Assignment 6, Due at 11:59pm, Tue Oct 28

Objectives

What to do

You are to write a C++ program that does the following.
  1. It keeps reading user's inputs, line by line. Each input line the user types is supposed to be in one of the following forms: 
    new    listname [list of non-negative integers separated by space]
print  listname
remove listname [an int]
merge  listname1 listname2
sort   listname
exit
    where
    • exit tells your program to quit
    • listname is an identifier (you can just think of it as a valid C++ variable name). For example, a, _a34, counter are all valid variable names.
    • [list of non-negative integers separated by space] is ... a list of non-negative integers separated by spaces, such as 3 8 10 2 0
    • [an int] is any integer, such as 531
    • new tells your program to create a new linked list of Nodes of the following type 
      struct Node 
{
    int   key;                                                                  
    Node* next;                                                                 
    Node(int k=0, Node* n=NULL) : key(k), next(n) {};                           
};
      the linked list constains a list of Nodes whose keys are the integers provided in the input list, in the order given. You can then print out the list with the next command
    • print listname prints the list held by the list listname.
    • remove x takes a list and remove from the list all nodes whose key is equal to x. (delete those pointers!)
    • merge l1 l2 merges two lists that are already sorted into one, destroying l2 and keep the result in l1. If the input lists are not already sorted then an exception is thrown and the error is reported to the screen.
    • sort listname sorts the linked list held by listname. You will have to implement the merge sort algorithm. (See the sorting lectures for more information.) This time, however, you are sorting linked lists so you'll need to understand the key idea of merge sort to adapt to the linked list case.

      Unlike in the vector/array sorting case, here you must not modify any key in the nodes, in particular do not swap keys. Sorting is done by manipulating the pointers (head and next and so on). There are two reasons for this. As stated above, this is a pointer manipultion exercise -- a super important skill to master. Second, in practice there are cases where it is not a good idea to move the content of the nodes (say, they are on disks) which can be massive. Modifying the pointers are much cheaper oprations.

    • The real task: I have written the program already, leaving a few functions blank. Your task is to understand my code and implement the three functions UBList.remove(), UBList.merge(), UBList.sort(). Please do make sure that you understand the code base completely! In particular, you should understand what each of the data members and function members (which have been implemented) does.
    • First, to get a sense of what the program is supposed to do, please download its binary named listmanip. The binary can run under timberlake as usual. You can get it by typing 
      wget http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~hungngo/classes/2014/Fall/250/assignments/listmanip
chmod 700 listmanip
      Here is a sample run of listmanip: 
      [HQN@mymachine] $ listmanip
UBList: practice manipulating linked lists
> new a =  1 6 3 5 8 1 2 8 5 3
> print a
[10 NODES] : 1 6 3 5 8 1 2 8 5 3 
> new b = 2 6 2 6 2
> print b
[5 NODES] : 2 6 2 6 2 
> remove a 5
> print a
[8 NODES] : 1 6 3 8 1 2 8 3 
> sort a
> print a
[8 NODES] : 1 1 2 3 3 6 8 8 
> sort b
> print b
[5 NODES] : 2 2 2 6 6 
> merge a b
> print a
[13 NODES] : 1 1 2 2 2 2 3 3 6 6 6 8 8 
> print b
[0 NODES] : 
> exit

      To download the code base, click here, or from your timberlake account type 

      wget http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~hungngo/classes/2014/Fall/250/assignments/A6.tar
      It is a tarred file. You can untar it using 
      tar -xvf A6.tar
      After those two commands, you'll see a directory named A6 which contains all source files, including a Makefile. You can already compile and run it! It does new and print already. Compile with make, and run it to see what's going on.
    • Finally, the only file you can modify is UBList.cpp. You are to supply the body of the functions that have YOUR CODE GOES HERE in the body. What each function is supposed to do is described in the comments inside the function's body in UBList.cpp. Do not add any auxiliary functions.
    • When you submit your assignment, you will only submit one file: UBList.cpp. We will copy this file to a directory containing all other files and compile and grade. Don't modify any other files. This is to illustrate how you work within a code base that someone else has written.

How to submit

submit_cse250 UBList.cpp
Note that the above line only works if you logged in to your CSE account and the file is there. All previous things can be done at home, as long as you remember to upload the final file to your CSE account and run the submit script from there.

Grading