Choosing C++ as an interview-language for a code exercise?

  • It's difficult to interview in C++
  • It's difficult to find quick working C++ snippets online

Things like getting the current timestamp in seconds can trip candidates up.

Here's a quick recipe when you're in a bind:

http://codepad.org/GvmWaqVZ

#include <ctime>
#include <iostream>

long int unix_timestamp()
{
    time_t t = std::time(0);
    long int now = static_cast<long int> (t);
    return now;
}

int main()
{
    long int now = unix_timestamp();
    std::cout << now;
}

The above should output something like:

1461013984

Cheers.