
        go producer(ch)
        for v := range ch {
            fmt.Println("Received ",v)
        }
    }

3.  resource "github_branch_protection" "kiddom-classroom3" {
      repository_id    = github_repository.kiddom_web.node_id
      pattern          = "feature.classroom3"
      enforce_admins   = true
      allows_deletions = false
   
      required_status_checks {
        strict = true
      }
   
      required_pull_request_reviews {
        required_approving_review_count = 1
      }
    }

4.  {
      "compilerOptions": {
        "target": "ES5",
        "module": "ES2015",
        "allowJs": true,
        "jsx": "react",
        "sourceMap": true,
        "strict": true,
        "resolveJsonModule": true,
        "moduleResolution": "node",
        "allowSyntheticDefaultImports": true,
        "esModuleInterop": true,
        "experimentalDecorators": true,
        "emitDecoratorMetadata": true,
        "skipLibCheck": true,
        "forceConsistentCasingInFileNames": true
      },
      "exclude": [
        "node_modules",
        "./node_modules/**/*.stories.tsx"
      ],
      "include": [
        "**/*",
        "node_modules/@kiddom/ui/core/**/*",
        "node_modules/academy/src/**/*"
      ]
    }

5.  FROM  cimg/go:1.17
    LABEL maintainer="Kiddom Engineering <[email protected]>"
    LABEL version="0.2"
   
    RUN sudo apt-get update && \
      sudo apt-get install -y \
      openjdk-11-jre-headless \
      python3 python3-cxx-dev python3-pip \
      ruby
   
    RUN sudo apt-get install -y default-mysql-client
    RUN sudo gem install parallel
   
    # installing cqlsh
    RUN sudo -H pip install cqlsh

6.  /*
    query_id=aab32992-869d-4440-9f44-ef69cab9524e
    source=example/customer.php
    */
    (SELECT cust_id, surname, firstname 
   
      FROM customer ORDER BY cust_id LIMIT 3)
   
    UNION
   
    (SELECT cust_id, surname, firstname 
   
      FROM customer ORDER BY cust_id DESC LIMIT 3);

7.  curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
      -H "X-Auth-Email: $CLOUDFLARE_EMAIL" \
      -H "X-Auth-Key: $CLOUDFLARE_API_KEY" \
      -X POST "$CLOUDFLARE_API_ENDPOINT/$CLOUDFLARE_ZONE_ID/purge_cache" \
      --data '{"purge_everything": true}'