Assignment 7

Part A: (ungraded) (Same as last week.) Read Chapter 10. Do exercises 5, 7, 11, 15. Write and run a JAVA program to check your answers. You are permitted to work together on any ungraded work for the course.

Part B: [10 pts] This week's warm-up involves the second phase of programming: solution design. To begin, carefully read the problem description below. Then create an object oriented design for your solution. This requires you to identify how many different classes will be useful, and what types of objects they will be used for. Some may already exist, several you will need to write. Don't forget to include a main driver class. (Hint: focus on the dominant nouns in the description and think along the lines of our Card/Deck system or the Student/Course example.) Write a description of the purpose of each class. Also include a list of the data members each will hold, and the methods in each class. Name your variables and methods descriptively so that their purposes are obvious. You do not have to include javadoc comments or actual method definitions at this point. Name this file "w7.txt".

A solution to the warm-up will be posted on Monday to aid in completing the programming assignment. Your java solution will be required to use my object oriented design solution as a starting point for your program (so don't write the full program yet!).

The purpose of this assignment is to provide a comprehensive set of classes and operations to build and manipulate a collection of scientific experiments. Each experiment will be a timed transformation from one solution to another by introducing some type of agent. Hopefully you can imagine many different situations which would produce results in this generic form. There will be two types of input for the program. One type will be plain text data files containing the results of many scientific experiments. The other type of input will be a transaction file containing a sequence of queries to find out particular types of information about the results, such as what was the average time to get from solutionA to solutionB, or to list all the experiments that used a particular agent. Reading and processing this transaction file will guide the main activities when you run the program.

[6] You must create at least two sample input files for running and testing your program and submit them with your source code files - one data file and one transaction file. Each data input file can contain the results of any number of experiments. The data for each experiment will be all on one line of a file. Specifically, the data will consist of a start time, an end time, the starting solution, the final solution, and the agent. The solutions and agents will be strings; you can assume they do not contain spaces. The start and end times could be in either standard or military format, but must not contain spaces either. Here are a few examples:

[6] At the start of your program, prompt the user for the name of the transaction input file. Also create a variable that will write the processing results to a plain text file called "output7.txt". Lastly, make a relatively small collection that could hold the results of 10 experiments. Your main program should then process the entire transaction file, one line at a time. For each input line, write the transaction request to the output file, followed by any results it produces. Separate the output for each transaction from the next with a blank line.

The transaction input file will contain a sequence of operation requests, one per line. Each line will start with a single letter code from the list below, followed by any data that transaction needs to do its job. Here are the transactions; you must use the given character code as the menu selection input:

For any operations that you do not successfully implement, write "transaction type not supported" to the screen each time they should be executed.

[6 pts] You must do a truly object-oriented solution with multiple classes using the breakdown I provide in my solution to w7 as a starting point. You may not use any Java API collection classes such as ArrayList or Vector! Instead, manipulate your own arrays within classes to implement. (String is always allowed.) You may and should reuse code from lecture examples, being sure to include comments citing the original source. You must continue to include proper javadoc style comments on all methods (except main). Don't forget your header on every file, and a reflection in your file with main.

[2] You must zip all necessary source code files and two sample input files together when you submit on blackboard. You must submit all *.java and *.txt files that are necessary to compile and run your solution together in your final submission attempt! Don't forget to include any source code files from lecture examples.

General assignment requirements, style and submission details:

Reflections: Reflect briefly on each program you write, as a comment at either the beginning or end of each main file. Comment on things like: how useful was the warm-up exercise (if any)? how hard was the program and why? what did you learn from it? where did you need help? how long did it take to complete? what was the best part of the assignment and why? how would you redesign this assignment if you were the teacher? You should have a paragraph of well-written (properly formed English) reflections for each program. These reflections are part of your assignment grades.
Naming: You are required to name your main files and program classes pg1a.java, pg1b.java, pg2a.java, etc. (changing the number and part as appropriate each week). Use all lower-case letters. Any exceptions to this will be detailed in the assignment descriptions.
Identification: You must include a header comment with your name, this course number (600.107), the date, the assignment number, your phone number, Blackboard login, and preferred email address in every java file you write.
Compilation: Source code (*.java) must compile in standard Java; however, you must not use Strings in switch cases. Remember: you will receive NO credit for programs that do not compile. Use incremental coding to insure that you always have a working program, even though it might be incomplete.
Electronic Submission: Submit an electronic copy of all graded assignment parts via Blackboard. You may submit on Blackboard multiple times for any assignment - we will only grade the last (most recent) submission unless you request otherwise. Warm-ups must be submitted as *.txt or *.pdf files only.
Deadlines: If you miss the due deadline for a warm-up part, it will not be accepted and you will receive no credit because solutions are posted once the deadline has passed. On the other hand, there is a 1/2 hour grace period for program submission. If you submit in this timeframe, you will get a standard 5 point late penalty, even if only 1 minute late. After the grace period, programs will not be accepted and you will receive no credit.
Printouts: Submit a printout of all your original program source files (Java code, not the program output) for each assignment part when you come to class on the due date. You must staple together all the printouts for each assignment. Usually we do not collect printouts for the warm-ups.
Style: Always remember to use good programming style, including indentation, spacing and descriptive variable names (see Appendix A). You should include comments to describe what is going on in your program.

600.107 Introduction to Programming in Java Spring 2013

600.107 Introduction to Programming in Java
Spring 2013