CSC 161 Module on Working with Characters, Strings, and I/O

Introduction

This module introduces CSC 161 students to writing dynamic programs that can take input and follow commands based on input, including

1. characters
2. strings
3. input and output.

Day-by-day Details

Day	Topic	Preparation	In-class	Due Date	Availability for Extra Credit
Friday, February 27	Module 011: Strings and I/O		Examples io-NATO.c counting-chars.c char-example.c input-examples.c
Monday, March 2	Characters and Strings	Reading from Text King: Section 7.3, Chapter 13, pages 134-141, 277-299, OR Kernighan & Ritchie: 1.9, 7.8.1, 7.8.2, B.3	Characters and Strings Lab
Tuesday, March 3	Reading data values with scanf scanf	Reading from Text King: Section 3.2, pages 42-46, OR Kernighan & Ritchie, 7.4 B.1.2, B.1.4 (reference) Notes on Reading Data Examples: scanf-example.c scanf-char.c i-o-example-1a.c i-o-example-1b.c i-o-example-2.c i-o-example-3.c i-o-example-4.c i-o-example.c iotest.c	Lab on Input with scanf
Wednesday, March 4	Charactger-by-Character Input and Output getchar putchar printf	Reading from Text King: Section 3.1, pages 37-41 OR Kernighan & Ritchie: 1.5, 7.1, 7.2, B.2 (reference) Examples: get-3-char.c getchar-example.c getchar-example.c Strings and Characters in C	Lab on Character-by-Character Input	Wednesday, March 10
Friday, March 6	Hour Test 1	Covers through Lab on Input with scanf
Monday, March 9	Project		Robot follows typed commands	Wednesday, October 29

Project: Robot Follows Typed Commands

Working in pairs, students should develop a program that includes these elements:

• program controls actions and sounds in the robot
• program prints a prompt that lists the possible actions
• robot can perform at least ten different commands
  • the command to quit may be counted as one of these ten different commands
  • each action (except, perhaps, the command to quit) must be implemented as a separate procedure
  • at least five of the procedures should utilize parameters in a substantive way; if user values are requested, the input/output should be handled in the main procedure and values passed to the procedure controlling the action
  • at least two actions should be blocking and at least two actions should be non-blocking
• robot counts the number of actions taken and prints the number of actions taken at the end of the program
• program ends only after the user types a command to quit

Together with the program, a student pair must write a paragraph that describes what tests are needed to demonstrate the program is working correctly. That is, what should a tester do to demonstrate the program works? Also, the student pair must present a sequence of steps that the tester should do to carry out the test plan. (E.g., what should be typed in a terminal window, including the details of the compile, link, and run steps?)

Command Requirements

• Commands should be words, not letters.
• Each command must perform a clearly different action. The same action, but with different duration or speed does not count as a different action.

  Allowed: turnLeft, turnRight

  Not Allowed: turnLeft1second, turnLeft2seconds

• At least 5 commands must also take one or more parameters, entered in the main program and passed to the function executing the command. For example, if you implement the beep function, the user must be able to specify the duration and pitch of the beep. If you implement a short dance, the user may not need to specify the length of any of the dance steps.

Grading

• General Grading Form
• Project-specific Grading Form

Note

This project is planned for use as the base of a later project, so you will want to document your code well now — in anticipation of later activities.