CSCI 103L - Fall 2024 Introduction to Programming

Final Info

Overview and Process

MUST BE TAKEN IN PERSON / NO REMOTE EXAMS

• Date/Time: Sat, December 14th at 11 AM Pacific - 120 minutes
• Location: (Based on Last Name)
  • A-J: SAL 101
  • K-Pl: SLH 200
  • Po-Z: SGM 124
  • OSAS Accommodations: If you have USC approved accommodations, you will need to coordinate in advance with the OSAS office to schedule your exam at the testing center.
• Bring: A pencil or two and an eraser. No laptop needed!.
• Format: Paper and PENCIL (preferred not a pen) exam with multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank answer style for all question types: conceptual, tracing, and coding.
• You MAY bring 8.5x11 inch cheatsheet, double sided.
  • The contents of the cheat card must be HANDWRITTEN The reason is because by writing things, they will stick longer in your head and force you to recall what your code was doing, helping you learn.
• Other than the cheat sheet, the exam is Closed book, Closed notes, Closed Internet (search/reference). No other devices are allowed out during the exam.
• Questions: The test will mainly have questions that designed to have a small, closed-set of possible answers (i.e not open-ended) and are written to state the necessary information required to solve the problem. We cannot offer hints or additional details/guidance beyond what is stated in the exam. So, our answer could likely be: “The question is well-formed (no typos) and all the information you need to answer is provided. Do the best you can.” But, with that said, if you have a question you may raise your hand and a staff person will try to come to you. Please sit on the aisle if you tend to ask questions more often than your peers.

Topics

The following is the list of topics that you should be familiar with. Use it as a guide to help your studying.

The exam is cumulative (so the topics listed on mt1-info is still relevant), but will focus more on the topics covered after MT1.

Unit 3a

• Basic objects (structs)
• Assignment of objects
• . and -> operators
• Use of getline()
• Checking an input stream for failure
• Using C++ string class

Unit 3b

• Defining your own classes
• public vs. private
• Constructors and Destructors and when they execute
• Defining member functions
• Splitting your class into files

Unit 4a

• Linked Lists
• Implementing basic operations (push, pop to front, middle, or back)
• Efficiency of various operations given variations of their implementation (with or without tail pointer, etc)
• Pros and cons compared to arrays

Unit 4b

• vector<T> and deque<T> basic operation
• Efficiency of their operations

Unit 4c

• Doubly linked lists
• deque<T> class
• Implementing basic operations
• Efficiency of various operations given variations of their implementation (with or without tail pointer, etc)

Unit 4d

• Multidimensional arrays
• Memory layout of a multidimensional arrays
• Passing multidimensional arrays to functions

Unit 4e

• syntax and use
• advantages of passing by reference
• const references

Unit 4f

• Checking for failure when opening a file
• Using C++ ifstream and ofstream classes for File I/O
• Checking for failure when attempting to receive input (extract a value from the stream)

Unit 5a - Operator Overloading

• Understanding the two approaches (Global vs. Member functions) and when to use each
• The signature of various operator overloads (arithmetic, comparison, etc.)
• friend functions
• operator<< function signature and implementation

Unit 5b - Copy Semantics

• Copy constructors
• Assignment operators
• When each is called
• “Gotchas” that the assignment operator should handle
• Rule of 3

Unit 5c - Class Details

• Default vs. Initializing constructors
• Constructor Initialization Lists
• const keyword

Unit 5d - Inheritance

• Base class constructor and destructor calls
• protected keyword
• public vs. private inheritance
• Composition vs. Inheritance
• Calling base class overloaded functions

Unit 5e - Polymorphism

• Static vs. Dynamic binding (virtual vs. non-virtual)
• pure virtual functions and abstract classes
• need for virtual destructors

Unit 5f - Parsing and Streams

• operator>> and getline()
• When do input streams fail (fail())
• Correct approaches for how and when to check for failure
• stringstreams

Unit 5g - Exceptions

• throw keyword
• try/catch block
• ordering of catch blocks
• stack unwinding (exceptions propagating to calling functions)
• exceptions and inheritance

Unit 5h - File I/O Part 2

• get() and peek()
• seekg() and tellg()

Unit 6a - Recursion

• Tracing of recursive functions

Topics from MT1 and the programming midterm are potential supporting material (you need to still basic syntax, loops, understand pointers, etc.)

Be sure you are very comfortable with:

• Pointers
• C-strings and pointers to C-strings. Arrays of char*’s (like argv[])
• Linked lists (single- and doubly-linked)
• vector<> and deque<>
• Operator overloading (when to use global vs. class member functions, use of friend, etc.)
• Deep copy semantics (copy constructor / assignment operator)
• Inheritance and Polymorphism
• Streams and parsing with >> and getline(), using stringstreams, and knowing when a stream will fail.

Practice Final on Gradescope

• Will be done in our last lab meeting.
• Gradescope Solutions
• Coding problems are on Codio and solutions are in that assignment.

Other Selected Practice Problems

• Sp24 Final Practice
• Sp24 Final Practice Solutions

Older Practice Problems

• Fall 2017 Final Exam
  • No solutions / crowdsource your answer or come to office hours.
• Fall 2016 Final Exam
  • No solutions / crowdsource your answer or come to office hours.
• Spring 2015 Final Exam
  • Solutions
• Fall 2014 Final Exam
  • Solutions
• Older Fall 2014 Practice Problems