iOS/ObjC Interview Questions

General programming questions

• OOP basics: what is a class, interface, instance variable, methods, static (class) methods vs instance methods. Header vs implementation files
• What is a process, thread
• design patterns and principles
• blackbox vs whitebox testing differences? unit testing? integration testing? regression testing?
• what is continuous integration?
• difference between stack/heap

General ObjC

[expand title=”What do you need to be able to develop for iOS” tag=”div”] MAC OS X, XCode, Developer Profile …[/expand]
[expand title=”Define basic OOP concepts and the keywords in ObjC” tag=”div”] interface, implementation, inheritance, property, protocol, etc… [/expand]
[expand title=”Application lifecycle; What kind of states an application can have? Which general methods are called?” tag=”div”] States: not running, inactive, active, background or suspended. There are methods and notifications to handle the transitions.

• application:willFinishLaunchingWithOptions:
• application:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions>:
• applicationDidBecomeActive:
• applicationWillResignActive:
• applicationDidEnterBackground:
• applicationWillEnterForeground:
• applicationWillTerminate:
• applicationDidFinishLaunching:

[/expand]
[expand title=”What is a property? How can you create one? What is the benefits to use properties?” tag=”div”] @property, (auto)synthesize; getter/setter method (also send KVO notifications). Hides the iVars (safety and flexibility) [/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”method visibility”] private/public – no protected. anyone can call a private [/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What is a protocol? Protocol declaration and implementation, optional declaration”] [/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”How to check an optional protocol method existence on an object? “] [/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”+ and – methods”] class vs instance methods [/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What about multiple class inheritance”] technically none … [/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”How to add a method to a class (extend) without the source of the class and without recompiling the class”] Categories [/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”what are categories?”] [/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Difference between extensions () and (named) categories?”] [/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Benefits of extension category?”] private property declaration, compile time method check. [/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Can you re-declare a property in subclass or extension?”] YES. If you declare a property in one class as readonly, you can redeclare it as readwrite in a class extension, in a protocol, or in a subclass. [/expand]
[expand title=”Limitations of- and problems with categories?”] Cannot override an existing method and call it in the extension method [/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What are formal and informal protocols?”] Formal are the real protocols, informal are categories on NSObject (with optional methods) [/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”How to declare protected-like methods (accessible only for some dedicated classes)?”] Separate header file with (named) category, and include it in other class [/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What is a designated initializer, what is the pattern for the initializers and why ( if (self = %{%super …%}% ) )”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Property modifiers and the meaning”]nonatomic/atomic, assign/retain/copy/readonly vs strong/weak/unsafe_unretained, getter=, setter=[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”How can one object inform an other that something happened?”]only one (subscribing): target-action, delegate, block. Unlimited: notification[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What is a delegate, how to create one, and use one”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div”  title=”When to create a delegate”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Delegate rule: how to handle ownership and why”]never retain! circular reference problem[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Delegate vs target/action vs block vs NSNotification”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Problem with blocks usage”] recursive calls (on fail restart the method which expects the same block) problematic and only one ‘method’ can be called – delegate can have more methods. Solution to recursive calls: put the method to a __block local variable, so it can call/reference itself[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What is a selector? How to call a selector?”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What is the difference between the dot notation and using the square brackets”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What is KVO – where/how/why to use – how does it work – how to implement properly a KVO compliant property”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What is KVC – where/how/why to use”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What is fast enumeration”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”check a class is compatible with a baseclass and a given class”]isKindOfClass, isMemberOfClass, isSubclassOfClass[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”root classes?”]NSObject, NSProxy, id [/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”id type”]can be any object, but no native/primitive type[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”how to make an object from a native/primitive type (boxing)?”]NSNumber, NSValue[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”How methods are called? When the exact pointer is turns out”]message sending, runtime[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What is Notifications, NSNotificationCenter, local notification, push notification in general?”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What’s necessary for the localization”] Localization strings files, NSLocalizedString[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”How can you support a language which is not supported by the OS?”]put to strings file and load from the specified table (NSBundle localizedStringForKey:value:table:)[/expand]
[expand tag=”div”title=”Accessibility basics?”] AccessibilityLabel, accessibilityValue etc[/expand]
[expand tag=”div”title=”What is very important with long operations for example downloading something”] Background thread not to block UI. Use queues instead of threads[/expand]

Memory management

[expand tag=”div” title=”basic memory management topics: ownership”]retain/release/autorelease, ARC vs MRC[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”what is retainCount, when to use”]reference count to the object. never use (helps for debug)- cannot access in ARC[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”autorelease pool usage”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”what is a memory warning, how do we respond to it”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”ARC vs MRC”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Can you use a library in ARC which were written using MRC?”]yes[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”ARC bridging?”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Reflection? Introspection? is there anything in objc and cocoa?”]YES. Advanced: objc_* class_*, object_* methods[/expand]

Threading

[expand tag=”div” title=”Threading possibilities – starting background tasks: nsthread vs nsoperationqueue vs GCD queues vs performselectorafterdelay”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What is a deadlock, how can it happen?”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”How to make a code snippet thread safe?”]@synchronized[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”How can you synchronize threads (and with timeout)?”] @synchronized, NSCondition[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”When and why to create thread (with one of the thread technics)?”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”When to start a real NSThread?”]Very rare – use alternate instead[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What is the first thing to do on a thread and why?”]Create autorelease pool[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What is GCD? Benefits, general behavior?”]OS handles threads – very optimal[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”When to use dispatch queues”]As often as possible when a thread necessary[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Main dispatch queue types: main, background, serial – when to use which and why”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Benefit of NSOperationQueues”] priorities, cancellations: but you have to implement cancellation, you can implement the same with the other solutions as well…[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What is a runloop, where it is very commonly used”]Timers, NSUrlConnection[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What happens when you create a block?”]created on the stack, copy moves to the heap. copies the context’s variables[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Can you modify a variable out of the scope of a block?”]YES, __block variables[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”difference between dispatch_sync and dispatch_async”][/expand]

Networking

[expand tag=”div” title=”When to use NSUrlRequest download methods and when to use delegate implementation?”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What you should listen when download something from the internet”]NSURLConnection, NSRequest. Download in background. You should present in the UI: activity indicator in status bar or in separate view[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What is the difference between synchronous and asynchronous requests”][/expand]

UIKit

[expand tag=”div” title=”Base classes and general description”]UIResponder, UIView, UIControl[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”How the event handling happens?”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Difference between UIWindow and UIView”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Can we have more UIWindows in iOS?”]Yes, but rare – UIAlertView is a separate window[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Difference between bounds, frame of a view”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What’s very important designing UIs (views)?”]different resolutions, horizontal-vertical orientation, iOS7 sucks[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Difference between points and pixels”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What is the responder chain?”]becomeFirstResponder ??? routing of touch messages – hittest, views passes to viewcontrollers then window ???[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What is IBOutlet and IBAction? How do you use them?”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Basic tableview how to: datasource and delegate implementation”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Drawbacks of UITableViews”]only vertical… ???[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Collection views”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Benefits of collections views”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What is very important updating the UI in a multithreaded application? How can you do that?”]update only on main thread/ main queue[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”what to do when the keyboard appears and hides some parts of the UI that are important – logic implementation”]scrollview and keyboard notification handling[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Why should we release the outlets in viewDidUnload in MRC? What about ARC?”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Difference in Xib/storyboard vs nib?”]xib and storyboard are xml but nib is binary – resource compiling”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Animations?”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”view transitions?”]push, modal, custom, (embed? in segue)[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”how can we present new view controllers?”]modal vs push[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”tabbar vs toolbar vs navigationbar: when to use which, can you combine them?”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div”  title=”UI customization (possible ways to set color etc)”]use public properties, use appearance[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”UIAppearance basics, difference between setting through appearance proxy and instance”]

• appearance proxy: modifying a property on the proxy object=all instances gets the value;
• modifying a property on an instance: just the instance gets modified; now can change more than previously. UI_APPEARANCE_SELECTOR marks these properties.

For example, to modify the bar tint color for all UINavigationBar instances: [[UINavigationBar appearance] setBarTintColor:myColor] VS &#91(UINavigationBar *)aUINavigationBar setBarTintColor:myColor]
[/expand]

CoreData

[expand tag=”div” title=”what is CoreData and what do we use it for”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”is CoreData == sqlite or some wrapper?”]on iOS it supports binary database, SQLite, in memory – on MAC it supports xml as well[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”what types of stores does core data support”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What is the minimum necessary classes and relationship between them?”]NSPersistentStore, NSPersitentStoreCoordinator, NSManagedObjectModel, NSManagedObjectContext[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Can the NSPersistentStoreCoordinator have more persistent stores?”]YES – but cannot handle if the same class is in different stores – can handle if separate or related classes are in different stores[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What is a managed object context”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What about multi-threading and core data usage”]contexts aren’t thread safe ??? after iOS5?[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What is an NSManagedObjectId”]unique id, shareable; we can save it for later if the application was stopped[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What is lazy loading, how does this relate to core data, situations when this can be handy”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”How to read only a few attributes of an entity”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What is a fetchedresultcontroller”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”How to synchronize contexts”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”How could one simulate an NSManagedObject (dynamic properties)”][/expand]

Tricky questions

[expand tag=”div” title=”What is an actual class in ObjectiveC”] struct … [/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What is the isa member”]…[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”How to make a static library optional?”]runtime class and method checks – NSClassFromString, respondsToSelector etc[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”How to correctly implement a retaining setter property”]retain the parameter before release the old saved value[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”How to declare the properties to work the same in MRC and ARC?”] strong=retain, unsafe_unreatained=assign etc ???[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What happens if you add your just created object to a mutable array, and you release your object”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What happens with the objects if the array is released”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What happens if you remove the object from the array/dict, and you try to use it”]Crash. you should get it first, retain, than remove from the array/dict[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Garbage collection on iPhone”] – none, similar: ARC, (autoreleasepool)[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”The circular reference problem with delegates”]delegates being usually saved with assign rather then retain. Exception: NSURLConnection[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What happens when we invoke a method on a nil pointer?”]Nothing. Well known solution in ObjC[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What happens when we call a method on an object which doesn’t exists?”]Crash[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Does KVO works with iVars?”] NO. Why? observation messages is sent by the properties[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Does KVC works with iVars?”] YES. why?[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”When it is mandatory to synthesize properties”]if declared in protocols[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What to do in a situation when a class not necessarily implement a method from a protocol”]This could happen when the method is optional, check with respondsToSelector[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Difference between nil and Nil and NULL???”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”How does proxy-ing work ???”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”How to call a method on an ‘unknown’ typed object?”]performSelector vs objc_msgSend vs etc…???[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”How to call a selector with more than 2 parameters?”] NSInvocation, or declare block instead if possible, or objc_msgSend, or simply use object as ‘id’ and call the selector as simple method (creates warnings)[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”How to cancel a block?”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”How NSOperation cancellation works?”]you have to implement in your code by listening the cancelled flag[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Can we/should we invoke (public) instance methods in an initializer and the dealloc? what about properties?”]subclass can override (don’t know what will happen, properties fires KVC notifications=don’t know what happens when one listens)[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”NSCoding, NSKeyedArchiving”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”Can we use our own objects as key in a dictionary?”] No. What to do to solve the problem – implement NSCopying[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”The difference between a shallow and a deep copy”][/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”What can’t we put into an array or dictionary?”]nil, objects not implementing NSCopying[/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”How can we put nil it into dictionary/array?”] NSNull [/expand]
[expand tag=”div” title=”How to get the current language of the device?”][NSLocale currentLocale] wrong it gives the Region!!!: use [NSLocale preferredLanguages][0];[/expand]