Lecture 15. MAE 5, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2002

From the course outline we see the reading assignment this week includes Chapter 10 on Formatting Reports and Displays and Chapter 11 on Applications and Record Files. You must turn in modified versions of the example programs in both Chapter 10 and 11. These are the third and fourth chapters in Part 2 "Advanced Programming Techniques". Both chapters provide important new tools that you may be able to demonstrate in Project 2. An outline of your project is due in section this week. Include a title and full explanation of the purpose of your project in a comment section at its beginning. Make sure it runs properly and doesn't require the user to spend much time to see the idea behind it (put yourself in the place of the TA or a class witnessing your demonstration).

Practice Program 10.1 shows how you can either use a printer to print checks, or direct the output to the screen.

Some of the methods presented in Chapter 10 include:

• The print using statement with numbers
• The print using statement with strings
• Example of a proposal report
• Controlling the screen display
• Screen windows

All of these concepts are illustrated by the Example Programs 10-X.

You might want to read ahead in Chapter 13 about programming with matrices. You have seen some matrix commands in the demo programs included with True BASIC, and know they are very compact and efficient. See the Matrix Read and Matrix Print example. This program should be compared to a similar program where the information about Tutors and their subjects are read into a matrix and printed out without matrix commands. Interested in a horoscope program? You can expand it by educating the astrologer.

Quiz 8a solution

Self Test Question Answers Chapter 10 and Chapter 11. Study these in preparation for Quiz 10, (this week), along with the Quiz from previous year.

Lecture 16. MAE 5, Thursday, Nov. 21, 2002

Chapter 11 is about Applications and Record Files

You need to know how to name and open text files from True Basic programs, write data to the files and read them back, and examine the contents of files.

Some of the topics covered are:

• A simple sorting technique (the bubble sort). See MEX11-1 for an example....the days of the week in alphabetical order.
• Sorting a list of names
• Searching techniques
• Using record files MEX 11-4
• Using random files (Doesn't work! MEX 11-6 bombs, and MEX 11-9 not only bombs but may lock up your computer.)
• The binary search method
• String and file conversions

Mouse commands can be quite powerful and interesting, but are not discussed in the textbook. A free-hand graphics program in several colors gives you a chance to experiment with GET MOUSE x,y,s. Some practice pictures using the KEEP and SHOW commands are rather pretty. Have a look at a window screen program.

Practice programs PP11.1 and PP11.2 are not required in this week's homework.

Quiz 8b solution

Self Test Question Answers Chapter 10 and Chapter 11. Study these in preparation for Quiz 11, (this week), along with the Quiz from a previous year.

Help

• Functions
• Statements
• Terms