Category: General Development

Determine If A Number Is Prime Using JavaScript

April 11, 2015 Nic Raboy

Continuing on the topic of interview questions for programming and software engineering type positions, I thought I’d brush up on a popular one.

Although I have never personally been asked about this, other people have told me that they’ve been asked to determine if a number is prime or to print out all prime numbers up to a certain number.

Parse An XML Response With Java And Dom4J

April 5, 2015 Nic Raboy

Previously we’ve explored how to parse XML data using Node.js as well as PHP. Continuing on the trend of parsing data using various programming languages, this time we’re going to take a look at parsing XML data using the dom4j library with Java.

Now dom4j, is not the only way to parse XML data in Java. There are many other ways including using the SAX parser. Everyone will have their own opinions on which of the many to use.

Evaluate A Reverse Polish Notation Equation With JavaScript

April 1, 2015 Nic Raboy

Previously, I demonstrated how to convert an Infix Notation expression into Reverse Polish Notation using JavaScript, but I never explained how to evaluate the expression.

Reverse Polish Notation via Wikipedia:

A mathematical notation in which every operator follows all of its operands, in contrast to Polish notation, which puts the operator in the prefix position. It is also known as postfix notation and is parenthesis-free as long as operator arities are fixed.

In this phase two article, we’re going to look at how to solve a mathematical expression that has been parsed into Reverse Polish Notation (RPN).

Parse With The Shunting Yard Algorithm Using JavaScript

March 16, 2015 Nic Raboy

Anyone who knows how to program can probably solve a mathematical equation such as 5 + 3 * 6 - ( 5 / 3 ) + 7, but how might you get a computer to understand the appropriate order of operations? The equation I listed is in a format known as Infix Notation.

Infix Notation via Wikipedia:

Infix notation is the notation commonly used in arithmetical and logical formulae and statements. It is characterized by the placement of operators between operands.

This format is not the most ideal to work with when attempting to solve.

Instead it is more appropriate to use format such as 5 3 6 * + 5 3 / - 7 + which is more commonly known as Postfix Notation or Reverse Polish Notation (RPN). This conversion can be accomplished by what is known as the Shunting Yard algorithm.

Create A Random Nonce String Using JavaScript

March 10, 2015 Nic Raboy

Have you ever needed to come up with a random string of characters say for a password? Maybe you’re looking for a random string of characters for an oauth 1.0 nonce. Maybe you’re in a job interview and you’re asked to generate a random alpha numeric string.

Whatever the case, we’re going to look at generating a random string of characters of any given length using JavaScript.

Parse A JSON File With Java

March 7, 2015 Nic Raboy

Recently I was tasked with reading a JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) file using Java. In my project, the JSON file contained properties information to be used inside the application.

There are many libraries available for reading or parsing JSON data in Java, but in particular we are going to be using the library found on json.org.

Check And Update Outdated NPM Packages

March 4, 2015 Nic Raboy

The Node Package Manager (NPM), is becoming a major go-to resource for all development software and libraries. It is easy to use and covers a lot of ground.

If you’re anything like me you’re going to have more than twenty global packages installed on your machine through NPM, but how do you go about tracking whether or not any of them have become outdated?