Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician and philosopher who lived in the mid-1600's. He accomplished much in his lifetime, including the construction of a mechanical calculator and some very early work in combinatorics and the development of differential calculus. In his studies, he devised what has become known as Pascal's Triangle, http://ptri1.tripod.com/ which simplifies the calculation of the coefficients of the expression (x + y)n, where n is a positive integer. That is, we all know
(x + y)2 = x2 + 2xy + y2
(implying coefficients of 1,2,1), but what are the coefficients of (x + y)3 or (x + y)4 or (x + y)10 By using Pascal's Triangle, these values can be quickly calculated.
The first part of Pascal's Triangle looks like this:
1
1
2 1
3 3 1
4641
You can see, except for the 1's, any coefficient is found simply by adding together the 2 numbers diagonally above it. (And, if you think about it, picture 0's everywhere along the outside edge, and the 1's can be calculated the same way!)
Write a lab8.c that calculates and displays the first k rows of Pascal's Triangle. Where k is a value entered by the user. It must be displayed in the format shown above (not symmetrically)
As always I have provided: o an unchangeable main o an unchangeable lab8.h
You can’t use any statically sized arrays anywhere for this lab
All Rows must be jagged.
METHODS TO WRITE
int menu(); -- prompts the user with menu choices - must ensure the value entered is between 1 and 4 inclusive int ** createTriangle(int n); -- creates and fills the appropriate pascals triangle and returns it
int retrieveTotal(char * argv); -- takes the string from the command line as the first passed parameter and converts it to a number. The number must be greater than or equal to 0. If not prompt the user
void cleanUp(int ** pascal, int n); -- cleans up each row first, and the the row of int * second; void printTriangle(FILE * fout, int ** pascal, int n); - prints pascals triangle for n to the screen
FILE * openOutputFileArgs(char * fn); - receives the filename from the command line and opens it for output
TO TURN IN
A zip file containing Lab8 folder which will contain
cscd240Lab8.c lab8.h
lab8.c utils
fileUtils.c o fileUtils.h
cscd240Lab8out.txt – output file with all runs cscd240Lab8val.txt – valgrind run
Name your zip your last name first letter of your first name lab8.zip (Example: steinerslab8.zip)
