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Interview question #1

Since I have been asked to interview experienced PHP programmers, I was preparing few interview questions. I came to know, most of the people ask questions found in the Internet; most of them are like "What is the function used to connect MySQL DB in PHP". Personally, I don't like these types of questions; I'd thought the person must apply ideas what he was taught in colleges--finally I came out with one question:

A product vendor has Quantity Vs. Price data like
1 -> Rs. 50
2 -> Rs. 95
3 -> Rs. 140
.... like upto 1 million data. He wants a system, which gives the price when the quantity is provided. For example, if you provide the quantity value as 2, then it should provide Rs. 95. How this system can be designed?

As expected, all the people said about using database tables and quering on quantity. I have asked them to find out a system which doesn't use databases--provided the accuracy of the system may not be 100%--it may give at least 90% accuracy. To my surprise, none of the people I have interviewed yet didn't provide any solutions.

I must find out few other questions especially for a post of "Web Application Developer".

Comments

Anonymous said…
amount = (45 * quantity ) + 5
Jan 11, 2005, 7:20:00 AM
R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah said…
For comment#1:Good, if the data are just 3. What if you have about 1 million data? What is the procedure?
Jan 14, 2005, 4:21:00 PM
Anonymous said…
use Chi Square
Jan 18, 2005, 8:56:00 AM
R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah said…
For comment#3:You've exceeded my expectation:-) I'd rather expect even a simple keyword. May I know your name?
Jan 23, 2005, 11:53:00 PM
Anonymous said…
Is it possible to use an associative array(performance?)? - like

$product[$price] = $quantity;
Aug 17, 2005, 10:46:00 AM
Online Pharmacy said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Dec 4, 2009, 5:38:00 PM
Sindhuja said…
$amount = (45 * ($quantity -1)) + 50
Sep 29, 2010, 1:45:00 PM
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