Asking to see employer's code/database in an interview

I've been asked to write code/design things in an interview. Sometimes even to provide code samples. Very reasonable and very wise (always surprised when this DOESN'T happen)

I had a job a year or so back where the code was so awful that I would not have taken the job, if I'd seen the mess I had to deal with ahead of time. And I can't tell you how many horrendous databases I've had to work with.

Is it out of the question for me to ask them to provide a code sample and to view their database design? Assuming I'd be happy to sign an NDA, part of me feels it would insane to take a job without examining the codebase or database I'd be working with.

Anyone done this?

Update

This would be something I would ask later in the interview process, if things were proceeding well and I felt an offer was forthcoming.

It's also in the context of working in a small shop or small project as my preference is to avoid places that use phrases like "get a developer off the floor"

You can definitely ask. The answer may be "No," but nobody should consider that to be a bad or inappropriate question.

If they won't show you the code, you should definitely take that into account when you decide whether you want to accept an offer. I would take it as a sign that at least one of the following things is true:

• The code is so horrible that they know you'll run away screaming.
• The company has an ultra-secretive trust-nobody culture (which I would hate).
• The company thinks they have such amazing code that just glancing at it would turn you into a superstar competitor. (In other words, they're self-deluded morons.)
• They have glaring security holes that they hope to keep secret.
• The people who are interviewing you don't know how to get the code themselves. (In which case you are not talking to the right people.)

I'd be more interested in seeing the company's systems - i.e. test framework, release process, autobuilds.... The presence or absence of those would tell me a lot more than a couple hundred lines of code.