API / Apache FreeMarker Interview questions

Describe the built-ins available in FreeMarker?

A built-in is a function attached to a value with the ? operator, used to transform or query that value without a separate function-call syntax. They read left to right, close to the value they act on, which keeps expressions compact.

Built-in	Purpose	Example
?upper_case / ?lower_case	Change string case	`name?upper_case`
?size	Length of a sequence or hash	`items?size`
?string	Format a number, date, or boolean as text	`price?string.currency`
?number	Parse a string into a number	`input?number`
?trim	Remove leading/trailing whitespace	`text?trim`
?join	Concatenate a sequence with a separator	`tags?join(", ")`

Built-ins are grouped by the type they apply to (string, number, sequence, hash, date), and using one on the wrong type raises a template error, which helps catch mistakes early.

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Which built-in returns the number of elements in a sequence??total

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?length

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?count

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?size

✓ Correct! Well done.

What is the general syntax for applying a built-in to a value?value.builtinName()

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value?builtinName

✓ Correct! Well done.

builtinName(value)

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#builtinName value

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Recently added questions

What is the purpose of interpolation (${...}) in FreeMarker? List the comparison operators supported in FreeMarker? What are the main use cases of FreeMarker? What are the types in FreeMarker's data model? How do you use the #assign directive? Describe the built-ins available in FreeMarker? How do you access static Java members (static methods, fields, and enum constants) from a FreeMarker template? What is Apache FreeMarker? What is the purpose of the FreeMarker Configuration object? What is the difference between FreeMarker's #switch/#case and a chain of #if/#elseif directives? What is the purpose of the <#if> directive? What are the types of loops available in FreeMarker? What is the difference between #assign and #local? How do you apply default values for missing variables in FreeMarker? Why doesn't FreeMarker allow templates unrestricted access to Java reflection and side-effecting method calls? What is the purpose of the incompatible_improvements setting? Define directive in FreeMarker? Which is generally the better choice for a new project today, FreeMarker or Velocity, and why? What is a FreeMarker template? What is the purpose of the #include directive?

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