CISC370, Homework H04, Summer 2007:
OOP and TDD practice

Due: Thursday, 07/05, 11:55pm

Introduction

This exercise builds on the work you started in class on 06.19, developing a class and JUnit tests for that class. In class on 06.19, you selected a class, and two attributes of that class. Here's what you came up with:

Joel M: Hockey: Team Name, Coach  
Kirsten: Movie: title, director
Steve: music: artist, song
Joel B: Baseball teams: City, Name
Will: Frisbee: weight, radius
Ben: Car: type, mpg
Brennen : anime, title;number or episodes
Doug: Cell Phones: Provider, Model
Jin: Game: Title, Genre
Rob: Country: Continent, Capital City
Mike: Shoes: Make, Size
Dan: Bonsai: Species, Age
Blake: Baseball Players: Name, Position

Here's what you'll do with these. First, you'll finish up whatever you didn't finish from the in-class work on 06.19—that is, doing test-driven development of a class with a constructor for the two attributes, and setters and getters for each attribute. You'll then write menu driven program that reads in a file of instances of your class, and allows users to search that list either by the first column, or the second column. We'll extend this program in future weeks to add more options to the menu. (More detail is provided below.)

You may collaborate—same rules as for H02

Of course, your collaboration is somewhat limited by the fact that you have two different topics. You may, however, collaborate on such elements as the basic outline of the menu driven program, the code to open the file and produce an error message if it can't be opened, code to read the lines and parse them, etc.

Required Reading

Chapters 1-4 in Java Extreme Programming Cookbook.

What you need to do

Write a menu driven program that takes one command line argument: a filename containing values for instances of this class. The file should be in a format that is read in by most common spreadsheet programs: namely, comma separated values, with a header line: For instance, for Kirsten's topic, the file might look like this:

title, director
The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola
The Shawshank Redemption, Frank Darabont
Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarentino
Schindler's List, Steven Spielberg
...

Make your file contain at least 10 instances of your class.

You'll have trouble if any of your instances contain a comma. For example, the following may cause a problem:

...
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Guy Ritchie
...

In practice, this is usually solved by enclosing the value in quotation marks, thus:

...
"Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels", Guy Ritchie
...

Choice Point Opportunity (25 pts): You aren't required to solve the "embedded comma" problem for this homework assignment. However, if your code can address that issue, and you illustrate that in your testing, this is worth 25 choice points. To claim these choice points, put a link on your choice point plan page called [07J_yourusernamehere_H04], and on that page, explain that you are claiming the 25 choice points for solving the embedded comma problem, and write a brief explanation of how you solved it (with some code excerpts, and a link to your full code), on that page. To get the full 25 choice points, it is not enough just to write the code—you must also provide a clear explanation.

The program should try to open that file, and produce an appropriate error message if the file cannot be opened. The program should then read all the values in the file into some data structure that will allow you to search for values. For example, if your class is Movie, you might use an ArrayList object that contains Movie objects, i.e. ArrayList<Movie> object. There are other possible choices as well, including HashTable, Map, HashMap, and others. You may want to read the JavaDoc for those, and decide which is most appropriate. (Chapter 16 in HFJ may be very useful—though it is not part of the assigned reading, you may want to read ahead!)

For this assignment, you'll get full credit for the assignment itself if you choose a data structure that "solves the problem"—i.e. if your program "works". For that purpose, an ArrayList<Movie> (for example) will be fine.

Choice Point Opportunity (50 pts): If you can find a better data structure than ArrayList<Movie>, use that in your program, and write a clear and convincing argument that your choice is better on a wiki page called [07J_yourusernamehere_H04], you can earn up to 50 choice points. Again, it is not enough to do the coding. You must also write a clear and convincing argument. Spelling, grammar, formatting and clarity all count. These choice points may be shared by up to two people, working together (i.e. you both get the full points awarded---you don't have to "split them" between you). Again, Chapter 16 in HFJ—think about it!

You also need to follow the deployment model from H03

That is to say,

• You need to put all of your code into a package with an appropriate name—one that starts with edu.udel.cisc370.yourUserName
• You should set up a development environment with directories called src and html, and a build.xml file that creates subdirectories called build, temp, and javadoc etc as needed.
• You'll need to create an index.html file in the html subdirectory, similar to the one we used in H03.
• You'll need to make sure that you can use the ant dist target to deploy documentation and a distribution file for your project.

You'll need to adapt this model to some things that are different about this project, vs. H03. For example:

• You'll need to add a target to your build.xml file called "run" that uses the <java> Ant task to run your program.
  • You may need to nest <arg> elements inside this task.
  • Look in the Ant Documentation, under tasks, core tasks, then java for more info.
  • You can also find an example in this build.xml file from the lecture notes
• You'll need a subdirectory called data for storing your data files. This subdirectory should be included when you create the distribution (i.e. the browsable source, and the zip and tarballs).
  • You might need to modify the build.xml file to make this work, or this might "come for free". It will be up to you to figure out which of those is true.
• There will be a variety of things in the build.xml file that you'll have to modify
  • One example is the "test" that is specified under the <junit> task in the "test" target of the build.xml file.
  • Another is the value of the "projectName" property.
  • There may be many other examples, but those are for you to determine!

You may find that you need to read over the Ant Documentation, and Chapter 3 in the Java XP Cookbook textbook to actually be able to figure out how to modify the build.xml from H03 to be appropriate for H04. That's part of my plan—remember I said in class that I had coercive ways of getting you to read the textbook? Now one of those has been revealed!

Think carefully about your scripting strategy.

Re-read the notes from H02 about scripting before you do your script.

Hint: A good practice would be to incorporate your scripting stategy into an Ant target, so that when you go to script, the process is automated!

Finishing and Submitting

Submit your work on WebCT for the assignment marked H04. Upload and submit BOTH

• a single H04.txt file, which is a script of your programs.
• a single H04.tgz or H04.zip file, containing all of your java source code, and where applicable, sample input files. (It doesn't matter whether you submit a tgz or zip file—only one of the two is required.)

Your tar or zip files should NOT contain your .class files—but if you followed the build.xml example from H03 properly, your "ant dist" task should create a tarball and zip file automatically that is in the proper form.

In addition—go to the Wiki page named 07J_H04, and make sure that there is a link to your distribution on that page.

Reminder: Submit your code both in your .txt file and in your .tar file

A reminder: even though your distribution file contains your Java source, you are still required to "cat" this source code in your .txt file, and submit it in both forms. If you do not, you will lose points.

Here's why: Submitting both allows your TA the ability to

• print one file (your .txt. file) and have some place to write comments on all of your code
• compile and run your code without having to tediously extract it from your script file.

Of course, the two should agree—if they don't, that's also a potential grading deduction. So if you make changes to your code, be sure that you redo both your script, and your tar/zip file.

Next Steps: Re-read Chapter 1-6 in HFJ

As you read, consult the online reading notes. These contain

• additional comments by the instructor, which you will be responsible for on the exam
• sample exam questions
• opportunities for you to make your own comments (possibly for choice points)
• additional choice point opportunities

You may also want to apply the typo corrections from the errata to your book—i.e., actually write them in.

Grading Rubric (100 pts total)