The primary input and output files can be found in the posting account in the project #0 directory. In particular several items to note are that the primary input file:

• Contains two "semesters" (the first is 01 and the second is 03)
• The total number of credits attempted is the sum of ALL the credits found in the "transcript" (this is regardless of grade or the course) - in this example it comes to 26 credits.
• The number of credits earned is the sum of all courses (even repeats) with grades of A, B, C, D or P - in this example it comes to 19 credits. NOTE: in "real life" the sum of credits earned does not "double count" repeated courses (and in this case would be 4 less and only be 15).
• The cumulative gpa is calculated by adding up all of the credits for courses where a grade of A, B, C, D and F are earned and dividing the total number of "quality points" by this sum - in this example it comes to a 2.75 gpa. NOTE: the "quality points" total in this example is:

  4*B + 4*A + 4*D + 4*B  =  4*3 + 4*4 + 4*1 + 4*3  =  12 + 16 + 4 + 12  =  44
  

  and the credit sum is 16 - which results in 44/16 = 2.75

When you come to see someone in office hours for help on your project, you should always bring a current printout of your code and if possible a printout of the compiler error messages (if there are any) and if it compiles a printout of the programs output (and the input used to generate that output). If you want to get the output of the compilers error messages you will need to redirect error output as follows:

%  cxx  proj0.cpp  >&  my.comp.errors

Having the requested information above will assist the instructional staff in being better able to assist you and others who are waiting to be assisted. Please also understand that the office hour room is a shared resource with other classes and we ask that you be respectful of the room and others using the room.

Another VERY IMPORTANT thing to do prior to going to office hours is attempt to "debug" your code as much as possible when you have a problem and that way when you see the TA you can point to the line (or lines) of code causing the problem (it should typically only be one line) and explain to them what the problem is and hopefully they will be able to figure out the problem (and a solution) and explain it to you so that you can determine how to fix it. When "debugging" code you can either attempt to use a debugger (details of which will be posted with later projects) or just use good old fashion debug cout (or cerr) statements:

    cout << "GOT THIS FAR" << endl;  // very important to use endl;
    someFunctionCall();
    cout << "DIDN'T GET THIS FAR" << endl;  // and cout is recommended over cerr

A FAQ is a list of Frequently Asked Questions and in particular the FAQ's for projects in this class will have questions listed in reverse chronological order (meaning the most recent question will appear at the top of the FAQ list and the first question asked/answered will appear at the bottom of the list).