Systems Programming - Fall 2020

Schedule

• Sep 18: Introduction to the Course: syllabus; what is systems programming; why it is useful to know the C programming language; getting started: a very first example; using the compiler; a very simple Makefile.
  Material: slides used in class
• Sep 20: Basic types, literals, minimal I/O, basic expressions, control structures.
  Exercises: wordcount Material: lecture slides/notes
• Sep 25: Pointers, arrays, and strings, basic use of pointers (e.g., in string processing); more I/O.
  Exercises: flipline, revargs, sortstrings, concatenate strings, delete digits. Material: copyfile.c, lecture slides/notes
• Oct 19: Dynamic memory allocation. Aggregate types; structures and unions; enumerations; type definitions; initializers for structures and arrays; nested structures, multidimensional arrays, and other non-trivial types.
  Material: dictionary.h, dict.c, querydict.c, querydict.mk (Makefile), lecture slides/notes
Note: Slide sets and other links below are from the last edition of the course.

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• Oct 9: Structure of a program; the main function; defining functions; static variables; global variables; scope rules;
  Material: reverse.h, reverse_array.c, reverse.c, reverse_list.c, reverse_both.c, reverse.mk (Makefile), lecture slides/notes
• Oct 11: More details on the build process; the pre-processor; multi-file projects; compilation units; symbols; shared declarations; the pre-processor; the linkers; modularization and information hiding in C.
  Material: lecture slides/notes
• Oct 23: Exercises: variable-length arrays.
  Material: vararray.h, vararray.h (partial)
• Oct 25: More on using pointers; other dynamic data structures; pointer arithmetic. Pointers and structures, pointers and arrays. Pointers to functions.
  Material: printargs.c, insertionsort.c, quicksort.c, printargs.c, funcptr.c, vararray.h, lecture slides/notes
• Nov 6: Exercises from previous exams.
  Material: rec_io.h, rec_io.c (partial), test_rec_io1.c, test_rec_io2.c
• Oct 13: An in-depth look at expressions and the execution model: operator precedence; type conversions; the assignment statement; the execution model: evaluation order; sequence points.
  Material: lecture notes
• Oct 27: Defining classes and objects in C. Using pointers to functions: generic objects and virtual methods.
  Material: lecture notes
• TBD: Exercise from previous exams.
  Material: pixmap.h, packed_pixmap.h, ascii_pixmap.h, test_pixmap.c, Makefile, pixmap_impl.c, ascii_pixmap.c, packed_pixmap.c, pixmap_impl.h, all in one package
• TBD: Introduction to C++: classes, exceptions, namespaces.
  Material: lecture notes, step-by-step example, pixmap.cc, constructor.cc, constructors.cc, destructor.cc
• TBD: Introduction to C++: standard library: strings, containers, basic algorithms.
  Material: lecture notes,
• TBD: Introduction to C++ and exercises.
  Material: routing.cc,
• TBD: Exercises with C++.
  Material: trip.cc
• TBD: Exercises with C++.
  Material: stats.cc, sortlines.cc
• TBD: Exercises with C++.
  Material: graph.cc
• TBD: Overview of the C standard library: basic string/character manipulation; File I/O; File-system operations; dynamic memory allocation and management; simple dynamic array.
• TBD: Multi-threading: Threads, mutexes, locks, monitors, atomic operations.
• TBD: Using make, from a simple project to complex activities.