COMP-273 Assignment 3

COMP-273 Assignment 3
School of Computer Science

By handing in your solutions using mycourses, you declare that you have followed the assignment
submission instructions at the end of this assignment. Late policy: 10% off of the total marks,
per day late, for up to 2 days. If submitted 48 hrs or more after the deadline, your
assignment will not be accepted.
1 Question 1: 1D Array Manipulation (50 marks)
In this question you will manipulate the contents of a one dimensional array. To do so you will
modify the template file ‘array.asm’. In this file you are given a beginarray, whose contents are
integers, and where the special integer -999 is placed at the end to mark the end of the array. In
addition, 100 words of space (400 bytes) is allocated for array - we will assume that it will never
store more than 100 integers. You are free to write additional helper subroutines, and to use them
within your subroutines.
1.1 Helper Subroutines - 8 marks
Write a subroutine length that takes a pointer to an array as its input and returns the length of the
array, not counting the special integer.
Write a subroutine copyarray that takes two pointers as its inputs, a pointer to the first array
and a pointer to the second array. It should copy the integer contents of the first array to the second
array, including the special integer. It does not return anything.
Write a subroutine printarray that prints the contents of an integer array, separated by spaces,
upto but not including the special integer.
Test the above functions by writing a main function that copies the contents of beginarray to
array, and then prints the contents of array. Save your code as q1a.asm
From this point onwards, all your operations will be on array. For the remainder of this question
you will build on the code you have so far, to implement the following four operations: Insert, Delete,
Sort and Quit, by further modifying ‘array.asm’. Each time you will use standard I/O to prompt
the user to type a valid operation. The user should use one of the four keyboard inputs below:
• i: Insert
• d: Delete
• s: Sort
• q: Quit
If an invalid input is entered, your program should print an error and should prompt the user to
enter a valid keyboard input. Once a valid input keybord character has been entered, the program
should proceed to carry out that operation. The operations should be carried out on array, which
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has by now been initialized. Indexing should start with a count of 0 representing the first element
in the array. You can use the helper subroutines including length, printarray or any additional ones
you have written. For each subpart you will be adding new functionality to your existing program,
and then saving the code, allowing us to test it.
1.2 Insert Operation - 10 marks
This operation is triggered when the user inputs i. Then, the user should be prompted for the index
to insert a value in the array. Your program must check if the index is valid, i.e., it is between 0 and
length(array) - 1. If it is invalid, return an error and keep prompting the user until a valid index is
entered. Once a valid index is entered, the user should be prompted for the integer value they wish
to insert. Your program should insert that value at the correct position in the array and then print
the result. Save your code as q1b.asm
For example, if array has the following contents: 5 3 4 1 2; the insert command should work as
follows:
Enter a command : i
Enter an index: 3
Enter a value: 10
The current array is 5 3 4 10 1 2
In a case where an invalid index is entered, the program should work as follows:
Enter a command: i
Enter an index: 8
Invalid index.
Enter an index: 4
Enter a value: 6
The current array is 5 3 4 10 6 1 2
1.3 Delete Operation - 10 marks
This operation is triggered when the user enters d. The user should then be prompted for the index
at which a value would be deleted from the array. Your program must check if the index is valid
i.e., it is between 0 and the length(array) - 1. If it is invalid, return an error and keep prompting
the user until a valid index is entered. Once a valid index is entered, your program should delete
the element at that index. Save your code as q1c.asm
For example, if array has the following contents: 5 3 4 1 2; the delete command should work as
follows:
Enter a command: d
Enter an index: 2
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The current array is 5 3 1 2
In a case where an invalid index is entered, the program should work as follows:
Enter a command: d
Enter an index: 7
Invalid index.
Enter an index: 3
The current array is 5 3 1
1.4 Sort Operation - 20 marks
This operation is triggered when the user enters s. Your program should display the sorted array.
You are allowed to use any sorting algorithm for this operation e.g., selection sort, or bubble sort,
so be sure to comment your code accordingly. Save your code as q1d.asm
For example, given the following array: 5 3 4 1 2; the sort command should work as follows:
Enter a command: s
The current array is 1 2 3 4 5
1.5 Quit Operation - 2 marks
This operation is triggered when the user enters q. Your MIPS program should end. This should
be the only time your program should terminate. Save your code as q1e.asm
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2 Question 2: 2D Array Manipulation and Recursion (50 marks)
2.1 Warmup - 10 Marks
In this question you will gain some experience in I/O from a file, 2D array manipulation and
recursion. The goal of this assignment is to create a program that can fill in a close contour in an
image. The basic algorithm (the most robust one I know of) is a recursive one. For this question
you can write helper subroutines and also introduce any additional variables, strings, or constants
in the .data segment that you wish to use. Start by downloading and installing gimp-2.10, which is
free software for image viewing and manipulation.
Using the template ‘fileio.asm’ as a starting point, write a MIPS procedure readfile that takes as
an argument the address of a string that contains a valid filename. Then using appropriate syscalls,
read from that input file and simply print the content of that file to screen.
In the template, there are two input files called test1.txt and test2.txt which you will be using
for testing in this assignment. To accomplish this task, you are allowed to create a large buffer i.e.,
one that is larger than the expected number of ASCII characters (bytes) in the input file. The body
of your code should work by calling the procedure you have written. The procedure should open the
file, read its content as ASCII characters, store the content in the buffer, and then print the content
and then close the file. Refer to ’mycourses-Content-Tutorials and Notes-MARS-syscalls’ for
handy routines there. Error statements should be printed if there are any errors in opening the file,
reading from it or closing the file.
After reading the contents of file ‘test1.txt’ into the buffer, you should call a second MIPS
procedure called writefile. The procedure should open a file called ‘test1.pbm’ and write the following
information to that file:
P1
50 50
Then, starting on a new line it should write out the content that was read into the buffer. It should
then close the file. Error statements should be printed if there are any errors in opening the file,
reading from it or closing the file.
Your main function should simply test your procedures by calling readfile and writefile in sequence, but with pointers to valid strings for the file names. Save your code as fileio.asm
If things are properly when you view test1.pbm with gimp-2.10 (use the bottom left of the
display window to zoom to 800%) you should see something interesting. For further testing you can
repeat the above steps by taking test2.txt as input and generating test2.pbm as output.
2.2 Contour Filling - 40 marks
1. The template for this question is provided is provided in ’contourfill.asm’. In this file, both a
buffer as well as space for a 2D array are defined. You are free to introduce other variables,
strings, or constants in the .data segment. You can assume that the array will have dimensions
50 × 50.
2. Read the data in test1.txt into the buffer.
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3. The data read into the buffer should now be converted to consecutive integers and then stored
in a 2D array of length 50 * 50, i.e., one that has 50 columns and 50 rows. That 2D array will
actually be represented as a 1D array*. Finally, take care to convert the entries in that buffer
(which are in ASCII) to their numerical values in base 10 when storing them in the 2D array.
For this assignment you can assume that the numerical values in the array will be either 1 or
0.
4. Write a procedure named fillregion, which works as follows. It takes 3 input arguments. The
first is a pointer to the 50×50 2D array containing numerical values (1’s or 0’s) and the second
and third arguments are the x and y integer coordinates of a seed point that lies within a contour, i.e., it is an interior point, with value 0. You can find such points by viewing test1.pbm
or test2.pbm in gimp-2.10. The procedure then examines all 8 neighbors of this seed point
and for each neighbor it:
(a) Checks if that neighbor has a value of 0 in the 2D array, i.e., it is inside the contour.
(b) If it does it changes that value to 1, and then calls itself again (this is the recursive
part) with a pointer to the same 2D array but now with new arguments - the x and y
coordinates of that neighbor.
5. Once your procedure has terminated, you need to copy the ASCII value corresponding to each
entry in the 2D array into a new buffer. Then open a file called testfill.pbm and write the
following information to that file:
P1
50 50
Then, starting on a new line, write out the content that was written into the buffer. It should
then close the file. Error statements should be printed if there are any errors in opening the
file, or closing the file. If your procedure has worked properly testfill.pbm should contain an
image which has a filled contour, corresponding to the region you chose via your selection of
the seed point. Save your code as contourfill.asm
*[2D to 1D indexing]: Normally, in a language like Java, we would simply specify the respective
array positions of i and j. (Let i represent the row we are currently at, and j represent the column
we are currently at). In MIPS, however, our 2D array is stored as values in a 1D array. It is clear
to see that for any position [i,j] in our 2D array, we can retrieve that position by simply calculating
(i*width) + j. Since i represents rows, whenever we add a width (for this assignment, width is 50)
we at are essentially going to the next row in our conceptual 2D array. j simply represents which
column we are looking at.
Since we are currently looking at the correct range of data in our 1D array based on i*width, we
simply determine which column to look at by adding j to that value. We now have the position of
interest.
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ASSIGNMENT SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
Each student is to submit his or her own unique solution to these questions, electronically, in
mycourses. By handing in this assignment, you declare that the work you are submitting is your
own. We will be running Moss to carry out a pairwise comparison between each submission to
check.
1. Submit your solution to myCourses before the due date.
2. Ensure that your code is well commented.
3. Zip your solution files - q1a.asm, q1b.asm, q1c.asm, q1d.asm, q1e.asm, fileio.asm and contourfill.asm, as well as sample output .pbm files (for question 2), into a single compressed file and
rename it with your student ID number, e.g., 260763964.zip. Ensure that you use only the
.zip format and no other compression software e.g., .rar, .7z, etc.
4. Submit this single compressed file on mycourses under Assignment 3.
5. Your code must assemble and run, even if the final solution is not quite working. Partial
marks will be awarded for correct high-level control and use of conventions. If something is
not working, comment-out the broken parts of code and write a comment or two about what
you expect to happen, what is happening, and what the problem may be. If your code does
not assemble you will receive very few points.
6. Hints, suggestions and clarifications may be posted on the discussion board on mycourses as
questions arise. Even if you don’t have any questions, it is a good idea to check the discussion
board.
7. Make sure that you submit a single file (the zipped file), not many files.
8. Once you have submitted your assignment, download the zip file you uploaded and check that
it is indeed what you intended us to grade. This step is critical because a non-trivial number
of you will submit the wrong zip file, or a corrupted version. You cannot submit a corrected
file later, i.e., after the submission deadline and the two day “late” window have passed.
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