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Software Engineering Assignment 4 Solution
Programming environment
For this assignment you must ensure your work executes correctly on the Linux machines in ELW B215 (i.e., these have gcc 4.8.5 installed). You are free to do some of your programming on your own computers; if you do this, give yourself a few days before the due date to iron out any bugs in your C solution that might appear once it is used on BSEng machines in ELW B215.
Individual work
This assignment is to be completed by each individual student (i.e., no group work).
Naturally you will want to discuss aspects of the problem with fellow students, and such discussion is encouraged. However, sharing of code fragments is strictly forbidden without the express written permission of the course instructor (Zastre). If you are still unsure regarding what is permitted or have other questions
about what constitutes appropriate collaboration, please contact me as soon as possible. (Code-‐similarity analysis tools may be used to examine submitted programs.)
Objectives of this assignment
Use the dynamic-‐memory support available in C (i.e., malloc(), realloc(), etc.).
Use some of the separable-‐compilation features of C.
Use a makefile.
Use Git to manage changes in your source code and annotate the evolution of your solution with “messages” provided during commits.
Test your code against the provided test cases.
This assignment: format265alt.c and formatter.c
At this point in the semester you are probably a little sick and tired of seeing our formatting problem. However, on the bright side you thoroughly understand what output is expected for the given inputs. Now you can concentrate on what is perhaps the most difficult aspect of programming in C: dynamic memory. For this assignment you will be wrapping a solution to the formatting problem in a C file / module. The module provides different access functions depending on whether a file’s contents are to be formatted or an array of strings is to be formatted. The formatted output will be returned from the called function as a dynamically-‐ allocated array of strings.
format265alt.c will accept a filename as an argument and will call the appropriate routine in formatter.c. The strings in the returned string array will be output to stdout.
If no filename is provided to format265alt, then the contents of stdin will be formatted. (Please: do not prompt the user for this!)
driver.c already creates a statically-‐allocated array of strings and passes this to the format_lines() function in formatter.c. As with format265alt.c, the array of strings returned from the routine are to be output to stdout. Please note that it is your code’s responsibility to allocate memory for both the result array and the strings accessible from the result array.
The specifications from the second assignment are to be used for this assignment.
Several files have already been provided for you in
/home/zastre/seng265/assign4. You are to use these files when starting your work. Ensure they are placed in the assign4 directory of your project.
With your completed format265alt program, the input would be transformed into the output (here redirected to a file) via one of the two following UNIX commands:
./format265alt /home/zastre/seng265/assign2/tests/in11.txt \
./myout11.txt
% cat ~zastre/seng265/assign2/tests/in11.txt |./format265alt \ ./myout11.txt
where the file “myout11.txt” would be placed in your current directory.
Exercises for this assignment
Within your Git repository create an assign4 subdirectory. Use the test files in /home/zastre/seng265/assign2. (Files in01.txt through to in20.txt are the
same as those used for the third assignment; we won’t use test 13 for this assignment.) Your completed format265alt.c and formatter.c files (plus driver.c and formatter.h) must be located in this directory. Ensure that assign4 and all files within it are added and committed to Git.
Your solution cannot assume a maximum length for an input line, nor can you assume a maximum number of lines. Use malloc() to allocate memory for strings and arrays of strings.
Reasonable run-‐time performance of your program is expected. None of the test cases should take longer than 15 seconds to complete on a machine in ELW B215.
What you must submit
Three C files named format265alt.c, driver.c and formatter.c within your subversion repository containing a solution to Assignment #4.
If you have modified makefile or formatter.h, then ensure these files are also in the Git repository and be prepared to justify at demo time why you needed to change these files. (An e-‐mail obtained the instructor ahead of time okaying such changes and shown at the demo can act as this justification.)
Evaluation
Students will demonstrate their work to a member of the course’s teaching team. Sign-‐up sheets for demos will be provided a few days before the due-‐date; each demo will require about 10 minutes.
Our grading scheme is relatively simple.
“A” grade: An exceptional submission demonstrating creativity and initiative. format265alt and hence the code in formatter.c run without any problems. driver.c runs without any problems. The program is clearly written and uses functions appropriately (i.e., is well structured).
“B” grade: A submission completing the requirements of the assignment. format265alt and hence the code in formatter.c run with very few problems. driver.c runs without few problems. The program is clearly written.
“C” grade: A submission completing most of the requirements of the assignment. format265alt and hence the code in formatter.c run with some
significant problems. driver.c might or might not run without any problems.
Some important error cases have been overlooked or are not handled.
“D” grade: A serious attempt at completing requirements for the assignment. format265alt and hence formatter.c run with several serious problems.
“F” grade: Either no submission given, or submission represents very little work.
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