CProjects - six short assignments to be implemented in the C programming language
CSSE 221 – Fundamentals of Software Development Honors
Fall 2008–2009

Work on these exercises individually, but be quick to get help as needed from your student assistants, your instructor and your classmates.

CProject: ArrayListOfDogs (resizable arrays of structures)

Overview

This project integrates what you have learned about:

• dynamic arrays, including malloc and free.
• structures, in particular, pointers to structure objects.

Instructions

1. Checkout from your individual repository the project called ArrayListOfDogs.
2. Read all of the code in the project so far, noting especially:

   • In ArrayListOfDogs.c:
     • What main   does.
     • What the other (stubbed) functions in main   are supposed to do. (DON'T implement them yet!)
     • The fact that ArrayListOfDogs.c   #includes ArrayListOfDogs.h.
   • In ArrayListOfDogs.h:
     • How the compiler directives prevent the code from being compiled more than once.
     • The presence of the prototypes.
     • The ArrayListOfDog structure that you will fill in. (DON'T fill it in yet!)
   • In Dog.h:
     • How the compiler directives prevent the code from being compiled more than once.
     • The same Dog structure that you implemented in your previous Dog exercise.
     • Prototypes for the same Dog functions that you implemented in your previous Dog exercise.
     • Prototypes for two functions that you did NOT implement in your previous Dog exercise:
       • Dog* constructRandomDog()
       • char* randomString(int size)

       These do what their names and signatures suggest.

   • In Dog.c:
     • The fact that Dog.c   #includes Dog.h.
     • Implementations of the Dog functions that are very similar to the implementations that you wrote in your previous Dog exercise.
     • The use of rand() in constructRandomDog. Make sure you understand rand().
     • The fact that for strings of length N, the code malloc's N+1 characters -- the extra character is for the terminating \0.
     • The use of the strcpy and strlen functions in constructDog.

3. Run main, noting that it compiles and runs but prints nonsense values (because of the stubs).
4. In ArrayListOfDogs.h, fill in the fields of the structure called ArrayListOfDogs so that has the following fields:

   • A dynamic array of pointers to Dogs.
   • An integer size for the array.
     • The size is how many values are actually stored in the array. Your constructor will initialize the size to 0.
   • An integer capacity for the array.
     • The capacity is how many values the array has been allocated to store. Your constructor will initialize the capacity to 5.

5. Get your work so far graded, by your instructor, student assistant or a newly-promoted student assistant.
   • The grader should refer to the written answer key.
6. Write and test the stubbed functions in ArrayListOfDogs.c, per their comments.
   • As always, write-and-test in small steps.
   • Make sure your internal list grows as specified.
   • Make sure that you free the now-unused space when your internal list grows.
   • Here is what my solution produces as output when the loop in main   is changed to run 22 (not 6) times.
7. Get your work so far graded, by your instructor, student assistant or a newly-promoted student assistant.
   • The grader should refer to the written answer key.
8. Turn in your work by committing your project to your individual repository.