Problem Set 3

due by 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, February 13rd, 2024

General Guidelines

• In your work on this and all subsequent problem sets, you may not use any of Java’s built-in collection classes (e.g., ArrayList) unless a problem explicitly states that you may do so. We will be writing and using our own collection classes, and using the built-in classes will keep you from fully learning the key concepts of the course.

• More generally, you may not use any built-in class that we have not covered in lecture. Classes that you may use (unless specifically directed otherwise) include String, Character, Scanner, and Math.

• You are welcome to use the Arrays.toString() method when testing the methods that your write. However, you may not use this method or any other methods from the Arrays class in the methods themselves unless a problem explicitly states that you may do so.

• You may freely use code from the class website, assigned readings, and lecture notes (unless specifically directed otherwise), as long as you cite the source in your comments. However, you may never use code from anywhere else (e.g., elsewhere on the web, or code obtained from another person). This will be considered plagiarism and penalized accordingly. See our collaboration policies for more details.

• You should continue to follow the guidelines that we gave you in the prior problem sets

Preliminaries

In your work on this assignment, make sure to abide by the collaboration policies of the course.

If you have questions while working on this assignment, please come to office hours, post them on Piazza, or email instructor.

Make sure to follow the instructions outlined at the end of Part I and Part II when submitting your assignment.

Part I

34 points total

Creating the necessary file

Problems in Part I will be completed in a single PDF file. To create it, you should do the following:

1. Open the template that we have created for these problems in Google Docs: ps3_partI

2. Select File->Make a copy..., and save the copy to your Google Drive using the name ps3_partI.

3. Add your work to this file.

4. Once you have completed all of these problems, choose File->Download->PDF document, and save the PDF file on your machine. The resulting PDF file (ps3_partI.pdf) is the one that you will submit. See the submission guidelines at the end of Part I.

Problem 1: A Temperature class

12 points total; individual-only

Given the Temperature class defined here.

1. Consider a potential non-static method named convert that takes a String as parameter and would convert the temperature of a Temperature object to the temperature in the scale given by the String. For example, if a Temperature object stores the temperature 0.0 in celsius, calling the convert method with the input fahrenheit would change the temperature value to 32.0. Because the method only needs to change the internals of the called object, it doesn’t need to – and should not! – return a value.

   1. (1 point) What type of instance method would convert be, an accessor or mutator?

   2. (2 points) Give an appropriate method header for this method, making sure to take into account the fact that the method is non-static. You do not need to define the body of the method.

2. Now consider a potential non-static method named colderThan that takes another Temperature object and determines if the called Temperature object (i.e., the one on which the method is invoked) has a lower temperature than the other Temperature object – returning true if the called object has a higher temperature and false otherwise.

   1. (1 point) What type of instance method would colderThan be, an accessor or mutator?
   2. (2 points) Give an appropriate method header for this method, making sure to take into account the fact that the method is non-static. You do not need to define the body of the method.

3. Consider the following client code — i.e., code from another class that uses a Temperature object:

   Temperature t1 = new Temperature(5.0, "celsius");
   System.out.println(t1.temperature +" degrees "+ t1.scale);
   t1.temperature *= 2; // Make it twice as hot :-)
   

   Because our Temperature class employs appropriate encapsulation, this code fragment will not compile.

   1. (2 point) Explain what problems are present in the code fragment that prevent it from compiling.
   2. (2 points) Rewrite the fragment to eliminate those problems while maintaining the intended functionality of the original version. Don’t make any unnecessary changes.
   3. (2 points) Implement a toString method for the Temperature class. For exemple, after running the previous code fragment, the statement System.out.println(t1); should print "10.0 degrees celcius".

Problem 2: A class that needs your help

8 points total; individual-only

Consider the following class, which is intended to serve as a blueprint for objects that encapsulate two pieces of data: a seat code (A, B, C, D, E, or F) and seat row, which must be an integer number from 1 to 30, inclusive.

public class FlightTicket {
    // Fields to store seat code and seat row
    private String seatCode;
    private int seatRow;

    // Method to check if the seat is a window seat (A or F)
    public static boolean isWindowSeat() {
        return seatCode.equals("A") || seatCode.equals("F");
    }
}

1. (2 points) The method isWindowSeat is supposed to check if the seatCode corresponds to a window seat. However, when we attempt to compile this class, we get error messages that indicate that isWindowSeat cannot access the fields. In section 2-1 of your copy of ps3_partI (see above), explain why the method cannot access the fields, and what change or changes are needed to fix things. (Hint: What is another name for an instance method?)

2. (6 points) This class does not employ appropriate encapsulation. In section 2-1 of ps3_partI, revise the class to prevent direct access to the FlightTicket objects while allowing indirect access through appropriate methods. Your revised version should include:

   • the changes that you proposed above in your answer for 2-1
   • whatever steps are needed to prevent direct access to the fields
   • accessor methods that can be used to obtain the value of each field
   • mutator methods that can be used to change the value of each field. Attempts to assign an invalid value should produce an IllegalArgumentException.
   • a constructor that takes a seatCode and a seatRow and initializes the fields using those values. Attempts to assign an invalid value should produce an IllegalArgumentException. Take advantage of the error-checking code that is already present in the mutator methods that you defined for changing the values of the fields.

   No other methods are required.

Problem 3: Static vs. non-static

14 points total; individual-only

When designing a blueprint class, we have seen that we can include both static and non-static variables. Static variables (also known as class variables) belong to the class as a whole. Non-static variables (also known as instance variables or fields) belong to individual objects of the class; each object gets its own copy of those variables.

We have also seen that a blueprint class can include both static and non-static methods. A non-static method is required if the method must have access to the fields of a particular called object. However, if a method doesn’t need a called object – i.e., if all of the information that it needs is supplied by its parameters or by the static variables of the class – then we typically make it static. Non-static methods must be called on an object of the class. Static methods may be called on an object of the class, but it is better style to call them using the name of the class instead.

Imagine that we are defining a class called BMI that will serve as a blueprint for objects that encapsulate the body mass index (BMI) based on height and weight. For example, to create a BMI object that represents the BMI of a person of height 5.5in and weight 150.0lb, we would write:

BMI b = new BMI(5.5, 150.0);

An initial implementation of this class can be found here.

1. (4 points) Imagine that we want to modify the existing BMI class so that each BMI object has an associated category — a String that is either one of the following, according to value returned by the calculateBMI() method:

   • "underweight", if calculateBMI() < 18.5,
   • "normal", if 18.5 <= calculateBMI() < 25 ,
   • "overweight", if 25 <= calculateBMI() < 30 , or
   • "obese", if calculateBMI() >= 30.

   In addition, we want to keep track of how many BMI objects have been created for each of the four categories. What variables (static and/or non-static) would we need to add to the BMI class as part of our implementation of these changes?

   In section 3-1 of ps3_partI, we have included a table that you should complete to describe the necessary variables. For each of your proposed variables, you should specify:

   • its type and name (make it descriptive!)
   • whether it will be static or non-static
   • a brief description of its purpose, and why it needs to be static or non-static.

   As an example, we have filled in the first row of the table to describe the existing height field. You should add the descriptions of your proposed new variables. You may not need all of the rows in the table. Create more rows if necessary.

2. (4 points) Now let’s say that we want to add a method called updateBMI that takes two parameters: the height and the weight of an user.

   1. What type of method should updateBMI be — static or non-static? Explain briefly.
   2. Suppose we created a new BMI object; however, upon noticing that the object was initialized with inaccurate height and weight values, we opted to revise its fields, potentially resulting in modifications to the constant variables within the BMI class. In this scenario, when the updateBMI method is called, what alterations, if any, will the method need to make to the existing fields stored within the BMI object? Be as specific as possible.

The remaining sections of this problem consider two other new methods for the BMI class – methods that do not involve the BMI’s category.

3. (3 points) Now let’s say that we want to add a method called computeWHR, that computes the waist-hip ratio (WHR), used as an indicator or measure of health. It takes two parameters of type double – one called waistCircumference and another called hipCircumference – and it returns waistToHipRatio as a ratio of waist measurement divided by the hip measurement. For example, a person with 30-inch waist and 38-inch hips has WHR of about 0.79.

   1. What type of method should computeWHR be — static or non-static? Explain briefly.
   2. Give an example of how you would call this method from outside the BMI class. If you need a BMI object to call the method, assume that the variable b represents that object, and that the object has already been created. However, you should only use b if doing so is absolutely necessary.

4. (3 points) Finally, let’s say that we want to add a new method called loseWeight. It takes a parameter of type double called amount and decreases the weight of a BMI object by the specified amount.

   1. What type of method should loseWeight be — static or non-static? Explain briefly.
   2. Give an example of how you would call this method from outside the BMI class. If you need a BMI object to call the method, assume that the variable b represents that object, and that the object has already been created. However, you should only use b if doing so is absolutely necessary.

Submitting your work for Part I

Note: There are separate instructions at the end of Part II that you should use when submitting your work for that part of the assignment.

Submit your ps3_partI.pdf file using these steps:

1. If you still need to create a PDF file, open your ps3_partI file on Google Drive, choose File->Download->PDF document, and save the PDF file in your ps3 folder.

2. Login to Gradescope by clicking the link in the left-hand navigation bar, and click on the box for CS 112.

3. Click on the name of the assignment (PS 3: Part I) in the list of assignments on Gradescope. You should see a pop-up window labeled Submit Assignment. (If you don’t see it, click the Submit or Resubmit button at the bottom of the page.)

4. Choose the Submit PDF option, and then click the Select PDF button and find the PDF file that you created. Then click the Upload PDF button.

5. You should see a question outline along with thumbnails of the pages from your uploaded PDF. For each question in the outline:

   • Click the title of the question.
   • Click the page(s) on which your work for that question can be found.

   As you do so, click on the magnifying glass icon for each page and doublecheck that the pages that you see contain the work that you want us to grade.

6. Once you have assigned pages to all of the questions in the question outline, click the Submit button in the lower-right corner of the window. You should see a box saying that your submission was successful.

Part II Programming Problems

66 points total

Problem 4: MyArray: A simple class for manipulating a Java Array

66 points total; individual-only

For this problem, write a class named MyArray that provides a series of instance (i.e. non static) methods which will allow a client program to manipulate an array of integers.

The class MyArray will act as a custom data type (i.e. Blueprint class) which you can use to create objects, each one containing its own array of integers that can be manipulated by calling the instance methods as defined by the public interface of the class.

Begin by downloading the file: MyArray.java, which sets-up the skeleton of your class. Note that the MyArray class should contain the following data members and each should be inialized with the specified default values provided in the skeleton code:

• SENTINEL, a class level read-only variable used to control user input
• DEFAULT_SIZE, a class level read-only variable used to establish the size (i.e. length) of the array when the object is initialized with theno-arg constructor
• LOWER, a class level read-only variable that represents the smallest possible integer that can be entered by the user
• UPPER, a class level read-only variable that represents the largest possible integer that can be entered by the user
• arr, an instance variable which reference the array of integers
• numElements, an instance variable to store how many integers the array currently contains

As you can see the no-argument constructor has been provided. This constructor creates the array of integers and assigns the address of the array to the data member arr. It also initializes the data member numElements to zero, as no elements have been added to the array.

Add the following data members as instance variables of the class:

• sum, represents the sum of all the elements in the array
• min, represents the minimum value of all elements in the array
• max, represents the maximum value of all the elements in the array
• avg, represents the average of all the elements in the array

These data members should be appropriately initialized in the constructors and updated as necessary.

Implement the following methods:

1. Write a custom constructor that creates an array of integers based on the input argument passed to n.

   ______ MyArray( int n ) {
       ....
   
   }
   

2. Write a custom constructor that creates the object’s array based on the array of integers passed to the method. This constructor should create a new array of integers initialized from the array passed to the method.

   ______ MyArray( int[] arr ) {
       ....
   
   }
   

This constructor should initialize all the statistics for the object. (Hint: This constructor should create a new array that is of the same size (i.e. length) as the array passed, but only includes the elements of the array passed that are within the specified UPPER and LOWER bound.)

3. Write a method that prompts the user to enter integer elements (within the range specified by LOWER and UPPER bound) and store them into the object’s array. The user may enter up to as many integer values as the array can hold or less. If the user does not want to fill all the positions of the array, they can specify end of input by entering the sentinel value.

   _______ void inputElements() {
       ....
   
   }
   

Assuming the length of the array is 20, and a LOWER and UPPER bound of 10 and 100 respecively, a sample run of this method is:

    Enter up to `20` integers between `10` and `100` inclusive. Enter -999` to end user input: 5 4 3 2 12 19 23 37 -999

Note that this assumes that the array can hold 20 elements. Calling the toString method on the object after user input would display the following array of elements:

    [12, 19, 23, 37]

If the user enters an integer outside of the specified LOWER and UPPER bounds, that element should be rejected and not included in the array. Likewise, if the user enters more than the number of elements the array can hold, the remaining elements should not be accepted.

You can assume that each time this method is called, it will add to the elements currently in the array.

(Hint: This method implies that the number of elements in the array does not necessarily have to be the same as the length of the array. Think of the purpose of the data member numElements.)

4. Write a class level method to determine if the integer passed to the method is within the bounds as specified by the class variables of the class, LOWER and UPPER:

   ________ boolean validInput( int num ) {
       ....
   }
   

5. Write a method that creates and returns a String representing the contents of the array.

   ________ String toString() {
       ....
   
   }
   

The toString method should create a proper array representation of the elements. For example, if arr references an array of integers containing the elements: 34, 88, 27, the toString method should return the following string representation:

    [34, 88, 27]

Please note that the string representation should only contain however many elements have been added to the array (i.e. numElements).

The empty array is denoted as: [].

6. Write a method that computes the expected statistics of the array, specifically the minimum, maximum, sum, average of all the elements contained in the array. These statistics should be stored internally in the object in the corresponding data members.

   ________ void computeStatistics() {
       ....
   
   }
   

(Hint: At any given point, the statistcs should accurately reflect the integer elements of the array. This implies that this method needs to be called every time the internals of the array change.)

7. Write a method that returns the position of the last occurence of the number passed to the method.

   ________ int lastIndex(int n) {
       ....
   
   }
   

If the argument value passed to parameter n is not currently an integer in the array, the method should return -1.

8. Write a method that allows you to insert a new integer at a specified position within the current range of elements of the array.

   ________ boolean insert(int n, int position) {
       ....
   
   }
   

The method should return true if the number was inserted in the array. If the position specified is not within the current range of elements of the array (i.e. 0 to numElements) or if the array is currently full and a new element cannot be inserted, then the method should return false.

Example: Given an array of length 10 that contains 4 elements in positions 0, 1, 2 and 3 then,

• insert(16, 7); // is not valid as the position is outside the current range of elements
• insert(16, 0); // is valid and the resulting range is [16, 12, 14, 11, 27]
• insert(21, 4); // is valid and the resulting range is [16, 12, 14, 11, 21, 27]
• insert(32, 6); // is valid and the resulting range is [16, 12, 14, 11, 21, 27, 32]

At the end of these three calls to method insert it is expected that numElements is 7.

If an array is empty (i.e. numElements is 0), the current range of elements is also zero therefore, a call to insert into position 0 should be valid.

This method should not create a new array. The new integer should be inserted into the array currently referenced by arr.

(Hint: Think carefully about what an insert into the array implies. The physical structure of the array cannot change, therefore what must happen if a value is to be inserted somewhere in the middle of the range of elements without losing any of the existing elements.)

9. Write a method to remove the smallest element in the array.

   _________ int removeSmallest() {
       ....
   }
   

This method should return the element removed. If no element is removed, the method should return -1. You can assume that we will not test this method on an array that has multiple smallest elements.

(Hint: Remember that the physical structure of the array cannot change, therefore we must simulate an element of the array being removed. Think how this can be accomplished.

10. Write a method to grow the physical array by some additional size n.

    ________ boolean grow(int n) {
        ....
    
    }
    

This method should grow the length of the array of the object this method is called on by n positions. This method must also preserve all the elements that are currently in the array. In other words, growing the array cannot lose any elements that are currently stored in the array.

(Hint: Remember that the physical structure of the array cannot change, therefore we must simulate growing the array. Think how this can be accomplished.)

11. Write a method to shrink the physical array to be exactly the same length as the number of elements currently in the array.

    _________ boolean shrink() {
        ....
    }
    

This method should return true if the array could be decreased in size or false``if the length of the array is already the same as the number of elements in the array, or if the array is empty (i.e., numElements ==0`).

(Hint: Remember that the physical structure of the array cannot change, therefore we must simulate shrinking the array. Think how this can be accomplished.)

12. Write accessor methods for each of the private data members.

    public _________ getSum() {
        ....
    }
    
    public _________ getMin() {
        ....
    }
    
    public _________ getMax() {
        ....
    }
    
    public _________ getAvg() {
        ....
    }
    
    public ________ getNumElements() {
        ....
    }
    
    public ________ getArrLength() {
        // return the current physical size (i.e., length) of the object's array
    }
    

(Hint: getter methods return the value of the data member they are accessing. Think what the return type for each method should be.

    // The following accessor method is needed by the autograder to test the contents of the
    // the object's array.
    // 
    // In general, however, it is not good practice to return a reference to an array as
    // arrays are mutable and therefore can be changed. You do not want external code to be able to
    // alter the contents of an array that is private to an object.
    //
    public _________ getArr() {
        ....
    }

13. Write a method named computeHistogram that creates and returns s string which is a histogram like asterisk reprenstation of the array. Example, assuming a LOWER=1 and UPPER=20 bound that allows the object’s array to contain the following elements:

    {5, 4, 2, 3, 12}
    

    This method would return a string that if output, would display as follows:

    *****
    ****
    **
    ***
    ************
    

Submitting Your Work

• You have read the Java Style Guide (linked on Course page)and followed all guidelines regarding format, layout, spaces, blank lines, and comments;
• ensured that the signature of the methods specified in the assignment have not been changed.
• You have verified that your programs satisfy all the performance tests in the templates;

Submitting your work for Part II

You should submit only the following files:

• MyArray.java

Here are the steps:

1. Click on the name of the assignment in the list of assignments. You should see a pop-up window with a box labeled DRAG & DROP. (If you don’t see it, click the Submit or Resubmit button at the bottom of the page.)

2. Add your files to the box labeled DRAG & DROP. You can either drag and drop the files from their folder into the box, or you can click on the box itself and browse for the files.

3. Click the Upload button.

4. You should see a box saying that your submission was successful. Click the (x) button to close that box.

5. The autograder will perform some tests on your files. Once it is done, check the results to ensure that the tests were passed. If one or more of the tests did not pass, the name of that test will be in red, and there should be a message describing the failure. Based on those messages, make any necessary changes. Feel free to ask a staff member for help.

   Note: You will not see a complete Autograder score when you submit. That is because additional tests for at least some of the problems will be run later, after the final deadline for the submission has passed. For such problems, it is important to realize that passing all of the initial tests does not necessarily mean that you will ultimately get full credit on the problem. You should always run your own tests to convince yourself that the logic of your solutions is correct.

6. If needed, use the Resubmit button at the bottom of the page to resubmit your work. Important: Every time that you make a submission, you should submit all of the files for that Gradescope assignment, even if some of them have not changed since your last submission.

7. Near the top of the page, click on the box labeled Code. Then click on the name of each file to view its contents. Check to make sure that the files contain the code that you want us to grade.