Assign Y
July 3, 2015
I’m sorry I missed Tuesday’s exercise; I’ve been very busy at work. Today’s exercise is an interview question of the kind I don’t like: it’s tricky, you either know the answer or you don’t, and it’s unlikely to be useful in any real programming situation:
You are give four integers x (which must be either 0 or 1), y, a and b. Your first task is to assign a to y if x = 0, or assign b to y if x = 1, without using any conditional operator, including the ternary operator. Your second task is to perform the same assignment without using any arithmetic operators.
Your task is to complete the two-part puzzle given above. When you are finished, you are welcome to read or run a suggested solution, or to post your own solution or discuss the exercise in the comments below.
Programming Praxis 