CS253 HW1: Character Properties                

Fortunately, this assignment has nothing to do with Pokémon.

Description                

Write a C++ program called stats.cc analyzes its standard input, displaying a summary of what it read. It tells you how many control characters it encountered, how many letters, how many numbers, etc.                 

Sample Run                

Here are several sample runs, where % is my prompt. Your output must match exactly.                 

% g++ -Wall stats.cc 
% echo | ./a.out
Control: 1
Letter: 0
Number: 0
Punctuation: 0
Symbol: 0
Space: 0
% echo 'Price: $42' | ./a.out
Control: 1
Letter: 5
Number: 2
Punctuation: 1
Symbol: 1
Space: 1
% echo "According to horses, 2+2=10" | ./a.out
Control: 1
Letter: 17
Number: 4
Punctuation: 1
Symbol: 2
Space: 3
% ./a.out <~cs253/pub/hamlet.txt 
Control: 10412
Letter: 136033
Number: 0
Punctuation: 8362
Symbol: 48
Space: 27713

ASCII-properties                

How do I know which characters are what? For example, the distinction between “Punctuation” and “Symbol” seems a bit arbitrary. Use the file ~cs253/pub/ASCII-properties. It contains 128 lines, like this:                 

    00 Cc
    01 Cc
    …
    1E Cc
    1F Cc
    20 Zs
    21 Po
    22 Po
    23 Po
    24 Sc
    …
    30 Nd
    31 Nd
    32 Nd
    …
    40 Po
    41 Lu
    42 Lu
    …

The first field is the two-digit hexadecimal ASCII value of the character. The second field is a two-letter property. The first letter is:                 

• C: Control
• L: Letter
• N: Number
• P: Punctuation
• S: Symbol
• Z: Space

The second letter is a finer description of the property. For example, Lu means “Letter, uppercase” and Sm means “Symbol, math”. Ignore the second character for this assignment (vague sense of foreboding).                 

Your program may open that file during execution, or you may incorporate the information in that file into your program. You may not assume that a copy of that file is present in your current directory.                 

Requirements                

• Do not process filenames from argv. Read standard input, via cin.
• You may not use C-style <stdio.h> or <cstdio> facilities, such as printf, scanf, fopen, and getchar.
  • Instead, use use C++ facilities such as cin, cout, and ifstream.
• There is no limit to the size of the input. None!
  • We might, for example, feed 40GB of data to your program.
  • Do not assume that all the data will fit in memory at once.
  • Count it as you go.
• Display all six counts, in the order shown above, even if zero.
• Your output must look exactly like the sample runs, given that input. Be precise about spelling—it’s not your place to alter what the output look like. Spaces count.
• The very first three lines of your source file must be comments, containing, in this order, one per line:
  • your name
  • the date
  • the purpose of this program
• The output must end with a newline.
  • Newlines do not separate lines—newlines terminate lines.
• No global variables.
• Your code must not leak memory.
• For readability, don’t use ASCII int constants (65) instead of char constants ('A') for printable characters.
• We will compile your program as shown above.
  • If that generates warnings, you will lose a point.
  • If that generates errors, you will lose all points.
• There is no automated testing/pre-grading/re-grading.
  • Test your code yourself. It’s your job.
  • Even if you only change it a little bit.
  • Even if all you do is add a comment.
• Don’t turn in a tar file or anything like that. Turn in a single C++ source file, called stats.cc.

If you have any questions about the requirements, ask. In the real world, your programming tasks will almost always be vague and incompletely specified. Same here.                 

How to submit your homework:                

Use web checkin, or Linux checkin:                 

    ~cs253/bin/checkin HW1 stats.cc

How to receive negative points:                

Turn in someone else’s work.