CS360 Lab Homepage - Spring 2008

CS360 Lab Homepage -- Spring 2008
Dr. Huang's CS360 website
Dr. Straight's CS360 site
Dr. Plank's CS360 site
Dr. Beck's CS360 site

Teaching Assistant:

Brandon Langley
Office: Hydra Lab
Email langley@cs.utk.edu
Office hours: Tuesday and Thursday 12:30 - 1:30 Hydra Lab

Lab Information:

Lab 1 -- Fields/dllist/rbtree	Due date: September 2, 2008
Lab 2 -- Buffering	Due date: September 16, 2008
Lab 3 -- Fakemake	Due date: September 30, 2008
Lab 4 -- Jtar	Due date: October 14, 2008
Lab 5 -- Assembler	Due date: October 21, 2008
Lab 6 -- Jmalloc	Due date: November 4, 2008
Lab 7 -- Jsh	Due date: November 18, 2008
Lab 8 -- Threads	Due date: December 3, 2008

All labs are due by midnight (11:59PM) on the due date.

Lab Submission:

Use the 360_submit script to submit all labs (DO NOT EMAIL THEM TO ANY OF THE TAs)
Click here for detailed instructions on how to use the submission script
Make sure your source code adhears to the sytle guidelines below
A makefile must be submitted with every lab. If you do not know how to write one, take a look at the following:
Your makefile must have a "clean" function, i.e. typing "make clean" should result in the removal of the .o file(s) and the executable(s).
Only submit source code and a makefile. Points will be deducted if extra junk is submitted with a lab.
If you have any doubts whether a file should be submitted as part of your lab, ask one of the TAs. It is better to ask than to lose points for submitting extra files (or for not submitting all of the necessary files).

Lab Grading:

Late policy: We assess a 20% penalty for each day after you have missed the deadline.
One-Time Waiver: Every student is entitled to a waiver of late submission penalty for one lab assignment.
All lab grades will be emailed to your computer science account
For each lab, all grades will be emailed at the same time after all submissions have been graded.
If you think a mistake has been made, contact your grader for that lab. Either explain why you think a mistake has been made or arrange a time to meet with him
All grade appeals must be initiated within ONE WEEK after receiving your lab grade. It is not necessary that the grade appeal be taken care of within that week, but you must have at least contacted your TA and expressed your desire to appeal your grade

Source Code Style Guidelines:

All lab source code must adhere to the following style guidelines or points will be deducted. Please feel free to see any of the TAs if you have questions or are unsure your source code is conforming properly.

Source Code Commenting
Source Code for each lab needs to be commented. The cs360 TAs are only requiring that you use block level commenting. Comments should be used to give an overview of the code and provide additional information that is not readily understandable from the code itself. It is not necessary that you comment every line in your code. When documenting a program, say only what needs to be said without leaving important things out. We should be able to read only your comments and get a general idea of what your code is doing and how it is doing it.
Function Headers
All functions need to have a header that includes at least the following information:
- Function name
- A brief description of what the function is doing
- Inputs into the function
- Outputs from the function
- Return values and the conditions under which they will be returned
You are free and encouraged to include more information in your function headers, but the above five pieces of information need to be present.
Modularity / Function Decomposition
Most of your cs360 labs are going to require more lines of code than in previous courses and it is important to break your code into functions. A function should perform a specific task or a collection of small highly related tasks. Do not stuff all your code in the main function. Source code is easier to read and debug if it is divided into multiple functions.
Error Checking
The following need to be error checked in all labs:
- All command line arguments (did the user enter what you expected for each argument)
- Number of command line arguments (are there too many or not enough arguments)
- Return values of system calls
If an error occurred make sure to output a meaningful error message to either stdout or stderror and have your program exit gracefully.
Global Variables
Use global variables appropriately. This means that you should not under any circumstances make all of your variables global. In general, if using a local variable is possible, use it.