UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS

January/February 2023

COS3711

Advanced Programming

80 Marks

Duration 2 Hours

EXAMINERS:
FIRST: DR CL PILKINGTON
SECOND: MR K HALLAND
EXTERNAL: DR L MARSHALL (UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA)

This paper consists of 8 pages.

Instructions

1. You may type your answers in a word processor (and then print to PDF) or handwrite your
answers (and then scan to PDF) for submission.

2. This is an open-book exam. Answer all questions. Please answer questions in order of
appearance.

3. The mark for each question is given in brackets next to each question.

4. Note that no pre-processor directives are required unless specifically asked for.

5. Students must upload their answer scripts in a single PDF file (answer scripts must not be
password protected or uploaded as “read only” files).

6. NO emailed scripts will be accepted.

7. Students are advised to preview submissions (answer scripts) to ensure legibility and that the
correct answer script file has been uploaded.

8. Students are permitted to resubmit their answer scripts should their initial submission be
unsatisfactory.

9. Incorrect file format and uncollated answer scripts will not be considered.

10. Incorrect answer scripts and/or submissions made on unofficial examinations platforms will not
be marked and no opportunity will be granted for resubmission.

11. A mark awarded for an incomplete submission will be the student’s final mark. No opportunity for
resubmission will be granted.

12. A mark awarded for illegible scanned submission will be the student’s final mark. No opportunity
for resubmission will be granted.

13. Only the last file uploaded and submitted will be marked.

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14. Submissions will only be accepted from registered student accounts.

15. Students who have not utilised invigilation or proctoring tools (IRIS) will be deemed to have
transgressed Unisa’s examination rules and will have their marks withheld.

16. Students must complete the online declaration of their work when submitting. Students
suspected of dishonest conduct during the examinations will be subjected to disciplinary
processes. Students may not communicate with other students or request assistance from other
students during examinations. Plagiarism is a violation of academic integrity, and students who
do plagiarise or copy verbatim from published work will be in violation of the Policy on Academic
Integrity and the Student Disciplinary Code and may be referred to a disciplinary hearing. Unisa
has zero tolerance for plagiarism and/or any other forms of academic dishonesty.

17. Students are provided 30 minutes to submit their answer scripts after the official examination
time. Students who experience technical challenges should report to the SCSC on 080 000 1870
or their College exam support centres (refer to the Get help during the examinations by contacting
the Student Communication Service Centre (unisa.ac.za)) within 30 minutes. Queries received
after one hour of the official examination duration time will not be responded to. Submissions
made after the official examination time will be rejected by the examination regulations and will
not be marked.

18. Non-adherence to the processes for uploading examination responses will not qualify the student
for any special concessions or future assessments.

19. Queries that are beyond Unisa’s control include the following:
a. Personal network or service provider issues
b. Load shedding/limited space on personal computer
c. Crashed computer
d. Using work computers that block access to myExams site (work firewall challenges)
e. Unlicensed software (eg license expires during exams)
Postgraduate students experiencing the above challenges are advised to apply for an aegrotat
and submit supporting evidence within ten days of the examination session. Students will not be
able to apply for an aegrotat for a third examination opportunity. Postgraduate/Undergraduate
students experiencing the above challenges in their second examination opportunity will have to
reregister for the affected module.

20. Students experiencing technical challenges should contact the SCSC on 080 000 1870 or via e-
mail at mailto:[email protected] or refer to the Get help during the examinations by
contacting the Student Communication Service Centre (unisa.ac.za) for the list of additional
contact numbers. Communication received from your myLife account will be considered.

Remember to complete the Honesty Declaration when submitting your answers. By

submitting your answers you are confirming that your submission is your own, unaided work.

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There are many who make the argument that climate change is going to affect weather patterns,
and, thus, the amount of rainfall that is going to fall. Some may get more, while others will get
less. Tracking rainfall is, therefore, an important task.

For the sake of this scenario, you may assume the following about designing an application that
tracks rainfall.
 Rain data is stored using 3 pieces of data: the station that recorded the rainfall, the date for
which the rainfall is recorded, and the amount of rain in mm.
 Obviously, there must be some way of recording all this data in a container.
 There should be a way of graphing the data. Initially, only a bar graph and a column graph
are required. The data that is passed to the graphing application is an XML representation
of the container holding all the rainfall data.
 Clearly, then, there needs to be some way of getting an XML representation of the rain
record.
 The main client will be responsible for holding the record of all the rainfall data, for getting
the XML representation of all the rainfall data, and for passing this to the user’s choice of
graph.
 Appropriate design patterns should be used as necessary.

Question 1 [25 marks]

1.1 Considering the scenario given above, draw a partial UML class diagram that captures
the scenario. You should include the necessary classes, class attributes, and class
relationships that are mentioned in the scenario. Class constructors and member access
specifiers are not required. However, you should ensure that you include all the data
members and member functions that show how data will be moved around the
application. You should include the Client/GUI class.
[You may use a software tool to create the UML class diagram. Use underlining to
represent italics in hand-drawn UML class diagrams.] (20)

1.2 It has been argued that the design pattern that would be used here is a behavioural
pattern. Do you agree, indicating which pattern would be used and why it is or is not a
behavioural pattern? (2)

1.3 It was decided to provide the class that holds the rain data with some reflective
functionality. That is, a getData() function should return a single data string that
contains all the data held by the class via the class’s meta-object, in a property named
data. This function is used only by the meta-object and should not be available to users
of the class.

Write the class definition for this class showing how this would be set up. You are not
required to include functionality or data members not mentioned above, or to code the
implementation of the getData() function. (3)

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Question 2 [30 marks]

Consider now the generation of the XML text that will be passed to the graphing applications.

The format for the XML text to be generated is the following.

<rainRecord>
<rain date="2023/01/01">
<station>AagA100</station>
<mm>10</mm>
</rain>
<rain date="2023/01/02">
<station>BcdB123</station>
<mm>5</mm>
</rain>
</rainRecord>

2.1 If the date is stored as a QDate (say, QDate date), give the code you would use to
convert this data into the string format that is used in the XML text above? (2)

2.2 Suppose that a class named RainXml would be used to generate the XML text for all
the rain data.

class RainXml
{
public:
RainXml();
RainXml getInstance();
QString writeToXml(/*passing rain data*/);
private:
RainXml instance;
bool checkStationCode(QString stn) const;
QRegularExpression re;
};

This class is supposed to be implemented using a singleton design pattern.

2.2.1 The class definition code provided above does not correctly implement the classic
singleton design pattern. Correct it so that it does. You are not expected to indicate the
container that is used to pass rain data. (3)

2.2.2 Would you agree with the decision to make this class use the singleton design pattern?
Explain your reason clearly and persuasively; note that marks are only allocated for the
reasoning. (2)

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2.3 The checkStationCode(QString stn) function from the class definition in 2.2 is
used to ensure that the station code meets the correct format required, where the
QString parameter is the station code that needs checking. The returned Boolean is
true if the code meets requirements and false otherwise.

bool RainXml::checkStationCode(QString stn) const

{
// add code here
}

The station code should meet the following requirements.

 Should begin with a capital letter.
 This is followed by any 2 lowercase alphabetic characters.
 This is followed by the same capital letter as the initial character of the code.
 The numeric part of the code is made up of any 3 digits, where the first digit cannot
be zero.
 There should be no other characters before or after this code.

2.3.1 Write the QRegularExpression that would be used to check codes for correctness.
QRegularExpression re(/*what would you put here*/); (7)

2.3.2 Which anti-pattern would be involved if the code were not checked for meeting
requirements? (1)

2.3.3 Provide the code for the checkStationCode(QString stn) function assuming that
QRegularExpression re, defined in 2.3.1, is a data member of the RainXml class.
(2)

2.4 The following code stub is used to generate the XML text given above. Using the required
XML format from the start of Question 2, the data property from the meta-object from
1.3, and the checkStationCode() function from 2.3, complete the code where
indicated by comments.

Assume that each item of rain data can be obtained from the meta-object property set
up in 1.3 – it returns the data in the form: StationCode:yyyy/mm/dd:mm. For
example, if 10 mm of rain were received at station AagA100 on 1 January 2023, the data
would be in the form AagA100:20230101:10.

You are not required to provide the code for the writeToXml() function parameter or
the main loop that loops through all the rain records. You may assume that for each pass
through the loop, you have access to a pointer r that points to a rain record.

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QString RainXml::writeToXml(/*passing rain data*/)

{
QString xmlOutput;
QXmlStreamWriter writer(&xmlOutput);

// do initial setup of xml text

// loop through each rain pointer named r (do not code this)
{
// use the meta-object to get the required data

//if the station code passes the test

{
// set up the <rain> tag and its sub-tags as required
}
}

// end xml text

return xmlOutput;
} (13)

Question 3 [25 marks]

The plan is to search the whole record of all rainfall data for a particular station’s data, and then
present this data on the client screen. This search should be done in a thread.

Consider the class implementation stub below (where stn is the station’s data that is required).

StationThread::StationThread(/*all data*/, QString stn)

: record{/*all data*/}, station{stn}
{}

void StationThread::doSearch()
{
foreach(/*rain record in the data*/)
{
//get the station, date, and mm as strings
if (/*this station in the data*/ == station)
emit foundStation(/*date as string*/, /*mm as string*/);
}
}

3.1 Write the class definition for the StationThread class, remembering that it should be
run as a thread. (8)

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3.2 Consider the code below that is run when data for a particular rain station is found by the
code running in the thread, where QTableWidget *tableWidget and int row have
already been declared and appropriately initialised.

void Client::handleFound(QString date, QString mm)

{
QTableWidgetItem *dateItem{new QTableWidgetItem(date)};
QTableWidgetItem *mmItem{new QTableWidgetItem(mm)};

tableWidget->setItem(row, 0, dateItem);
tableWidget->setItem(row++, 1, mmItem);
}

Assume the following code in Client.

QThread *t{new QThread};

StationThread *st{new StationThread(/*passing parameters*/)};

Write the code that would follow these declarations to get the thread running with the
StationThread object, ensuring that the data is received from the running thread and
passed on to the handleFound() function. (6)

3.3 Would you agree that the QTableWidget used in 3.2 is the best approach that can be
used for displaying a station’s rainfall data on the client window? Give reasons for your
answer. Note that marks are only allocated to your reasoning. (2)

3.4 As a way of managing a backup/restore functionality, it has been decided to subclass

the QTableWidget class to implement a classic memento design pattern. The start of
the class definition is provided below.

class MyTableWidget: public QTableWidget

{
private:
friend class MyTableWidgetMemento;
MyTableWidget();
MyTableWidgetMemento* createMemento();
void setMemento(MyTableWidgetMemento *m);
};

3.4.1 What components usually make up the classic memento pattern, and which classes in
this scenario would represent those components? (3)

3.4.2 Explain why this implementation of the classic memento patten is correct or not. Marks
are only awarded for the explanation. (2)

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3.5 It has been argued that cloud computing is the best way to go when it comes to managing
all the rainfall data. Explain why this would be so in terms of cost and scale. (4)

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