Assignment: Shapes

Due: Thursday, August 9th, 8pm

In this assignment you will define new data types to describe various shapes. You will write a few functions that work on these types. You will then collect these functions and types into a separate library.

Part 1 - Defining Structs

Consider the following circles. How could we describe them as variables in C?

Design new types using struct for the following shapes

Your definitions must be general enough to describe shapes of different sizes and centered at different locations.

You might also want to create a Point type. This will be more complex and difficult (you will have structs within structs) but will be conceptually satisfying (your code will look more like math). This is your choice.

Part 2 - Some useful functions

Write functions to compute the following for each of your data types

I.e. you should have functions like rectanglePerimeter, rectangleArea, rectangleContains, circlePerimeter, circleArea, ….

You do not need to implement the following functions

Question: What is contains?

Answer: contains takes a shape and a point and returns whether or not that point is contained within that shape. For example the point (1,1) is contained within the circle of radius two centered at the origin.

Part 3 - Switch to Pointer Syntax

If you haven’t done so already convert all of your functions to take in pointers to shapes rather than shapes themselves.

Please make convenient typedefs to minimize typing. I.e.

typedef struct rectangle *        Rect;

Please make constuction/make functions for each of your shapes.

Rect mkRect( ... )

These functions should take in the necessary inputs to define a shape, malloc enough space for the shape, set the inputs and return a pointer to the shape’s location in memory.

Naming Conventions

We use and recommend the following naming conventions in this assignment

Struct definitions are lower-case

struct triangle
{
    ...
}

Pointer typedefs are upper-case

typedef struct triangle *      Triangle

So

In this naming scheme upper case types are pointers. Lower-case types are not.

Whenever you have a variable with a lower-case type you use dot

struct point p;
p.x = 5

Whenever you have a variable with an upper-case type you use arrow

Point p = malloc(sizeof(struct point));
p->x = 5

Part 4 - shapes.h and test_shapes.c

We strongly recommend that you do not attempt this section until part 3 is complete and fully functional. Dealing with errors from structs/pointers and dealing with errors from header file organization at the same time can be very difficult. Solve one problem completely before you move on.

We often write code that is not for immediate use. Instead we write general purpose libraries that can be shared with other programmers or used in the future. When we do this we separate what the code does from how it works. People who use our library need to know what it does but not exactly how it works. They will study the .h file (what) and ignore the .c file (how)

If someone wants to see how a particular function works they will look in the .c file. They should only see struct and function definitions. They should not see testing code.

We recommend that you look at the code example named triangleLibrary in the code examples section. It contains these three files for a simpler case.

Submission

This homework is separated into four parts. While we recommend that you follow the outlined steps we will only grade the finished product. Please submit the following three files,