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CIS2500: Intermediate Programming
Assignment #3: Dynamic Data structures (linked lists)
Tweet Manager
1.0 Introduction
Social media such as Twitter is a well-known example of a dataset that has a countably infinite potential for
growth, in that there is a hard-minimum number of tweets that a user might create (i.e., zero), but there is no
maximum to the number of tweets that a user might create. In this case, you need to consider dynamic allocations
when accessing such a dataset, since no fixed value can be guaranteed to work for all cases.
2.0 The Task
Via a menu-driven solution, create a program that allows a user to run basic tasks on a set of tweet data that
emulates the basic functionality of Twitter. Users should be able to create tweets, display tweets, search tweets
ased on a keyword or mention, save and load tweets from a local file, and calculate the number of stop words are
present across all of the tweets (background information on stop words: http:
it.ly/stopWords). The menu will be
command-line based and will have the following options:
1. Create a new tweet
2. Display tweets
3. Search a tweet (by keyword)
4. Find how many words are “stop words” (stop words are explained in a later section)
5. Delete the nth tweet
6. Save tweets to a file
7. Load tweets from a file
8. Sort the given linked list on userid.
9. Exit
After the completed execution of each of the menu options (except for the Exit option), the user should be
ought
ack to the menu and re-prompted to enter a new command.
Technical Components
While it is likely that Twitter uses a much more efficient means of storing their data, one of the most basic
structures to hold an endless set of data is a linked list. We will create a linked list to store the data for all the tweets
that we create, edit, delete, search, and store. The linked list will rely on a user-defined structure and will follow this
structure definition for it:
struct microtweet {
int id;
non-unique integer value
char user [51];
the username of the person who wrote the tweet
char text [141];
the text of the tweet
struct microtweet *next;
dynamic connection to the next tweet
};
For simplicity, all of the components inside the struct will be statically sized, apart from the *next pointer
that will be used to create and link the nodes in the linked list. This pointer will be used to hold the memory address
for the next tweet.
The given struct must be defined in a separate header file. You may add other definitions in it as well.
You must write a separate function for each menu option (except the exit option 9). Each function should be
contained in its own function file. For example, create a function called createTweets for menu option 1 in a file
called createTweets.c. You must create a main (mainA3.c) that displays the menu and executes the menu options
CIS2500: Intermediate Programming
ased on user choice. All function prototypes are given in a file called headerA3.h. Besides these 7 functions, you
may create other functions and store them in a separate file (e.g. helper.c).
Input
Since this is a menu-driven program, there are several potential input streams for the tweets. The first input
stream is from the command line itself (Menu Option 1). Alternatively, the user can use the seventh option to load a
CSV file of tweets into the program. A sample CSV file has been provided for you to test your programs with. Both
of these inputs will feed into the same linked list structure, as defined above.
Menu Option 1: Creating a new tweet
If the user chooses to manually enter a new tweet, the following format should be followed (black is system text, red
is user input):
Choose a menu option: 1
Enter a username: uog
Enter the user’s tweet: The quick
own fox jumped over the lazy dog\n
Your computer-generated userid is 375.
Through the menu, the user should have the option to create a new tweet and fill in some of the parameters for the
struct manually (namely, the username and user’s tweet). Userid is automatically generated using the following rule:
userid = (sum of ascii values of characters in the username) + (length of the user’s tweet). For example, for the
sample given above, the generated userid = XXXXXXXXXX) + 44 = 375. If this userid already exists in the cu
ent
linked list, then add random numbers between 1 and 999, repeatedly, until a unique id is generated.
You must store new tweets at the end of the cu
ent list.
*\Note: Use the prototype given in headerA3.h
Menu Option 2: Displaying Tweets
If option 2 is selected, all of the tweets that are cu
ently in memory (ie. in the linked list) will be displayed
to the user. The output must include the full static contents of the struct (id, user, text), in the following format:
Choose a menu option: 2
id>: Created by :
id>: Created by :
id>: Created by :
Reprint the menu>
*\Note: Use the prototype given in headerA3.h
Menu Option 3: Searching Tweets
Searching for tweets in this assignment will be done by keyword. To search for tweets, the linked list
should be traversed to find all tweets that have the user-provided substring inside them. If a match is found, that
tweet should be printed to console along with its associated user value (example below: black is system text, red is
user input):
Choose a menu option: 3
Enter a keyword to search:
ead
Match found for ‘
ead’: uogsocis wrote: “If you put two
eadboards together, is it a
ead-sandwhich?”
Match found for ‘
ead’: uogsocis wrote: “We apologize for that
ead-related pun.”
Reprint the menu>
Note that the search is case-insensitive. And so, the same result is achieved for keyword Bread.
CIS2500: Intermediate Programming
*\Note: Use the prototype given in headerA3.h
Menu Option 4: Counting Stop Words
Stop words are an interesting phenomenon in language. When the user chooses option 5, the program will
traverse the entire linked list and calculate the number of stop words that are present across all tweets, outputting the
summation of all tweets. For this program, only the top 25 stop words found at http:
it.ly/stopWords will be used
as our list of stop words for this assignment, also given here for convenience:
"a","an","and","are","as","at","be","by","for","from","has","he","in","is","it","its",
"of","on","that","the","to","was","were","will","with"
The format of the output will be a single line formatted as follows (black text is system text, red text is user input):
Choose a menu option: 4
Across 27 tweets, 43 stop words were found.
*\Note: Use the prototype given in headerA3.h
Menu Option 5: Delete the nth tweet
In this option, the user is prompted to give a value between 1 and the total number of tweets your linked list has –
note that this number must be equal to the total number of tweets at that time.
Choose a menu option: 5
Cu
ently there are 5 tweets.
Which tweet do you wish to delete – enter a value between 1 and 5: 2
Tweet 1234 deleted. There are now 4 tweets left.
Reprint the menu>
*\Note: Use the prototype given in headerA3.h
Menu Option 6: Save tweets to a file
Should the user wish to output their tweets, they should be first prompted for the filename to output their tweets to.
For example (black is system text, red is user input):
Choose a menu option: 6
Enter the filename where you would like to store your tweets: tweetsStore.csv
Output successful!
Unless chosen by the user through the menu (Option 6), the tweet data will not be output to file; that is, if the user
chooses Exit before saving, then the data that they input is lost. Tweet storage should follow the CSV format of the
input file, such that the file can be reloaded using the load menu option. The format of the CSV is as follows: id,
user, text. For example, a tweet that was created by the @uofg Twitter account will be stored in this format:
1246, uog, The quick
own fox jumped over the lazy dog\n
*\Note: Use the prototype given in headerA3.h
Menu Option 7: Load tweets from a file
If the user chooses to load tweets from a file, the following format should be followed (black is system text, red is
user input):
Choose a menu option: 7
Enter a filename to load from: tweetsStore.csv
CIS2500: Intermediate Programming
Tweets imported!
If an e
or occurs while inputting from the file, an e
or message should be output to the screen to inform the user
that the action failed.
You may assume that the userids of all tweets in the file are unique.
*\Note: A comma will not be found in the usernames, but CAN exist in the text of the tweet!
*\Note: Use the prototype given in headerA3.h
Menu Option 8: Sort tweets on id
In this option, you are required to sort the linked list nodes on ascending order of userids. You may use any sorting
algorithm discussed in class.
3.0 E
or Checking
- No e
or checking is expected for tweets read from a file: it can be assumed that these tweets will be free
from e
ors. However, new tweets generated by the user, much like on the real Twitter platform, must be
checked