Project 5 Two-dimensional arrays

1. Problem Statement:
The primary goal of this programming assignment is to give students experience
with two-dimensional arrays. Your task will be to implement some of the basic
number crunching features that made early spreadsheet programs VisiCalc and
Lotus 1-2-3 the first “killer apps” for Apple and IBM back in the 1980s.
As you know, spreadsheets allow you to store data values in a two-dimensional grid
of cells. In Excel, the locations of cells are given by integer row indices (1,2,3,…) and
character column indices (A,B,C,…). Using this notation, you can create formulas
that combine the data from a range of rows and columns. For example, if you have
10 values in column A from row 1 to row 10, you can add these up using the formula
“SUM(A1:A10)”. If you experiment with Excel, you will discover that they support
hundreds of numerical formulas, which explains why the implementation of Excel is
estimated to be hundreds of thousands of lines of code.
Your task in this programming assignment is to make a very simple menu-based
spreadsheet program called “MiniCalc”. To keep things simple, your spreadsheet
should store all data in a fixed size float array of 26 rows and 26 columns. Your
program should index these locations using Excel’s convention with row indices
[1..26] and column indices [A..Z]. Your program should support the following
spreadsheet operations:
• Store specified data value in cells from (col1, row1) to (col2, row2).
• Store random data values in cells from (col1, row1) to (col2, row2).
• Calculate minimum of data values from (col1, row1) to (col2, row2).
• Calculate maximum of data values from (col1, row1) to (col2, row2).
• Calculate sum of data values from (col1, row1) to (col2, row2).
• Calculate product of data values from (col1, row1) to (col2, row2).
• Calculate average of data values from (col1, row1) to (col2, row2).
• Calculate standard deviation of data values from (col1, row1) to (col2, row2).
• Print data values from (col1, row1) to (col2, row2).
In each of these operations, you must prompt the user for the range of array
locations to process (col1, row1) and (col2, row2). You must check that the user
enters row values between [1..26] and column values between [A..Z], and then
convert these to actual array indices between [0..25]. You should also check that
col1 <= col2 and row1 <= row2. Once the input parameters are verified, your
program should calculate and print the result.For the two operations to store data, you should prompt the user for the specified
data value, or the [low..high] range for the random data values, and use this
information to initialize the specified locations in the data array.
For this assignment, students are allowed to use any combination of C++ features
we have discussed in class or lab. You are not required or allowed to look ahead to
more advanced C++ features like files or classes to perform this task.
2. Design:
For this assignment, you have two big design decisions. First, you need to decide
what the user interface for the program will look like. For example, what menu will
you use for the operations above? How will you read and verify the input
parameters for each operation? Finally, what to do if the user enters incorrect
information?
The second design decision is how to implement each of the operations above. Do
you want to use small functions that take an input array and other parameters? Do
you want to put the code inside the processing menu? What formula is needed to
calculate random integer values in the range [low..high]? In order to calculate the
median of the specified values, you will need to copy the selected data into a
temporary array and then sort it. What sorting method will you use to do this?
Finally, what formula is needed to calculate the standard deviation of N data values?
3. Implementation:
You are starting this programming project with a blank piece of paper. Depending
on your design choices above, you could start by implementing the user interface
portion first, printing menus, reading and verifying parameters, and get this all
working before you implement the operations above.
Another option might be to write and debug some small functions to perform the
operations above, and “hard code” calls to these functions in the main program to
test them. Once they are working, you can add the user interface to get user input
and call one of these functions to do the work.
In either approach, it is very important to make these changes incrementally one
feature at a time, writing comments, adding code, compiling, and debugging. This
way, you always have a program that "does something" even if it is not complete.
4. Testing:
Test your program to check that it operates correctly for all of the requirements
listed above. Also check for the error handling capabilities of the code. Try your
program with several input values, and save your testing output in text files for
inclusion in your project report.5. Documentation:
When you have completed your C++ program, write a short report using the
“Programming Project Report Template” describing what the objectives were, what
you did, and the status of the program. Does it work properly for all test cases? Are
there any known problems?