a = a ^ b;
       b = a ^ b;
       a = a ^ b;

This simple trick can also be used to reverse string inplace. The only trick is to swap the ascii values of the string. The following is a Java snippet that does the same for you.

//Swapping a string inplace
   public static String reverse(String input)
   {
	char[] inputChars = input.toCharArray();
	int len = input.length();
	for(int i = 0; i < len/2 ; i++)
	{
	    inputChars[i] = (char)((int)inputChars[i] ^
                                         (int)inputChars[len - i - 1]);
	    inputChars[len - i - 1] = (char)((int)inputChars[i] ^
                                         (int)inputChars[len - i - 1]);
	    inputChars[i] = (char)((int)inputChars[i] ^
                                          (int)inputChars[len - i - 1]);
	}
	return new String(inputChars);
  }

There is also another trick that can be used. Its as follows:

           a = a + b;
           b = a - b;
           a = a - b;

There is a reason as to why this can fail. Consider when you are adding two very large integers and the result goes beyond the integer range. This will cause problems as the out of range number just would overflow to become a negative number.

Hence, using the xor trick is fast and safe!!

–CS

Also, more than 800 views in a year, that is more than 2 views per day. Certainly a lot more than what i had imagined.

My future plans with this blog is to keep a record of interesting things that happen in my life, so that i can reminisce about them in the future. It will be like a log entry of all the things that stimulated my emotions. I plan to update this blog more often than i did in the past year.

I would like to thank everyone for their viewer ship and i will certainly make this experience even more exciting in the coming years.

Watch this space for more interesting articles

–
CS

Solution:
Lets work with an example. Suppose the given number is 25 i.e we need to find number of trailing zeros in 25!. Zeros are contributed by pairs of 2 and 5, because 2*5 = 10.
So, all we need to do is find the number of multiples of 5 in 25. Also note that while 5 contributes to one 0, 25 contributes to two 0s.

So, number of trailing zeros in 25 = 25/5 + 25/25 = 5 + 1 = 6

Below is a code snippet that does the same for you!

int countNum(int num)
{
	int count = 0;
	for(int i = 5; num/i > 0; i *= 5)
	{
		count = count + num/i;

	}
	return count;

}

bavra mann dekhne chala ek sapna ..

bavrasa ho andhera bavri khamoshiyaan
thartharati lav ho matthamm bavri madhoshiyaan
bavra ek gunghata chaye hole hole dinn batayein
bavra ek gunghata chaye hole hole dinn batayein
bavrese mukhadese saraktaa
bavra mann dekhne chala ek sapna

We know that short occupies 2 bytes of memory. Lets say the addresses by 450 and 451. The endianness defines where the Most Significant Byte will be stored. Will it be at a lower address or at a higher address. This gives us two types of systems.

Big Endian:
Stores the Most Significant byte at the lower address. Systems using this are Motorola 68K, PowerPC, Sparc

Little Endian
Stores the Most Significant byte at the higher address. Systems using this are Intel x86, Pentium

There is a very simple way of checking the endianness of a system. Below is a program that does so .

//Program to check the endianness of the system

#include

int main(int argc, char* argv)
{
	short word = 1;
	char *byte = (char*) &word;

	if(byte[0])
		printf("Little Endian\n");
	else
		printf("Big Endian\n");	

}

C has a special type of pointer called as void pointers. A void pointer is basically a pointer for which the compiler doesnt have any idea about the type of object it points too. It gives a useful mechanism of working with raw addresses.

Below is a generic version of swap method, developed using Dev C++ on my Windows Vista laptop.

#include
#include 

void swap(void *elem1, void *elem2, int size);

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{

  char *a = "Fred", *b = "Wilma";
  printf("Before Swap:  a = %s, b = %s\n", a,b );
  swap(&a,&b,sizeof(char*));
  printf("After Swap: a = %s, b = %s\n", a,b );

  system("PAUSE");
  return 0;
}

void swap(void *elem1, void *elem2, int size)
{
     char buf[size];
     memcpy(buf,elem1,size);
     memcpy(elem1,elem2,size);
     memcpy(elem2,buf,size);

}

Disclaimer:
While void pointers might provide easy way for generic programming, but it also stops the compiler from doing all the checks for us which means that a person will have to most of the error checking when working with void pointers. The above code, at first, might look an elegant way of swapping, but there are variety of ways in which it can result in erroneous data.
For example,

    int a = 10;
    short b = 5;
    swap(&a,&b,sizeof(short));

The above call will result in swapping the 2 bytes of int(originally 4 byte) with 2 bytes of short, which will result in corrupt data.
Hence, always be really careful while working with void pointers.

– J.R.R Tolkien

My impressions:

GUI is same as Google Chrome, except for Facebook and other social media bull shit around it.

It needs Facebook credentials to start. In a world where privacy is becoming a nuisance,i dont want to
give away my username and password just to go to google.com

You need to give access to your wall and other stuff on facebook. Why on earth would i wanna do that?

Its just another thread in the spool of threads that connects you to the so called “social” network.