Fall 2005, Section 010-012, Exam 01 Study Guide

What is covered

• Lecture Notes, 8/.31 through 10/5
• Labs 0-3
• Savitch, Chapters 1-3 and Sections 13.1, 13.2
• Andersen, Chapters 6, 7, 8
• Reading Notes for Sections 13.1, 13.2 (available from link on Calendar page)

Partial List of C++ Topics from Savitch Reading (not necessarily complete)

Chapter 1

• Declaring variables of types int, float, double, char, bool
• What a keyword or reserved word is
• What "case sensitive" means
• Assignment statements
• What happens with unitialized variables
• Escape sequences in character strings, particularly \" \\ and \n
• Declaring constants with const
• Integer vs. floating point division, and the mod operator (%)
• Using static_cast<type>(expression)to convert types
• The increment and decrement operators (difference between pre and post increment)
• Using cout, cerr, cin
• Using #include <iostream>
• Using using namespace std; or using std::cin; etc.

Chapter 2

• Boolean expressions (using &&, || to mean "and" and "or")
• Avoiding things like if (x < z < y) (should be: if ( (x < z) && ( z < y) ) )
• Comparison operators ( ==, !=, <, <=, >=,. >)
• Keeping assignment (=) and test for equality (==) straight
• The bool type and the values true and false
• Using integers as true/false (false is zero, anything non-zero is true)
• Operator precedence
• if...else if...else remember to always put condition in ()
• when do you need { } and when not
• the switch statement ( and the case, break, default keywords; case labels must be integer type, char, enum type or bool
• enumeration types (enum keyword)
• conditional operator, aka ternary operator (e.g. int absValue(int x) { return (x<0)? -x : x; })
• while, and do...while loops
• comma operator
• for loops
• break and continue in loops

Chapter 3

• using predefined functions, e.g. sqrt() from #include <cmath>
• the exit() function (from #include <cstdlib>)
• random number generation with srand(), and rand(), and scaling of random integers
  (not covered in lecture or labs, but in the reading! so study it!)
• defining functions that return a value
• formal parameters vs. arguments (aka actual parameters) (see p. 111 especially, and lecture notes).
• function call vs. function definition vs. function prototype
• return statements in void functions
• the fact that main() is a function
• the idea of "scope", and that variables are local to a function or block
• the scope of variables declared in a for loop

Sections 13.1, 13.2

• defining recursive functions, both void functions and functions that return values
• stack overflow and infinite recursion
• activation frames and "the stack"
• what makes a correctly written recursive function (both from text and from reading notes)
  (i.e. base case, and recursive call leading towards base case)
• why recursion is important (from lecture and from reading notes)

Partial List of Unix Topics (Not Necessarily Complete)

• Unix Commands: cp, rm, mkdir, pwd, cd, mv, ls, ls -l, chmod, cat, more, make
• Compiling: CC, g++, use of the -o and -c switches
• What the public_html directory is used for and how it corresponds to addresses (URLs) of web pages

Review lab00, lab01, lab02 and lab03 too!