Exam 2 Topic List for Fall 2000, Sections 0101-0102

ADTs and Encapsulation

• You should be able to write a C++ class using correct syntax including overloaded operator methods.
• You should know the definition of an abstract data type.
• Given an English description of a class, you should be able to generate a correct class that implements that behavior.
• You should be able to explain the difference between a class' interface and its implementation.
• You should understand C++'s facilities for encapsulation and data hiding (classes and public vs. private members and methods).
• You should be able to make some distinction about operations that should be part of an ADT and those that should not. Since this is partly a matter of personal taste, you should be prepared to make an argument about your choices and explain why they make sense. (For example, a stack should not have a sort operation. The "why" is that stacks obey a strict last-in-first-out discipline and "sorting" by conventional definition would destroy that ordering.)
• You should be able to make some distinction about operations that must have access to an ADTs private members versus those that could get by without them. (For example, with a suitable list of accessor methods, a print function does not need to have access to the hidden portion of an object.)

Lists, Stacks, and Queues

• You should be able to explain a set of operations that make sense for an ordered sequence of elements (that is, a list, a stack, or a queue).

  For each operation (remove, insert, isEmpty, etc.), you should be able to provide an implementation for some underlying representation. (That is, be prepared for a question like: "Given this array implementation of a list, write an insert() method that inserts the value in the third position if the list is length two or greater and in the last position for all other sizes.")

Pointers

• For a given code segment, you should be able to draw a picture that corresponds to it.
• For a given picture, you should be able to write a segment of code that would "generate" that picture.
• You should understand how to allocate and deallocate memory in C++ using new, new [], delete, and delete [].