COP 3330 Student Information

Objective

To gain experience with base and derived classes, virtual functions, and using applications of polymorphism. Also, to gain further practice with file I/O, as well as dynamic allocation.

Task

You will design a set of classes for storing student information, along with a class that will manage a list of students. Data can be imported from files for storage in the list, and summary reports with computed final grades will be printed to output files.

Details

1. Design a set of classes that store student grade information. There should be one base class to store common data, and three derived classes that divide the set of students into three categories: Biology students, Theater students, and Computer Science students. All data stored in these classes should be private or protected. Any access to class data from outside should be done through public member functions. The base class should allocate storage for the following data (and only this data):

• student's first name (you may assume 20 characters or less)
• student's last name (you may assume 20 characters or less)
• Which course the student is in (Biology, Theater, or Computer Science)

2. Each class must have a function that will compute and return the student's final average, based on the stored grades. All grades are based on a 100 point scale. Here are the grades that need storing for each subject, along with the breakdown for computing each final grade:

Biology -- Lab Grade = 30%, Three term tests = 15 % each, Final Exam = 25%
Theater -- Participation (scene studies) = 40 %, Midterm = 25%, Final Exam = 35%
Computer Science -- There are 6 programming assignments, to be averaged into one Program Average (which can be a decimal number). Final grade computed as follows:
* Program Average = 30%, Test 1 = 20%, Test 2 = 20%, Final Exam = 30%

3. Write a class called StudentList, which will be used to store the list of various students, using a single array of flexible size. Note that this array will act as a heterogeneous list, and it will need to be dynamically managed. Each item in the array should be a Student pointer, which should point to the appropriate type of object. Your list should only be big enough to store the students currently in it. Note that the StudentList class is NOT part of the inheritance hierarchy described in the first two items above. This class is used to store and manage a LIST of individual students.

Your StudentList class needs to have these public functions available:

• StudentList() -- default constructor. Sets up an empty list
• ~StudentList() -- destructor. Needs to clean up all dynamically managed data being managed inside a StudentList object, before it is deallocated
• bool ImportFile(const char* filename)
  • This function should add all data from the given file (the parameter) into the internally managed list of students. The file format is specified below in this writeup. (Note that if there is already data in the list from a previous import, this call should add MORE data to the list). Records should be added to the end of the given list in the same order they appear in the input file.
  • If the file does not exist or cannot be opened, return false for failure. Otherwise, after importing the file, return true for success.
• bool CreateReportFile(const char* filename)
  • This function should create a grade report and write it to an output file (filename given by the parameter). Grade report file format is described below in this writeup. If the output file cannot be opened, return false for failure. Otherwise, after writing the report file, return true for success.
• void ShowList() const
  • This function should print to the screen the current list of students, one student per line. The only information needed in this printout is last name, first name, and course name. Format this output so that it lines up in columns

Note that while this class will need to do dynamic memory management, you do not need to create a copy constructor or assignment operator overload (for deep copy) for this class. (Ideally we would, but in this case, we will not be using a StudentList object in a context where copies of such a list will be made)

Here is a starter file: studentlist.h with the appropriate prototypes

#ifndef student_h
#define student_h

#include < string >

using namespace std;

// An abstract class that store student information
class Student
{
public:

// Initialize a student
Student(const string &firstName, const string &lastName, const string &course);

// Destructor
virtual ~Student();

// Access to the first name property
string getFirstName() const;

// Access to the last name property
string getLastName() const;

// Access to the course property
string getCourse() const;

// Find out the letter grade based on final average
char getLetterGrade() const;

// Calculate the final average grade of a student
virtual double calculateFinalAverage() const = 0;

// Return the final exam score
virtual int getFinalExamScore() const = 0;

private:
string firstName;
string lastName;
string course;
};

#endif

4. Write a main program (in a separate file) that creates a single StudentList object and then implements a menu interface to allow interaction with the object. Your main program should implement the following menu loop (any single letter options should work on both lower and upper case inputs):

*** Student List menu ***

I Import students from a file
S Show student list (brief)
E Export a grade report (to file)
M Show this Menu
Q Quit Program

The import and export options should start by asking for user input of a filename (you may assume it will be 30 chars or less, no spaces), then call the appropriate class function for importing a file or printing the grade report to file, respectively. (If the inport/export fails due to bad file, print a message indicating that the job was not successfully completed).

The "Show student list" option should call the class function that prints the brief student list to screen (names and course info only).

The Show this Menu option should re-display the menu.

Quit should end the menu program. (Until this option is selected, keep looping back for menu selections).

5. File formats

nput File -- The first line of the input file will contain the number of students listed in the file. This will tell you how many student records are being imported from this file. After the first lines, every set of two lines constitutes a student entry. The first line of a student entry is the name, in the format lastName, firstName. Note that a name could include spaces -- the comma will delineate last name from first name. The second line will contain the subject ("Biology", "Theater", or "Computer Science"), followed by a list of grades (all integers), all separated by spaces. There will be no extra spaces at the ends of lines in the file. The order of the grades for each class type is as follows:

Biology -- Lab Grade, three term tests, Final Exam
Theater -- Participation, Midterm, Final Exam
Computer Science -- six Program grades, Test 1, Test 2, Final Exam

Output File -- The output file that you print should list each student's name (firstName lastName - no extra punctuation between), Final Exam grade, final average (printed to 2 decimal places), and letter grade (based on 10 point scale, i.e. 90-100 A, 80-89 B, etc). Output should be separated by subject, with an appropriate heading before each section, and each student's information listed on a separate line, in an organized fashion. (See example below). The order of the students within any given category should be the same as they appear in the student list. Data must line up appropriately in columns when multiple lines are printed in the file. At the bottom of the output file, print a grade distribution of ALL students -- how many As, Bs, Cs, etc.

6. General Requirements

• No global variables, other than constants!
• All member data of your classes must be private or protected
• Use the const qualifier on member functions wherever it is appropriate.
• The code for this program should be portable. Test with g++ compiler commands before submitting
• You may use any of the standard I/O libraries that have been discussed in class (iostream, iomanip, fstream, as well as C libraries, like cstring, cctype, etc). You may also use the string class library
• You may not use any of the other STL (Standard Template Libraries) besides string
• Do not use any C++11-only libraries or features

Extra Credit

Add an extra menu option to the menu program:

• sOrt student list

The letter 'O' option should cause the student list to be sorted alphabetically by name -- by last name, and if needed by first name (when the last names are the same). Do not change any of the stored data in the student records (i.e. don't change the stored case -- upper/lower case -- of the names in the objects). Just re-order the array in the StudentList object so that it is now alphabetized by name. The sort needs to be true alphabetical (not just the "lexicographical" default for strings).

Sample input files:

test1.txt

4
Squarepants, Spongebob
Computer Science 90 82 85 96 100 88 85 91 97
Finklebottom, Joe
Biology 85 90 78 85 89
Dipwart, Marvin
Theater 85 72 95
van Houten, Milhouse
Computer Science 45 80 76 79 54 72 73 81 79

test2.txt

2
Simpson, Homer J.
Theater 82 76 74
Cyrus, Miley
Biology 74 65 58 62 71

Sample run

Screen input and output: (keyboard input is underlined here to differentiate output from input)

*** Student List menu ***
I Import students from a file
S Show student list (brief)
E Export a grade report (to file)
M Show this Menu
Q Quit Program
> i
Enter filename: test1.txt

> s
Last First Course

Squarepants Spongebob Computer Science
Finklebottom Joe Biology
Dipwart Marvin Theater
van Houten Milhouse Computer Science

> i
Enter filename: blah
Invalid file. No data imported

> i
Enter filename: test2.txt

> s
Last First Course

Squarepants Spongebob Computer Science
Finklebottom Joe Biology
Dipwart Marvin Theater
van Houten Milhouse Computer Science
Simpson Homer J. Theater
Cyrus Miley Biology

> e
Enter filename: outfile1.txt

> q

Goodbye!

Corresponding output file (outfile1.txt):

Student Grade Summary
---------------------

BIOLOGY CLASS

Student                                   Final Final   Letter
Name                                      Exam  Avg     Grade
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Joe Finklebottom                          89    85.70   B
Miley Cyrus                               71    67.70   D


THEATER CLASS

Student                                   Final Final   Letter
Name                                      Exam  Avg     Grade
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Marvin Dipwart                            95    85.25   B
Homer J. Simpson                          74    77.70   C


COMPSCI CLASS

Student                                   Final Final   Letter
Name                                      Exam  Avg     Grade
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Spongebob Squarepants                     97    91.35   A
Milhouse van Houten                       79    74.80   C


OVERALL GRADE DISTRIBUTION

A:   1
B:   2
C:   2
D:   1
F:   0