General Submission Instructions for Dr. Hasker's section of CS 2852

• See Blackboard for details about how to submit each solution.
• Generally, to submit solutions, click on the Content button on the left, and then click on the assignment and upload any required files.
• Do not upload .class files.
• If there are multiple files to upload, you can click on the Browse My Computer button additional times to include the other files in your submission.
• You can submit as many times as you like, but the date of your last submission will determine when you have completed the lab. Be sure to submit all files with each submission!

In addition to correctness, solutions will be graded for style:

• Include a comment at the top of each source file giving basic information:

  /* 
   * Course:     CS 2852
   * Term:       Spring 2014
   * Assignment: assignment name
   * Author:     your name
   * Date:       date started
   */
  

  This will allow identifying misplaced files.
• Ensure that all indentation is consistent (3 or 4 spaces for each indentation, indenting to show flow of control).
• Absolutely no tab characters in your file. To turn off tab characters in IntelliJ, click on File|Settings, open the Code Style settings, click on General, and make sure "Use tab character" is not checked.
• Use a consistent style for braces - generally braces in control statements should all be on their own lines or at the end of the previous line.
• Use blank lines to separate methods and separate attributes from methods.
• Use spaces around operators such as * and +.
• Do not put a space before parameters or arguments, but do have one space after each comma. For example:

          public void printResults(String[] items, int first, int last,
                                   String key);
  

• If numeric constants are used in multiple places (such as the maximum length of a string), you must declare a final value for that number and use it appropriately. For example:

          static final int BUFFER_SIZE = 50;
          double[] toProcess = new double[BUFFER_SIZE];
  

  Except in rare circumstances, do not use named constants in test code. Named constants in tests just creates maintenance problems.
• All data must be marked as private or protected. No public data, and no package-visible data.
• Methods and functions need to have a single purpose. For example, writing code to read data into a collection, process all the items in the collection, and then print out particular values, is probably doing too much all at once. Break such code into multiple methods/functions. Generally, no method/function should be longer than about 15 lines of code unless it has a switch statement in it, and even then the individual cases should be just a few lines long. If you can justify a longer method, then you are probably fine, but look closely for ways to break long sections of code into smaller pieces.
• Likewise, classes should have a clear purpose. If a class is responsible for lots of different things, then some of those responsibilities should be given to a different class. Most problems require at least two classes.
• Do not use exceptions for normal processing. For example, it is a bad idea to use exception handling to deal with cases where data is not in a container.
• Do not catch Exception - always find a much more specific exception to deal with the error you are attempting to handle.
• If you catch an exception, deal with it in some reasonable fashion such as printing an error message and going on to the next data item. Never simply catch an exception and ignore it.

You can fix most formatting issues by doing the following in Intellij:

• Select File|Settings...
• Click on the + sign beside Code Style and then click on General
• In the right window, clear the box "Use tab character" (that is, make sure it's not checked)
• Click on OK.
• Select Code|Reformat Code...
• Make sure your file is selected (or all files in the directory) and click on the Run button.

Note: