CMSC 104, Sections 3, 4, & 5, Fall 2012

Exam 3 Topic List

• Basic review of topics from first two parts of course
• The 'switch' statement
  • The purpose of the 'switch' statement
  • The basic syntax of the 'switch' statement
  • Restrictions on the type of the 'switch' expression
  • Restriction on what is allowed as a 'case' (integer constant)
  • Use of 'break' in a switch statement
  • The 'default' case
  • What happens when no case matches
  • Using #define constants for cases
• Functions:
  • What functions are for
  • Key motivations for writing code as functions
  • Functions and top-down design
  • How main() is a special function
  • The three parts of using functions:
    • The function prototype
    • The function call
    • The function definition
  • Function prototypes
    • Syntax for function prototype specifications
    • What the function prototype does (i.e., why it is needed)
    • Where it needs to be placed in your source code
  • Function calls
    • How to call a function
    • Actual vs. formal parameters
    • How parameters are passed to functions
    • How parameters are passed to functions
  • Function definitions
    • What a function definition does
    • The syntax for a function definition
    • Function parameters
      • Syntax for defining parameter name and type
      • Parameters act like local variables
    • Defining a function's return type
    • Using the keyword 'void' for the parameter list or return type
    • The 'return' statement
    • Describing a function in the header comment
  • Header files, and their use for holding function prototypes
• Arrays
  • What a data structure is: data structures vs. simple data types
  • What an array is
  • Allowed data types for array elements
  • How array elements are stored in memory
  • Array declaration
  • Array initialization (the "{...}" syntax)
  • Strings as arrays of chars
    • null terminator
  • Accessing array elements using subscripts ("[...]")
  • Initializing and filling arrays with loops
  • Out-of-range errors (esegmentation faults")
  • How indexing works (what is needed to compute the address)
  • Passing arrays to functions
  • Call-by-value vs. call-by-reference
• Searching and Sorting
  • Why searching and sorting are important
  • What a searching algorithm is
  • What a sorting algorithm is
  • How the two are related
  • Trace-offs in selecting searching/sorting algorithms: speed vs. complexity
  • Search:
    • Sequential search:
      • on unordered files
      • on ordered files
      • Best-case/worst-case search times
    • Binary search
      • Execution time
      • "Log n" efficiency
      • Best-case/worst-case search times
  • Sorting:
    • Some soring algorithm examples you should know
      • Bubble sort
      • Insertion sort
      • Merge sort
      • Quicksort (just a general description)
• Global and Static variables
  • What a global variable is
  • What needs global variables fill
  • Downsides to using global variables
• Pointers
  • What a pointer is
  • How you declare a variable to be a pointer to a type (e.g.: int)
  • How you get the address of a variable using '&', and assign it to a pointer variable.
  • How you use a pointer variable to get the value at the contained address, using '*'