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Java

Posted by George Raist
George Raist
2,478 Points

Help with Interview Code I had

Hey guys, I attended a Java Interview yesterday and they gave me a test. One of the questions asked me to implement a Java method that takes two int[] arrays and returns only the unique numbers. I failed this question, because I couldnt think of anything in the exact moment. Now when I am home I came with a solution that I cannot really finish.

My code is below:

public class Main {

public static void arraySort(int[] arrayOne, int[] arrayTwo) {

    Set<int[]> set = new HashSet<int[]>();
    set.add(arrayOne);
    set.add(arrayTwo);

    // how do I print the Set here?
}

public static void main(String[] args) {

    int[] arrayOne = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9};
    int[] arrayTwo = {1, 2, 10, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11};

    arraySort(arrayOne, arrayTwo);


}

I have tried a lot of implementations, but everything returned [[I@6d6f6e28, [I@7f31245a] - the object reference.

Can anyone help me here?

I am kinda stuck, cannot find an answer on StackOverflow as well...

2 Answers

Deividas Strioga
Deividas Strioga
12,851 Points
Deividas Strioga
Deividas Strioga
12,851 Points

You cannot add arrays to sets this way. I tried this code with for each loop, it worked:

package sample;

import java.util.HashSet;
import java.util.Set;

public class Test {

    public static void arraySort(int[] arrayOne, int[] arrayTwo) {
        Set<Integer> set = new HashSet<>();
        for (int i : arrayOne){
            set.add(i);
        }
        for (int i : arrayTwo){
            set.add(i);
        }
        System.out.println(set);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int[] arrayOne = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9};
        int[] arrayTwo = {1, 2, 10, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11};
        arraySort(arrayOne, arrayTwo);
    }
}

And it prints [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11].

How much time did you have for this task?

George Raist
George Raist
2,478 Points
George Raist
George Raist
2,478 Points

Thanks! I see where I was wrong. I had 7 minutes to complete this exercise, before their system flipped my page. Never occurred to me that I have to loop over the 2 arrays before I add them into the Set...