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Assessment task 2: Assignment -Description

· Due Oct 13 by 23:59

· Points 0

· Available after Sep 11 at 6:00

48430 Assessment Task 2: Assignment

Please read and follow ALL submission requirements carefully.

Updates

If applicable, any updates to the assignment will appear here.

Resources

Sample executable employeelist_solution.out Download employeelist_solution.out 

Source code template: employeelist.c Download employeelist.c 

Functionality of your program must be identical to the sample executable on Ed. When in doubt run the sample to understand the requirements. See the Marking Criteria tab for more information

Task Description

Data Engineers regularly collect, process and store data. In this task you will develop a deeper understanding of how C programming language can be used for collecting, processing and storing data. In this assignment you get the opportunity to build an interactive program that can manage a list of employees in a company.

The list is stored as an array of employee_t type structures

employee_t employeelist [MAX_COMPANY_SIZE];

The employee_t is a structure typedef for struct employee. The struct employee contains the following fields

· name - array of MAX_NAME_SIZE chars (string)

· fte - a float between 0.0 and 1.0

· level - unsigned integer between 7 and 18

· birthday - a structure of date_t type as defined below.

The variable fte indicates if an employee works full-time or part-time for a company. The value fte=1.0 (or 0.5) indicates that an employee works full time (or half-time) for the company.  

Note that we now have a struct nested within a struct. The birthday is a structure typedef for struct date. The struct date_t contains the following fields,

· day - unsigned integer between 1 and 31 (inclusive)

· month - unsigned integer between 1 and 12 (inclusive)

· year - unsigned integer between 1800 and 2017

Your program interacts with the nested struct array in your memory (RAM) and simple database file in your hard disk. It should provide the following features:

1. add employee

Add a new employee to the employeelist through the terminal. You should collect the input by asking multiple questions from the user.

Enter name>
Enter birthday: day>
Enter birthday: month>
Enter birthday: year>
Enter FTE>
Enter level>

2. delete last employee

Remove the last employee from the employeelist. TIP: you cannot delete an element from an array. Instead consider using an integer to keep count of number of employees.

3. display employee list

Display the list of employees in the following format as shown in the sample run. Please follow the sample executable for the exact display format, including white spaces.

Name       Birthday   FTE   Level
---------- ---------- ----- -----
bee        01-01-1900 1.000 07

Pay attention to the strict formatting guide:

· Name - left aligned, 10 chars at most.

· Date - 2 digit day, 2 digit month, 4 digit year

· FTE – 3 decimal places for the fractional part

· level - 2 digits 

4. save the employee list to the database file

Save the employeelist in the hard disk as a binary/text file named database. You may use your own format to save the data. You should overwrite if database file already exists.

5. read the employee list from the database file

Read the database file and put the data into employeelist. You may only read the data files created by your own program. You should overwrite the employeelist array you had in memory when loading from the file.

6. exit the program

Exit the interactive program.

The database file

It is up to you to create your own data storage format for the database file. Your program should be able to read the database that was created by itself. You can create the database as a text or binary file.

You do NOT need to be able to create a database identical to the database of the sample executable. You do NOT need to be able to read the database of the sample executable.

Your approach

First step for the assignment should be to read this specification very carefully. Then play with the sample executable. Understand how it works, try different inputs. You will only understand the task fully if you spend a reasonable time experimenting with the executable.

Breakdown the task into small measurable subtasks that can be achieved with functions, and then implement one at a time. Begin by taking small steps. Create a program that does not necessarily do all that is eventually required. Add to it slowly and methodically testing it on each occasion. Do not try to write a program that meets all the requirements in one step - this will not save you time.

TEST TEST TEST! Testing is a core part of programming. You should thoroughly test your program to make sure the behaviour is identical to the sample executable. We will provide you with test cases - think yourself. The more testing you do, higher your chances are to get a good grade for the functionality.

If your program crashes unexpectedly, or it runs but does not give the correct output, then you need to think of using a debugging strategy to determine the nature of the fault. For example, you can place printf() statements at significant points in your source code to print messages enabling you to trace execution of the program. You can also use comment delimiters to temporarily remove parts of the source code from the compilation process.

You will lose marks if you do not follow the instructions in the template file. Do NOT hard-code your solution.

When writing the code, the first step is to define the struct employee and struct date with the fields mentioned above - do NOT add extra fields. Inside the main, you can define the employeelist as an array of employee_t type - do NOT define this array as a global variable. To start with, assume all user input is perfect (within the range, correct datatype). Work on adding an employee, then on displaying the employeelist. You could then progressively work your way through other features.

Do not worry about some months not having dates 29-31 and leap years. That means 30-02-1900 is a real date, although the month of Feb does not have a day 30. Only the range conditions mentioned before apply.

All strings in C should be null-terminated i.e. the last character should always be '\0'. The name field in employee_t should be allocated MAX_NAME_SIZE number of chars. However because the last character is '\0', the actual length of the name that can be stored is MAX_NAME_SIZE-1. Example:
Enter name>Bee1 *Jayawickrama

The employee.name field will store only the first MAX_NAME_SIZE-1 (=10, if MAX_NAME_SIZE is 11) characters including spaces and any other character: {'B','e','e','1',' ','*','J','a','y','a','\0'}

Note that the database file is assumed to be error free. However, your program should handle: “careless users” – a user may enter a value outside the expected range for any interactive input. Example:
Enter your choice>0
Invalid choice.

Or a careless user may try to input 365 as the month the user was born (month should be between 1 and 12). Or try to delete an employee when it is empty, etc.

I suggest initially attempt all features without worrying about careless users and having spaces in names. Then build on top of that if you still have time in hand. Note that you are expected to think yourself how a careless user could break your program - we will not provide test cases.

NOTE: Handling spaces in name is aimed for advanced students. You may need to do your own research, but more than that you may have to be creative. By using incorrect techniques you could very well introduce more bugs in your code and it could be time consuming. The special techniques required for this purpose are not examinable.

Marking Criteria

Criterion	Weight
Following good coding practices	50%
Functionality of the program	50%

50% - following good coding practices

Follow the good coding practices listed under LAB01 Task 3. Your code will be manually marked by tutors for the ability to follow this list of good coding practices. The coding style will be checked in the Ed environment under default GEDIT configuration discussed in LAB00 task 2.

To achieve marks for the good coding practices, your submission should not be trivial and you need to attempt to address the task sufficiently. e.g. if the submission is a blank C program that follows all applicable good practices listed in LAB01 Task 4, you will not receive marks for good coding practices.

Rubrics for coding practices:

Criteria	level 1 (1/3)	level 2 (2/3)	level 3 (3/3)
Commenting	Level of commenting is inappropriate.	Reasonable level of commenting in most parts.	Good level of commenting, explains the logic behind the code where necessary.
Indentation	Indentation is mostly flawed, under the default 48430 Gedit configuration.	Indentation appears mostly correct, under the default 48430 Gedit configuration.	Indentation appears correct, under the default 48430 Gedit configuration.
Code width	Code width mostly does not follow 80 character limit (common GNU practice).	Code width is above 80 characters in some places (common GNU practice).	Code width is 80 characters.
Variable/function names	Names chosen for variables, functions and function parameters are not self-explanatory.	Names chosen for variables, functions and function parameters are mostly self-explanatory.	Names chosen for variables, functions and function parameters are self-explanatory.
Use of global variables	Unnecessary usage of global variables.		Unnecessary usage of global variables has been avoided.
Use of preprocessing directives	Pre-processing directives such as #define should be used more.		Good use of #define and other pre-processing directives.
Use of predefined library functions	Next to the #include statements you should list all functions you use from the libraries.		Correctly listed the functions used from the libraries next to the #include statements.
Breaking into functions	Purpose of most functions is not specific enough.	Program has been mostly broken into sensible functions with specific tasks.	Program has been broken into sensible functions with specific tasks.
Function descriptions	Function descriptions are mostly insufficient.	Function descriptions could better describe "what" it does and "what" input/output parameters are.	Function descriptions provide a good insight to "what" it does and "what" input/output parameters are.
Passing variables to functions	Read-only arrays/pointers are not passed with the const keyword.		Where appropriate, read-only arrays/pointers are passed with the const keyword.
Usage of structures	A new data type for the structure has not been defined using typedef, and/or it does not follow the naming convention ending with _t.		A new data type for the structure has been defined using typedef, and it follows the naming convention ending with _t.

The sum of above marks will produce 10/20 of the marks for this assignment (10% of the grade in this subject).

50% - functionality of the program

14 Test cases will be used to mark the functionality, all tests carry equal marks and the total marks out of 14 will be scaled to 10% of the grade in this subject i.e. (passed tests/14) *10 .

Functionality of your program will be checked by a series of automated tests done on Ed. The outcome of each test could be:

· PASS - behaviour of your program is identical to the sample executable on Ed

· FAIL - behaviour of your program is different by at least one character

Ed has been configured as follows, until the deadline:

· You will know the PASS/FAIL outcome of each test immediately after submission, allowing you to fix the program before the deadline.

· You have unlimited attempts to see the PASS/FAIL status of each test.

· Ed will NOT show the test inputs, and it will NOT show the diff comparison for you.

· Think about possible test cases yourself and compare your solution with the sample executable.

Ed has been configured as follows, 5 days after the deadline:

· Feedback show the failed test cases.

· No longer accepting submissions

Do NOT hardcode your answers. Tutors will manually check all the submissions. If you hardcode your solution, tutors may change your functionality marks to 0.

NO exceptions to the above criteria will be made under any circumstances.

Compilation Requirement

We will include all compilation flags we have been using throughout the semester.

gcc -Wall -Werror -ansi -o employeelist.out employeelist.c -lm

We will compile your code on Ed as follows

gcc -Wall -Werror -ansi -o build/employeelist.out employeelist.c -lm

Your program must compile with NO errors and NO warnings on Ed. Failing this, Ed will not run any of the functionality tests, hence you will receive 0 marks for the functionality. But we will still mark the coding style.

Libraries Requirement

You are free to use the following C libraries in this assignment:

stdio.h
stdlib.h
string.h

You do not necessarily have to use all of them. However, you will receive 0 marks for the functionality if you use any libraries other than those listed above.

Submission

Your submission will be via Ed. You should submit only one C file named employeelist.c. Do NOT submit executable files, other file types, and other C files with different names.

You will get 0 marks for the assignment if this requirement is not met.

Due Date

The Ed submission link will show the deadline of the assignment.

Late Submissions

Standard FEIT late submission penalties apply - check the subject outline for more information.

Feedback

You will receive the following feedback within 3 weeks of the due date:

· Overall mark for the assignment on Canvas Marks.

· Outcome of automated functionality tests on Ed.

Request to Review

If you are confident that there are substantial irregularities in your marks, you may email the lab tutors (not the subject coordinator) to lodge a request to review from your UTS student email. This should be done no later than 1 week after releasing the results on Canvas.

Request to review could very well result in marks being left unchanged or even decreased if we find that we have been too lenient.

Plagiarism

ALL work you submit must be your own. We take plagiarism very seriously. Why you shouldn't plagiarise?

· This is an individual assignment.

· I will use plagiarism detection software to check that you did not copy parts of the solution from previous submissions, other students in the class, online forums and other online resources.

· If any submission has a high similarity from the plagiarism detection software, the submission will be submitted as a misconduct case to university and the result of this assessment and the subject will be withheld until the misconduct case is resolved.

Tips

· Read the specification very carefully.

· Run the sample executable on Ed. You may need to setup file permissions. See LAB01 Task 2.

· Breakdown the task into functions and implement one at a time.

· Do the exit program feature first. Then add employee and display employeelist features.

· Do the complete assignment without considering the format of the careless users, then think about it.

· Nested structure definition was covered in Forum 05 - Structures and file processing.

· You will need to use a fixed size array with a maximum size to emulate a variable sized array. The source code in Forum 04 - Arrays and strings has everything you need for this.

· Do NOT define the employeelist array as a global variable.

· The assignment can be done without using pointers. But if you want to use pointers, of course you can.

· Suppose you make a mistake in printing the choices menu. Instead of "6. exit the program", you print "6 exit my program now". This message will be printed in each test, hence you will fail all tests and receive 0 marks for the functionality of your program.

· Submit to Ed early! It shows the outcome of each test case (Pass/Fail) immediately.