Minibase Homework Specifics

Each student doing the assignment should set their MINIBASE_ROOT envirornment variable to point at the Minibase installation. The homework assignment directories are located relative to it.

For each assignment that uses C++, the Makefile and a few drivers are provided, as well as some initial include files, showing the API to be implemented. For some of the earlier assignments, extra Minibase include files are provided that the student may wish to examine (to gain an understanding of the error protocol, for instance).

For each assignment, the student should:

• Copy the appropriate Makefile from the 'src' directory to the directory they will implement the assignment in.
• Execute: make setup to copy the files over. This will give an error if they have not set their MINIBASE_ROOT variable.
• Implement the assignment, typing 'make' to attempt to build the test program.

For each assignment, an answer is provided in the directory 'key'; this should of course not be made available to students. It can be helpful for the grader, to demonstrate the output produced by a working version of the assignment.

The 'include' directory is in the provided Makefile's include path before '.', so when Minibase include files are provided for viewing that are also present within 'include', they are not intended to be modified. You might want to make this clear to the students to avoid needless confusion.

The 'src' directory is the code that is given to the student.

The 'lib' directory (if present) creates a partial library for the particular component being implemented. The student should use the 'libwithout.a' in their final compilation. The 'libwith.a' file (if present) contains the object code for the solution, so that the students can examine the test results from a working version.

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January 7, 1997