15-121 Homework 5: Implementing Interfaces (Lists & Queues) - Due 11/3 at midnight

Download and unzip hw5-code.zip, which contains all the files you will need for this assignment. You will be writing code in the MyList.java file until you get the base game working. The goals of this assignment are:

to familiarize you with how to write a class that implements an interface (with an eye toward efficiency of the operations)
to implement and use a queue
to get some additional practice with linked lists, as you will be implementing both interfaces with a linked list

In addition to the code files, I have also provided you with documentation files (created with javadoc). These can be found in hw5-docs.zip.

Note: You will be graded in part on your coding style. Your code should be easy to read, well organized, and concise. You should avoid duplicate code.

Background: The Game

This assignment involves a simple computer game called Munch. In Munch, two players each control a caterpillar to move around in a grid in which there are small green pellets of food. The two players race to eat as many pellets as possible. When all of the pellets are gone, the player who has managed to eat the most pellets is the winner.

The Interfaces

MyList implements both the SimpleList and SimpleQueue interfaces. Recall that a class can implement more than one Interface. Since I want you to get additional practice with linked lists, you will use a linked list as the underlying data structure and implementation. As a result, you will likely refer to (and use) code that we developed in class for MyLinkedList as well as the code you wrote in the last assignment. This is perfectly fine, but some code will need to be adapted for the methods that must be implemented in the SimpleList and SimpleQueue interfaces, given the specifications provided.

As an example, in order for the add operation in SimpleList and the enqueue operation in SimpleQueue to be implemented efficiently, we will need to keep (and update) a last reference, in addition to the first reference we maintained for the singly linked list that we wrote in MyLinkedList. This was bonus on the last assignment, but now is mandatory.

In general, I would encourage you to look at the Java API as you think about this assignment. In particular, the List, Iterable, and Iterator interfaces.

Process

As you should recall from lecture, when a class implements an interface, it must implement all of the methods that the interface specifies. So the first thing to do will be to create "dummy" public methods (since interface methods are default public access) with the appropriate headers in the MyList.java class file. I have done this for you and, of course, have also provided an appropriate "dummy" return value for any method that has a non-void return type.

Since both SimpleList and SimpleQueue extend Iterable, implementing these interfaces requires that you provide a method that returns an Iterator that iterates over the collection. This is most easily done with a private inner class that implements all of the Iterator methods in a manner similar to the code from Lecture 15. Feel free to throw the same UnsupportedOperationException for the Iterator remove method, as remove is not required for Munch.

All the queue methods should run in constant time (hence the need for a last reference). All but the list remove method should run in constant time (again, hence the need for the last reference). As you implement the methods in MyList you can test them with the main method provided in that class. You will likely want to add additional test code to what I have provided. :-)

Do not compile and run the MunchGame class until you have all the methods and the iterator written and tested in isolation in MyList. Since all the SimpleList and SimpleQueue methods are used by MunchGame, they all need to be working before MunchGame will work. Also, you should make sure all the non-Iterator methods work correctly before implementing the Iterator. You should also test the Iterator by creating a for-each loop inside the main method before going on to run MunchGame. This will be demonstrated in lecture.

Modifying the game code

Once you have the basic game working, you need to modify the game code (you have to determine where) in the following ways:

grow the caterpillar by one cell each time it eats a pellet
wrap the caterpillar around to the other side of the grid once it reaches an edge (top/bottom/left/right)

BONUS POINTS

As we discussed in class, the following bonus points are available on this assignment:

determine if a caterpillar can no longer move and force a win for the other player [5 points]
implement the MyList class with a doubly linked list [10 points]
additional bonus: correctly implement the remove method of the Iterator interface (look at the Iterator API to determine what it needs to do). Note, you have to have a doubly linked list implementation already working in order to attempt this bonus [5 points]
if you want to make your own modification that is not in this list, come to my office to discuss

Note: you should only attempt the bonus once you have all the other methods working correctly!

Submitting Your Work

When you have completed the assignment and tested your code thoroughly, create a .zip file with your work (including MyList.java and any other files that you modified if you got bonus working). Name the zip file "your-andrew-id".zip and email it to me mjs @ cs.cmu.edu.

Make sure to keep a copy of your work just in case!