1. Literature

We will mainly be using Algorithms 4/E. by Robert Sedgewick & Kevin Wayne: Algorithms 4/E. Author site. Addison Wesley, 2011, Edition 4. (ISBN 9780321573513) Book site. (You need a copy of this book.)

coverAlgorithms4
Figure 1. Algorithms 4. ed.

Course info

Additional resources

2. Alda Run

When debugging and testing, a useful toString() is invaluable.

  • In the teachers tests, we invoke toString() when producing error messages on failed tests, or even before an assert is done.

  • Sometimes this object.toString() triggers a null pointer exception. It makes finding problems in your code really hard, if the tool (toString) that is used to do that triggers null pointer exception.

  • Not overwriting toString would be the better choice, because the default never throws exceptions.

  • To test if your toString is the culprit, comment it out and re-run your tests.

  • If you want a toString and your class has nullable fields, wrap such field in Objects.toString(nullableField); like
    …​."nullableFleld = "+Objects.toString(nullableField) +…​.

  • The nullable field should of course have a well behaved toString() too.

The test results of the students assigment, including test and optional coverage reports as well as the teachers tests can be found per topic in the following places:

2.1. Alda Run Rules

All testing as described below is on best effort basis. Things may break when running alien (that is: your) code.

The student repositories are regularly checked for a new code revision.

  1. The student code (and test-code) is compiled. On any compiler error, the compiler output is published then STOP.

  2. The student tests are run on the students code. If there are errors, the error report is published then STOP.

  3. A coverage test run is performed with the code and test code above. The resulting coverage report is published.

  4. If all tests are green in the above and the code coverage lies above the threshold, the teachers tests are run.

    1. The teacher’s tests are combined with the student’s code and compiled. On any compiler error, the the compiler output is published then STOP.

    2. The teacher’s tests are run on the students code. If there are any errors, the error report is published then STOP.

    3. If there are no errors in the previous step, a coverage test run is done and a coverage report is published.

The goal of the exercise is to pass the teacher’s tests with no errors. The winner is that student that meets the goal in the earliest date-time. The date-time used is the svn commit time.