Do you know SMTP? is it use SOAP or REST?

Ans : 

SMTP : SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is a TCP/IP protocol used in sending and receiving e-mail.

SOAP and REST both allow you to create your own API. API stands for Application Programming Interface. It makes it possible to transfer data from an application to other applications. An API receives requests and sends back responses through internet protocols such as HTTP, SMTP, and others.

It use SOAP web-service. SOAP is protocol and rules are maintained by World wide web consortium(W3C).

Design such button in that text should be displayed below image

Ans : 

1) Select button and go to Attribute Inspector in your storyboard.

2) Assign Image to the button. (Don't use background Image)

3) Set Title text to that button.

4) Now you need to set edge and Inset so first select image from edge and set Inset as you need and then select title from edge and set inset as per your need.

Difference between viewdidload and viewwillappear?

Ans : 

ViewDidLoad - It is excecuted once. So writer settings like set label text in ViewDidLoad.

ViewWillAppear - It is called every time when view appear.

ViewDidLoad - It is called when view is begin constructed.

ViewWillAppear - When view is about ready to appear.

ViewDidLoad :  It is automatically called when view controller completely loaded into memory. Override this method to perform additional initialization on views that were loaded from xib.

I.e instance variable initialization, database access, network request

ViewWillAppear :  It is called when View is about to added on view hierachy. If we want to change some, then we have to override this method.Like change orientation, change screen data.

Suppose your tableview data will be changed periodically. Then you have to write [tableview reloaddata] in ViewWillApper.

Read UIViewController LifeCycle

What are join in sql? Explain Types of Join

Ans :

Join : When we need data from more than 1 table, then we can fetch data from those table using joining those table. It will return only matching data from two tables.

Select * from table1 t1 inner join table2 t2 on t1.column1 = t2.column1

Types of Join :

1. Inner Join : If we use inner join between two table, then only data exists in both table, are returned.

2. Outer Join :
    Left Outer Join : It returns all data from left table(table1) and only matching data from both table.
    Right Outer Join : It returns all data from right table(table2) and only matching data from both table.

3. Cross Join : It is like cartesian join. It returns all records from both table and it returns table1.count * table2.count records in returns. Suppose table1 has 4 records and table2 has 3 records and returns 4*3 records.

4. Self Join : If some column's reference has in same table then self join is used. It is same like inner join but here both left and right table are same. Its like if you table and Columns are such as MainID, Name, ParentID then you can make query like
Select * from table t1 join table t2 on t1.MainID = t2.ParentID

Difference between Strong and Weak in iOS

Ans : 

Strong

A strong property means that you want to “own” the object. Only when you set the property to nil will the object be  destroyed. Unless one or more objects also have a strong reference to the object. This is the one you will use in most cases.

1. Creates ownership between property and assigned value.

1. This is default for object property in ARC so it does not let you worrying about reference count and release the reference automatically.

1. It is replacement for retain. We use if and only if we need to use as retain.

1. Retain count will be incremented.

1. Creates non-ownerships between property and assigned value.

1. Strong is used on parent object and weak is used on child object when parent is released then child object reference is also set to nil

1. It helps to prevents retain cycles.

1. It doesn’t protect the referenced object when collection by garbage collector.

1. Weak is essentially assigned, un-retain property.

1. Retain count will not be incremented.

Weak

Weak property means you don’t want to have control over the objects lifecycle. The object only lives on while another objects has a strong reference to it. If there are no strong references to the object then it will be destroyed. 

Weak reference is useful to avoid situation like retain cycle. Retain cycle occurs when two or more objects have strong reference to each other. This two object will never be freed in memory due to strong reference. So to avoid weak reference, One object has a strong ownership reference to another object, and another object should be have a weak reference to first object.

Strong references should be used when a parent object is referencing a child object and never the other way around. That is, a child class should not have a strong reference to the parent class.

Weak references should be used to avoid retain cycles and an object has the possibility to become nil at any point of it’s lifetime.

Good read : Click here

Help from : 

https://iphonecodecenter.wordpress.com 

What are blocks in iOS?

Ans : 

Blocks are first-class functions, which is a fancy way of saying that Blocks are regular Objective-C objects. Since they’re objects, they can be passed as parameters, returned from methods and functions, and assigned to variables. A block creates a const copy of any local variable that is referenced inside of its scope.

Block is a chunk of code that can be executed at some future time.

Blocks can greatly simplify code. They can help you reduce code, reduce dependency on delegates, and write cleaner, more readable code.

Block is alternative of delegate or NSNotificationCenter. In delegate and NSNotificationCenter, callback methods and main method are written different places. So its more difficult to read. In block, call back method written in main method as parameter.

Declaration : return_type (^block_name)(param_type, param_type, ...)

int (^add)(int,int)

Definition : ^return_type(param_type param_name, param_type param_name, ...) { ... return return_type; }

^(int number1, int number2){ return number1+number2 }

Declaration + Definition : 

int (^add)(int,int) = ^(int number1, int number2){ return number1+number2; }

We can call block also like following : 

int resultFromBlock = add(2,2);

If we take example of NSArray using block :

[theArray enumerateObjectsUsingBlock:^(id obj, NSUInteger idx, BOOL *stop){

    NSLog(@"The object at index %d is %@",idx,obj);

}];

If we take example of UIView animation using block :

[UIView animateWithDuration:5.0 

                     animations:^{

                        [animatingView setAlpha:0];

                        [animatingView setCenter:CGPointMake(animatingView.center.x+50.0, 

                                                             animatingView.center.y+50.0)];

                     } 

                     completion:^(BOOL finished) {

                         [animatingView removeFromSuperview];

                     }];

Apple also suggest to use block instead of call back methods.

Difference between blocks and completion handler : 

We have understand what is block. Completion handler is a way (technique) for implementing callback functionality using blocks. As a completion handler parameter, we have to pass block.

Example of Completion handler is seen above as last example of blocks.

Completion handler always comes as last parameter.

Read more : Difference between blocks and completion handler

Expandable tableview Logic in iOS

Ans : 

Logic  : 

• Display UITableView containing just the header/section titles for each category.
• When a section is touched, expand it if it is not already expanded. Otherwise, collapse the section.
• When a section is touched, expand it and if another section is currently expanded collapse that section so that only one section is expanded at a time.
• To expand a section, determine the number of items that must be displayed within that section and insert that number of rows in the UITableView; then display the items in the newly inserted rows.
• To collapse a section, determine the number of items currently displayed within that section and delete that number of rows from the UITableView.

To reload one section only : 

[self.tableView beginUpdates];
 (void)reloadSections:(NSIndexSet *)sections withRowAnimation:(UITableViewRowAnimation)animation:
[self.tableView endUpdates];

Difference between XIB and Storyboard

Ans : 


XIB :

1) Xib files are used with a single UIView.

3)It's utilizes more memory as compared to storyboard and quiet slow.

4) It is compatible from iOS5 and onwards

5) You can do localizations for different languages and countries using different XIBs .

6) It's difficult to use same Xib to support multiple devices.

Storyboard :

1)You can layout all your Scenes like View Controllers, Nav Controllers, TabBar Controllers, etc in a single storyboard.

3)Usually fast and allocates less memory.

4)It's not compatible prior to iOS 5 .

5)"Dynamic" and "Prototype" cells can be used easily.

6)Storyboards best to use for the apps with a small to medium amount of screens.

Difference between synchronous and asynchronous calls in Objective-C

Ans : 

Synchronous : This call means task will be executed in order.
Asynchronous : This call means task may or may not be executed in order.

When call is called synchronously, then thread that initiated that operation will be wait to current task to be finished.
When call is called asynchronously, then it will not wait.

If we want to do some task without harassing UI, we can do those tasks in background thread. This goal is to keep free main thread, so it continuously respond UI event. So we can dispatch our task in background state asynchronously.

So for do task in background thread, we will divide in 2 parts.

1. GCD - Grand Central Dispatch. By using GCD, you have to grab one of global background queue or create your own background queue.

// one of the global concurrent background queues
dispatch_queue_t queue = dispatch_get_global_queue(DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_DEFAULT, 0);

// or you could create your own serial background queue:
// dispatch_queue_t queue = dispatch_queue_create("com.iosiqa.app.queuename", 0);

2. Dispatch your task to that queue asynchronously

dispatch_async(queue, ^{
    // task that to be done in background and it may be slow
});

The pattern for operation queues is very similar. Create an operation queue and add operations to that queue.

Lets see example :

Asynchronous call with Multithreading :

// Methods gets called in different thread and does not block the current thread.
[NSURLConnection sendAsynchronousRequest:request
                                   queue:queue
                       completionHandler:
    ^(NSURLResponse *response, NSData *data, NSError *error) {
}];

Synchronous call with Multithreading (not so useful):

//Do something
dispatch_sync(queue, ^{
    //Do something else // work in another queue or thread
});

//Do some more task

Difference between thread-safe and non-thread-safe in iOS

Ans : 

Thread-Unsafe -> If any object allow to modify by more than one thread at the same time.  (non-atomic property is thread-unsafe. Comments are welcomed)

Thread-safe -> If any object not allow to modify by more than one thread at the same time.Immutable objects are generally thread-safe. (atomic property attribute type. Comments are  welcomed)

In general, immutable classes like NSArray, let are thread-safe, while their mutable variants like NSMutableArray,var are thread-unsafe.