CS2106 Lab 1 - Leveling Up on C Solution

Introduction

This course assumes that you have basic knowledge of C programming, and this lab will build on those basics to introduce you to some intermediate and advanced topics, including dividing your work up into multiple source files, creating pointers to functions, and using dynamic memory to create arbitrarily large data structures (subject to available memory).

Instructions


a. A written component. You should fill all your answers in the file AxxxxxxY.docx, renaming it to your actual student number.
b. If you are submitting with a partner, decide who will submit, and rename the file AxxxxxxY.docx to the student number of the person submitting.
g. Download the Lab1Programs.zip file, and transfer it to sunfire, then to one of the xcne compute cluster servers. You should do your labs on these compute cluster servers and all demos will be done there.
h. Unzip Lab1Programs.zip to get the source codes for the rest of the lab. You will see three directories labeled part1, part2 and part3, corresponding to the parts shown below.



1. Let’s Modularize!

Switch to the “part1” directory.

If you had taken CS2100 Computer Organization, you would have learnt to write all your C code in a single source file. This can be very undesirable in large projects that have hundreds of thousands of lines of code. In such projects it makes sense to break up our source code into many modules that group related functions together.

Here we will look at how to break your code up into modules and link them together, by creating a library to maintain a circular linked list in an array.

a. Using your favorite editor, open “queue.c” and examine the code.

(Quick note: The circular queue as implemented uses a “lazy” check for a full queue, resulting in the queue storing one element less than its declared size. We will ignore this fact.)

Question 1.1 (1 mark)

At the start of queue.c you will see:

#include <stdio.h>
#include “queue.h”

What is the difference between using < and > vs “” (double quotes) in our #include statement?


Question 1.2 (1 mark)

You will notice that _queue, _front and _rear are declared as “static”. What does the “static” declaration mean?



b. Using your favorite editor again, open “queue.h” and you will see just a single line:



Open “lab1p1.c” and you will see:



Notice how MAX_Q_SIZE is brought in from queue.h via the #include statement. Notice also that unlike Python there is no concept of a namespace in C.

c. We will now compile our program. To do so, switch to the directory containing queue.c, queue.h and lab1p1.c and type:

gcc queue.c lab1p1.c -o lab1p1

(Note: When you run this program, you will notice that the last 2 elements cannot be inserted as the queue is full, and when reading the last 2 elements cannot be read because the queue is empty. This is normal and it’s meant to test that the queue can detect full and empty conditions)


Notice however that despite the warnings, the executable file lab1p1 was still produce. This program will fill the queue with numbers from 0.0 to 0.8 (0.9 and 1.0 will exceed the queue capacity and not be enqueued), then read back the values it stored.


Question 1.4 (1 mark)

You will notice that in the second “for” loop we get back incorrect values from the queue. Explain why. (Hint: It has something to do with the warnings in Question 3.)


d. We will now fix the problems in Questions 1.3 and 1.4 by creating “function prototypes” in “queue.h”. Briefly, a function prototype specifies the name, number and types of parameters and return type of a function.

Let’s suppose we have a function named “proto_example” that looks like this:

char proto_example(int x, float y, double z) {
... Body of function ...

}

Then its prototype will look like this:

char proto_example(int, float, double);

Notice two things about the prototype:

i. We do not need to specify the names of the parameters, only the types.
ii. The prototype definition ends with a semicolon.

Function prototypes should always be defined before the function is called at any point in your C program. Since in lab1p1.c we will be calling enq and deq inside main, we need to create their prototypes before main.

There are at least three ways to do this:

i. Define the prototypes inside queue.c. This is just silly since we don’t
#include queue.c into lab1p1.c and thus main will never see the prototypes.
ii. Define the prototypes inside lab1p1.c before main. This will work, but what if you also want to use queue.c elsewhere?
iii. Define the prototypes inside queue.h, which will be #include into lab1p1.c (and anywhere else you want to use enq and deq). Now THAT makes sense!


Question 1.5 (1 mark)

Add the function prototypes inside queue.h. Recompile lab1p1.c and run it. Are there anymore warnings? Does the second for-loop now get the correct values?


e. Finally let’s work with function pointers. Function pointers are, as their name suggests, pointers to functions, and they’re particularly useful in implementing “callbacks”, also known as “delegates” in Objective-C, or “decorators” in Python (although the callback mechanisms in these two languages is completely different from C function pointers.)

Let’s begin first by seeing how to declare a function pointer. Let’s begin first by declaring:

int *func(int x) {
…
}

This, as we know, is a function that returns a pointer to an “int” and takes an “int” as argument. Contrast this example with:

int (*fptr)(int);

Now this is a pointer to a function that returns an “int”, and takes an int as an argument. Notice that a function pointer looks similar to a prototype, except that it has an additional bracket around the function name.

Open “lab1p1a.c” and you will see some examples of how to use function pointers:



Here we see “fptr” declared as a pointer to a function returning “int”, and “pfptr” as a pointer to a function returning int *. We also see two functions “func” and “func2”, one returning and int, and another returning an int *.

In main, we assign func to fptr and func2 to pfptr. Notice how, like arrays, the name of a function is also the pointer to the function itself, and thus we can just do:

fptr = func;
pfptr = func2;

And NOT:

fptr = &func;
pfptr = &func2;

We will now extend our “queue.c” and “queue.h” to build a reduce function. Open queue.c again and you will see some functions related to function pointers near the bottom of the file.

Function Purpose
clear_sum() Clears the _res variable by setting it to 0.
clear_prod() Clears the _res variable by setting it to 1.
sum(double x) Adds x to _res
prod(double x) Multiplies _res by x
reduce() Calls clear_sum() to set _res to 0, then calls sum to sum over all members of the queue and returns the result in res.

Load up testr.c, and you will see some code the fill up the queue with 1.0 to 9.0, then a call to reduce() to sum up the contents of the queue, finally printing out the results. There are also two commented-out lines for you to test your flex_reduce function later.

Now do the following:

i. Add in the prototypes for clear_sum, clear_prod, sum, prod and reduce to queue.h
ii. Compile testr.c and queue.c using:

gcc testr.c queue.c -o testr

iii. Run testr:

./testr

iv. You will see an output like this:


v. Now we want to create a new function called “flex_reduce” that takes in two arguments: clear and op, which are pointers to functions to clear _res, and to operate on the elements of the queue.

vi. The pseudo-code for flex_reduce is shown here:

double flex_reduce(clear, op) { clear(); // Clear _res to either 0 or 1 for every element in queue:
Call op with element.

return _res;
}

Implement the flex_reduce function in queue.c, and add its prototype to queue.h.

Now uncomment the two statements in testr.c to test flex_reduce, and compile your program.



2. Throw It On the Stack!

Switch to the “part2” directory.

In this section we will put aside modularizing C code for a while (we will return to it in section 3), and explore the life-time of local variables, and what it means.

a. Use your favorite editor and open lab1p2a.c. You will see:
i. Four integer pointer variables p1 to p4 declared as global variables.
ii. A function called “fun1” that has two parameters x and y, and two local variables w and z. It sets p1 to p4 to point to w, x, y and z respectively, and prints out the addresses of p1 to p4, w, x, y and z, and their values.
iii. A function called fun2 that takes 3 arguments f, g and h, and also prints out the values of w, x, y and z using pointers p1 to p4.

Compile and run lab1p2a using:

gcc lab1p2a.c –o lab1p2a
./lab1p2a


Question 2.1 (1 mark)

Record your observations in the tables below, writing “G” or “L” in the global or local column depending on whether the variable is a global or local one, and the address of the variables as shown when you run lab1p2a. (You can classify function parameters as “L” or “G” based on whether you think they are globally accessible or not.)

Variable Global / Local Address
p1
p2
p3
p4
w
x
y
z




Question 2.2 (1 mark)
Based on your answers to Question 2.1, Where do you think (stack, data, text or heap) each of these variables are located?

Variable Location (S, D, T or H)
p1
p2
p3
p4
w
x
y
z

How did you infer these answers, from your answers to Question 2.1?


Question 2.3 (1 mark)


However notice that w remains unchanged when we exit fun1, and even after we call fun2. Explain why this is so.
Question 2.4 (1 mark)

In Question 1.2 we saw global variables being declared as “static”, and here we see a local variable “w” being declared as “static”. What does it mean to declare a local variable to be “static”, versus a global variable?

Use your favorite editor now to open lab1p2b.c. We see a function called “accumulate” that attempts to accumulate values passed to it. Meanwhile the for-loop in main passes in 1 to 10 to accumulate, which SHOULD produce the following result:



Now compile and run lab1p2b.c using:

gcc lab1p2b.c -o lab1p2b
./lab1p2b

You will see we get a wrong result; accumulate doesn’t accumulate values passed to it instead just prints out these values:



Question 2.5 (1 mark)

Fix lab1p2b.c to produce the correct result, without declaring any new variables, and without using any global variables. Summarize your change(s) here and explain why it works.


3. Thinking Dynamically! (Directory: part3)

Switch to the “part3” directory.


a. Creating and using Dynamic Variables

Open lab1p3a.c with your favorite editor and examine the code. You will notice several things:

i. We do #include <stdlib.h>. This is to bring in the malloc and free function prototypes.
ii. The sizeof(.) function returns the number of bytes of the type specified as its argument. So sizeof(int) returns the number of bytes in an int.
iii. The malloc(.) function takes one argument; the number of bytes to allocate. The malloc(.) function then returns a pointer to the memory that was allocated.
iv. The malloc(.) function’s return type is “void *”. While it seems strange to have a pointer to void, this is used in C to indicate a “generic” data type.
v. We want to assign the return pointer to a variable “z” of type int *. Thus we need to type-cast the “void *” return type of malloc(.) to int *. vi. Overall this gives us the following statement allocate memory to store an int:

z = (int *) malloc(sizeof(int));

vii. When we are done using the memory, we call free. For example:

free(z); // Frees memory pointed to by z.

Question 3.1 (1 mark)

Compile and run lab1part3a.c, and observe the addresses of x, y, z, p, and the memory returned by malloc. Notice that the address of the memory allocated by malloc is from a completely different range of addresses used by x, y, z and p. Explain why this is so.



b. Using valgrind

Valgrind is a very useful utility for detecting memory errors in your program, helping to find dynamic variables that were allocated and never freed (memory leaks), accessing memory that doesn’t belong to a process leading to segmentation faults, and other types of errors.

Using valgrind is simple. If you have a program called “mine”, simply type:

valgrind ./mine

Valgrind will then run your program and examine for leaks and other errors.

Open the file “lab1p3b.c”, and you will see a program that simply allocates memory using malloc then frees it.

Compile the code using:

gcc -g lab1p3b.c -o lab1p3b

The “-g” option here causes gcc to generate debugging symbols so that valgrind can report line numbers in your code if there are errors.

Run valgrind:

valgrind ./lab1p3b

Since our code is very simple, there are no errors, and you get a beautiful output like this:



We can see valgrind running our program (and printing the output of the program), then present a heap summary that shows that all heap blocks were freed and there are no memory leaks.

Now let’s do something adventurous. You have a program called “lab1p3c.c” that has memory errors in it. Compile your program and run it:
gcc -g lab1p3c.c -o lab1p3c
./lab1p3c

You will see that it terminates with a segmentation fault. We will now see why by running valgrind:

valgrind ./lab1p3c

Now witness the disaster that has happened:



You will see that at line 12, we have a “Use of unitialised value of size 8”. This means that we’ve used some sort of uninitialized variable that is 8 bytes long inside strcpy. Since strcpy is a standard library function it is unlikely to be buggy, so the problem is likely to be in your code. Examining line 12 we see:



Since “name” is provided correctly (you can check main if you’re not convinced), the problem is likely to be p->name. Indeed you will see further down the valgrind report that you are trying to do an invalid write to p->name in line 12:



If you look at TPerson, the “name” field is declared as char *, and when you malloc TPerson, name is set to NULL, giving us this problem. You need to allocate memory to copy the name.

Between lines 11 and 12, add the following:

p->name = (char *) malloc(strlen(name) + 1);

Your code should now look like this:



Notice that we allocate one extra byte for the ‘’. Recompile your program and run valgrind again, and you will see that the situation has improved tremendously:



However now you have a memory leak; the Leak Summary says “Definitely lost: 35 bytes in 3 blocks”.


You can use this (or other documentation) to fix lab1part3c.c until valgrind shows no more memory leaks or errors, then answer the following question:


Question 3.2 (1 mark)

Summarize the changes to made to lab1part3c.c

c. Building a Small Phone Book

We are now going to use dynamic memory to create a telephone book. The telephone book will store its data in a binary search tree (BST). The BST insert, search, in-order traversal and delete and other utility functions are in bintree.c, with header file bintree.h.

The phonebook.c file contains routines to add a new person, delete a person, search for a person, and delete the entire phonebook. It comes with its header file phonebook.h.

Finally you have testpb.c, which contains routines to test your phonebook in main.

The code in phonebook.c, phonebook.h and testpb.c is complete; you only have to complete the code in bintree.c and bintree.h.

Open up bintree.h, and you will the main tree structure:


This is a simple structure containing:
- “name”: A pointer to a string containing the person’s name, which also serves as the key for inserting/searching the BST.
- “phoneNum”: An 8-character string of the person’s phone number.
- “left” and “right”: Pointers to the left and right nodes in the BST.


Using the information above, you need to implement the following functions:

Function Purpose
TTreeNode *makeNewNode(char *name, char *phoneNum) Creates and returns a new node containing “name” and “phoneNum”, which are the name and phone number of the new person being inserted.
void addNode(TTreeNode **root, TTreeNode *node) Adds a new node “node” to the tree at root “root”. Note that “root” is a pointer to the tree’s root, not the root itself.
void delTree(TTreeNode *root) Delete a tree whose root is pointed to by “root”.
void freenode(TTreeNode *node) Frees the memory allocated to “node”.
void print_inorder(TTreeNode *node) Does an in-order printing of the (sub-)tree pointed to by “node”. (Hint:
Best done using recursion).

To help you complete the assignment, let’s look at some details and hints:

i. Pointers to Pointers

We are all familiar with pointers. For example:

int *ptr;
int x = 5;
ptr = &x; // ptr now points to 5.

We know that ptr is a pointer to an integer. But what about a pointer to a pointer to an integer? Since int *ptr is a pointer to a variable of type “int”, then a pointer to a variable of type “int *” would, unsurprisingly, be:

int **pptr;
pptr = &ptr;

Recall that in the above examples, to access the integer variable “x” using ptr, we would simply do:

y = *ptr; // y = x

We can similarly access ptr from pptr by using *pptr:

int *ptr2 = *pptr; // ptr2 = ptr

Why would we require pointers to pointers? The main reason is that it allows functions to change pointer variables that are passed to it. Recall that C passes parameters by value; thus the only way to allow a function to change a pointer is to pass a pointer to the pointer.

One example might be when you are writing a function to allocate memory to store data. For example:

void alloc_mem(int **ptr) {
*ptr = malloc(sizeof(int));
}
… int *p;

// Allocate memory and assign to p alloc_mem(&p);


void free_mem(int **ptr) {
if(*ptr != NULL) { free(*ptr); *ptr = NULL;
}
}
ii. Creating a New Node (makeNewNode)

This is fairly straightforward; you can just use malloc to create your new node.
Note however that you might need to malloc the name in TTreeNode as well.
☺

Also, when allocating memory for a string, remember to allocate one extra byte for the ‘’.


iii. Inserting into a BST

Insertion into a BST can follow this algorithm:

Input: “newNode”, a node that was created using makeNewNode

a. Let “root” be the root of the BST.
b. if root == NULL, root = newNode.
c. Let trav = root.

While(true)
(1) If trav->name < newNode->name
1. If trav->right == NULL, trav->right = newNode. Exit.
2. Else trav = trav->right
(2) Else:
1. if trav->left == NULL, trav->left = newNode. Exit.
2. Else trav = trav->left

iv. Deleting the Entire Tree (delTree)

It’s easiest to do so recursively by doing tree traversal. Of the three traversals (pre-order, in-order and post-order), one works particularly well.

v. Freeing a Node (freenode)

If you allocated space for “name”, remember to free it as well.

vi. In-Order Printing (print_inorder)

In-order printing makes use of in-order traversal to print the “name” and “phoneNum” details in the tree, using recursion.

Using the information above, complete the code in bintree.c, and answer the following questions:

Question 3.3 (1 mark)

What command do you use to compile your phonebook to the executable file “testpb”, so that you can test it with valgrind? Write the full command here: