COMP1721 Object-Oriented Programming
Coursework 1: Creating & Using Classes
1 Introduction
Your task is to write a Java program that analyzes COVID-19 cases amongst staff, students and other
individuals at the University of Leeds, as reported at
https://coronavirus.leeds.ac.uk/statistics-and-support-available/
You must do this by creating the classes described by the UML diagram in Figure 1. The class CaseRecord
represents the cases recorded on a given date as a result of positive tests for COVID-19. The class
CovidDataset represents a chronological sequence of these records.
There are three different levels of solution: basic, full and advanced. The UML diagram summarizes the
requirements for the full solution. The advanced solution is aimed at people who complete the lower levels
quickly and want some additional challenge.
Figure 1: Main classes used in Coursework 1.
2 Preparation
It is important that you follow the instructions below precisely.
1. Download cwk1-files.zip from Minerva or Teams. Put this file in the coursework directory of
your repository.
2. Unzip the Zip archive. You can do this from the command line in Linux, macOS and WSL 2 with
unzip cwk1-files.zip.
3. Make sure that you have the following files and subdirectories immediately below cwk1:
app/ config/ gradle/ README.html
build.gradle core/ gradlew README.md
chart/ datafiles/ gradlew.bat settings.gradle
IMPORTANT: Make sure that this is exactly what you see! For example, you should NOT have
a subdirectory of cwk1 that is itself named cwk1. Thus the path to the README file, relative to the
repository directory, should be coursework/cwk1/README.md. Fix any problems with the directory
structure before proceeding any further.
4. Remove cwk1-files.zip. Use Git to add and commit the new files, then push your commit up
to gitlab.com. The following commands, executed in a terminal window while in the coursework
directory of your repository, will achieve all of this:
git add cwk1
git commit -m "Initial files for Coursework 1"
git push
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3 Skeleton Classes
The first step is to create skeletons of the two classes shown in Figure 1. These are needed because we have
provided a set of tests that we will use when marking your work, which you can also use yourself to assess
your progress. These tests will be of no use until they compile, and they will only compile once you’ve
provided stubs (dummy versions) of the methods in the two classes.
1. Edit CaseRecord.java, in the directory core/src/main/java/comp1721/cwk1. Within the class
definition for CaseRecord add a constructor with four parameters:
• A LocalDate object representing the date on which cases were recorded
• An int value representing the number of staff cases
• An int value representing the number of student cases
• An int value representing the number of other cases
Don’t put anything in the body of the constructor yet. Note that you’ll need to import LocalDate
from the java.time package.
2. Implement the CaseRecord methods shown in Figure 1 as stubs. Use the exact same method names
and return types as shown in the UML diagram. If a method is supposed to return a numeric value,
make it return the value 0. If a method is supposed to return an object of some kind, make it return
null.
3. Edit CovidDataset.java, in the directory core/src/main/java/comp1721/cwk1. Within the class
definition for CovidDataset add stubs for the methods shown in Figure 1. Use the exact same
method names, parameter types and return types as shown in the UML diagram. If a method is
supposed to return a numeric value, make it return the value 0. If a method is supposed to return an
object of some kind, make it return null. Constructors and methods that don’t return anything should
just have empty method bodies (i.e., nothing inside the braces).
4. Attempt to run the tests with
./gradlew :core:test
(On Windows, omit the ./ from the start of this command.)
If you’ve implemented the classes and their stub methods properly, the tests should compile and run
but almost all of them should display FAILED in the terminal window.
Consult the README file in cwk1 for further details of how to run tests selectively and how to view
test results in a web browser.
5. Commit the code changes to your Git repository.
4 Basic Solution
The features of the basic solution are worth 13 marks. These marks are awarded for passing a set of tests.
You can run these tests like this:
./gradlew :core:test --tests Basic
The --tests Basic in this command ensures that only the tests for the basic solution are run. You can
omit it to run all the tests.
4.1 CaseRecord
Add the required fields to CaseRecord, then replace the method stubs with correct implementations. After
implementing each method, rerun the tests, as shown above.
The getter methods should return the corresponding field values.
The totalCases method should return the total number of COVID cases recorded in a CaseRecord.
The toString method should return a string containing all the field values from the CaseRecord, formatted
so that it looks like this example:
2020-10-07: 2 staff, 59 students, 0 other
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An attempt to create a CaseRecord with a negative value for staff cases, student cases or other cases should
result in a DatasetException being thrown, containing an appropriate error message. You have been
provided with this exception class and do not need to write it yourself.
There are 7 tests relating specifically to the CaseRecord class in the Basic solution. Make sure all of these
are passing before proceeding any further.
4.2 CovidDataset
This class represents an ordered sequence of CaseRecord objects. It will need a field capable of storing
these objects, so the first step is to add this field, plus a default constructor that initializes it.
Next, turn your attention to the addRecord, getRecord and size method stubs. Replace each of these with
the required implementation and rerun the tests to check whether you’ve done this correctly.
The addRecord method should append the given CaseRecord object to the end of the current sequence of
records stored in a CovidDataset.
The getRecord method should return the CaseRecord object stored at the given position, specified as a
zero-based integer index. It should throw a DatasetException if the supplied index is not valid.
The size method should return the number of CaseRecord objects stored in a CovidDataset.
Finally, implement the dailyCasesOn method. This method should find and return the CaseRecord object
corresponding to the given date. If no CaseRecord can be found for the given date, the method should throw
a DatasetException, containing an appropriate error message.
There are 6 tests relating specifically to the CovidDatset class in the basic solution. Make sure all of these
are passing before proceeding any further.
5 Full Solution
The features of the full solution are worth a further 11 marks. 6 marks are awarded for passing the automated
tests and 5 marks are awarded for implementing a program that uses the two classes. You can run only the
tests for the Full solution like this:
./gradlew :core:test --tests Full
Omit --tests Full from this command if you want to run all the tests.
5.1 CovidDataset
1. Consult the README in the datafiles directory, then examine the file 2020-daily.csv in a text
editor (not in a spreadsheet application). Each line of this CSV file (after the initial column headings)
represents one record of the dataset. Your code will need to convert each of these lines into a suitable
CaseRecord object, which should then be stored in the CovidDataset for later use.
2. Replace the stub for readDailyCases with an implementation that reads from a CSV file whose name
is given by the method parameter. Note the following points regarding readDailyCases:
• It should not catch any exceptions that occur during reading of a CSV file.
• It will need an exception specification—either for FileNotFoundException or IOException,
depending on the approach you’ve used to read the data.
• Reading data from a file should clear out any data previously held in the CovidDataset.
• It is OK for a dataset to be empty—i.e., it is OK for the CSV file to contain column headings but
no case records.
3. Replace the stub for writeActiveCases with an implementation that computes the number of active
cases on each day, for each category of individual (staff, student, other). The method should write
the active case data out to a CSV file whose name is given by the method’s filename parameter. The
format for the output file should identical to the format of the daily cases file—i.e., same columns and
column headings.
The number of active cases on any given day is defined as the sum of the number of cases
recorded over the past 10 days, including the given day.
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Note the following points regarding writeActiveCases:
• You can assume that a CovidDataset holds consecutive days of data, with no missing days.
• You should skip the first nine days of data in a CovidDataset, since the tenth record in the
dataset is the first for which a valid count of active cases can be produced.
• Your method should throw a DatasetException if there are not at least ten CaseRecord objects
stored in the CovidDataset.
• Your method should not catch any exceptions that occur during writing of the CSV file.
• Your method will need an exception specification for IOException.
Make sure that all 6 tests pass before proceeding to the final part of the Full solution.
5.2 ActiveCases Program
Edit the file ActiveCases.java, in app/src/main/java/comp1721/cwk1. In this file, write a program
that reads daily case data from a CSV file and then writes active cases to a different CSV file.
The names for these two files should be provided on the command line, with the daily cases file specified as
the first command line argument, and the active cases file specified as the second command line argument.
If the user of the program fails to provide two command line arguments, your program should print a helpful
usage message and then terminate.
After reading and writing data, your program should display the number of records that were in the
CovidDataset. It should display no other output (aside from error messages—see below).
Your program should catch any exceptions that occur during the reading, processing or writing of data. The
error message associated with the caught exception should be displayed, then the program should terminate
with a non-zero status code (to signify that an error of some kind has occurred).
You can run the program from the command line with
./gradlew :app:run
This will use files datafiles/2020-daily.csv and datafiles/2020-active.csv as the command line
arguments. You can check the contents of the latter file to see if your program is behaving correctly.
6 Advanced Task
This task is more challenging and will require you to do some additional research. Also, it is worth
only 5 marks. You should attempt it only if you manage to complete the Basic and Full solutions fairly
quickly and easily.
1. Investigate JavaFX—e.g, by reading Chapter 6 of Eck’s Introduction to Programming Using Java
and trying out some of the examples.
2. Visit http://bit.ly/jfxcharts to learn about drawing charts in JavaFX.
3. Edit the file CovidChart.java, in chart/src/main/java/comp1721/cwk1. In this file, create a
program that reads COVID case data from a CSV file and then draws a line chart showing how the
total number of active cases changes over time.
Your program should make use of the classes developed for the Basic and Full solutions. The x axis
of the chart should be day of the year, which can be obtained from the LocalDate object associated
with a CaseRecord.
You should be able to compile and run the program with
./gradlew :chart:run
This will be slow the first time it runs, as it needs to download additional dependencies.
Figure 2 is an example of what this chart could look like. Your solution should show the data correctly
but doesn’t need to be identical to this example.
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Figure 2: Example of a JavaFX chart for the Advanced task.
7 Submission
The final section of the README file for this coursework explains the submission process in detail. Please
follow the submission instructions carefully.
The submission process will generate a file named cwk1.zip containing your solution. Please remember to
submit this file to Minerva, via the link provided in the Submit My Work section.
The deadline for submissions is 10 am on Friday 5 March.
Note that all submissions will be subject to automated plagiarism checking.
8 Marking
13 Tests for basic solution
6 Tests for full solution
5 ActiveCases program for full solution
5 Advanced task (CovidChart program)
4 Coding style and comments
2 Use of version control