Assignment 1 Concurrent File Writing

CS 511: Homework Assignment 1

2 Concurrent File Writing
The idea behind this assignment is to get students familiar with the basics of threads in Java. The task itself
is quite simple, but the implementation does involve some consideration about how multi-threaded programs
work, and forces the student to think about the role each thread should play in the task.
In this assignment, students will implement a method that reads a text file into memory, concurrently
rearranges this buffer, and then writes the rearranged buffer into an new output file. Figure 1 depicts the
architecture of this system. A file is read into an input buffer. Then some number of threads (in this figure
there are four of them, however this is just an example; your solution may require more or less than four
threads; please read on) each read disjoint pieces of the input buffer and write them into disjoint pieces of
the output buffer. The input and output buffers are different buffers, in other words, they are allocated in
different parts of memory and are referenced through different variables.
Each piece of a file being arranged is defined as a “chunk.” We will assume that chunks are always the
same size, meaning there is never a “leftover” chunk. In particular, the file size must be a multiple of the
chunk size. The size of each chunk is specified by the user in stdin as a command line argument. The name
of the output file is “output.txt”. The number of chunks that make up a file can be calculated by dividing
the file size by the specified chunk size.
The order in which a file’s chunks are rearranged is based on a rearrangement pattern, similar to pattern
matching. Each chunk is named in order with respect to the alphabet. A file with 5 chunks would have
chunks ’a’ to ’e’. A possible reordering of this file would be the rearrangement pattern ‘a c b e d’. For
example, given the file “AAABBBCCCDDDEEE”, a specified chunk size of 3, and the pattern ‘a c b e d’
the output of the program should be “AAACCCBBBEEEDDD”.
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CS511 - Concurrent Programming 2 CONCURRENT FILE WRITING
ReadFile
Input Buffer
Thread 1 Thread 2 Thread 3 Thread 4
Output Buffer
WriteFile
Figure 1: Assignment architecture
The rearrangement pattern is input via stdin as illustrated in the figure below. Here 4 indicates the
chunk size and numbers.txt is the file to rearrange.
2.1 File Structure
This assignment consists of the following files:
• Interval.java. Declares the Interval class.
• TextSwap.java. Declares the TextSwap class. This class holds the main method from which the assignment is executed.
• Swapper.java. Declares the Swapper class.
• letters.txt. A sample text file.
2.1.1 TextSwap
The TextSwap class contains much of the logic for the assignment. It has the methods:
• private static String readFile (String filename) throws Exception
This method should read from a specified file by placing it into a StringBuilder object and then
returning the toString() of that object.
• private static Interval[] getIntervals (int numChunks, int chunkSize)
This method returns an array of “Intervals”. An interval is just a pair of integers that specify the start
and end index of a chunk. These intervals will be delegated to the appropriate threads to ensure the
reordering is proper.
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CS511 - Concurrent Programming 4 SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
• private static char[] runSwapper (String content, int chunkSize, int numChunks)
This method does much of the actual logic of the class. It creates the intervals, runs the Swapper
threads, and returns the reordered buffer that will be written to the new file.
• private static void writeToFile (String contents, int chunkSize, int numChunks) throws Exception
This method writes the buffer to a new file.
• public static void main (String [] args)
The main should parse two command line inputs, a chunk size and a filename. The size of the file
and the number of chunks should then be calculated, and the new pattern of letters should be read
from stdin. If the number of chunks is more than 26, then execution should halt with an error message
“Chunk size too small”. If the file size is not a multiple of the chunk size or the chunk size is not
positive, then execution should halt with an error message “Chunk size must be positive and file size
must be a multiple of the chunk size”. Note that there may be other methods necessary to complete
this class, but they can also be inlined into these methods.
2.1.2 Swapper
This class, which should implement the Runnable interface, will write to the buffer given its Interval. It has
the fields offset, interval, content, buffer:
1 public class Swapper implements Runnable {
2 private int offset ;
3 private Interval interval ;
4 private String content ;
5 private char[] buffer ;
6 ...
7 }
Offset: specifies the starting index in the buffer where the content will be placed. Interval: specifies the
starting and ending index of the content in the original file that is being swapped. Content: the entire
original file in a String (called “Input Buffer” in Figure 1). Buffer: The shared char[] that the result is being
written to.
• public void run ()
Write the specified content into the buffer. Helper methods may be used to retrieve the content and
insert it into the proper spot in the buffer.
2.1.3 Interval
This is exactly what you would expect from any “Pair” class. There is even a Pair class in the Java library
that can be used instead.
3 Your Task
Implement Swapper.java and the methods runSwapper and getIntervals in file TextSwap.java.
4 Submission Instructions
Submit a zip file named hw1.zip through Canvas containing all the files included in the stub but where all
required operations have been implemented. It should unzip to files, not a folder. One submission per group.
Place the name of the other team member as a canvas comment.
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