ANONYMOUS wrote While I said I'll delay replying till next week, I just need to note that I ran the tests from within an instance of the Docker image, which implements the standard environment. That environment is based on plain text files. Cheers Mich...

Hi, Working on it as fast as we can. I have about 40 of the submissions completely marked, with the remainder tested, but not marked by human (which is the slow, but important part). Cheers MichaelW

This brings me back to an earlier tip keep things simple, and then - hopefully - portable.

Hi Here is why the representing floating point numbers is locale dependent https www.grammar-monster.com lessons commas with numbers.htm Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, It truly does not matter, so long as we can read what you wrote. Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, Fair question. That is just a matter of personal taste on my part. Not important. Recalled that exit status 0 implies success; status 1 implies an error. I assume that if the user types a command without options they are trying t...

Hi Eusha Done. Thanks for the reminder. Good luck with the exams (and good luck everyone). Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote We're working on it, but no guarantees, not least because most of those doing the marking have exams themselves. Marking 300 assignments is a non-trivial exercise, and unlike the assignments themselves, we cannot start early Che...

Hi Junyu, Fair question. The answer is that there, once again, a proliferation of RE sub-languages, so in the same way that the course standardised on Bash (which I don't actually use, preferring ksh), the rationale has all along been to go with the ...

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, Yes, there were 18 lectures (starting at L0 ), and I believe I updated each just after I presented it, as I nearly always add stuff as I prepare the lecture for presentation. You can check against the class schedule - also on LMS. C...

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, To pass, you'll need to score 50 (or more) over the sum of the 3 components 1 assignments and the final exam, respectively weighted 20 , 20 and 60 . It's in the unit outline for every unit. Good luck, by the way. Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote HI, No. There are more questions to get your marks on, and more time, to give you more opportunity to demonstrate your prowess in scripting. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Ruilei, Yes, the last one submitted will be the one that is marked; previous submissions are logged, but overwritten. Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, According to the break-down given at the start (and in the README), the final mark will be out 60. The earlier paper was out of 60, and the exam was 90mins. This exam will be marked out of 90 and you'll have 2hrs, the the exam mark...

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, Having finished the planned material, and done revision on Monday, there was no final lecture this morning (Wed 22 May). Good luck with the exams. Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, We've been running a lecture head of the published schedule. That material was covered Wed 8 May. Cheers MichaelW

Hi As per the marking scheme, git add will get you 1 mark out of 2. Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, Yes. I follow UWA Assessment Policy guidelines for CITS4407, which provide for max 7 days late, but a deduction of 5 of the full mark (so 1 out of 20) for each day late, or part thereof. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Evan, Sure. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Andre, Alexandra is correct. UWA Assessment Policy mandates up to 7 days for late submissions for most assessment items, but with a penalty of 5 of the full mark (so 1 mark out of 20) per late day, part thereof. That is how things are run for CITS...

Hi, Yes. retain all rows within the range of years of interest. Cheers MichaelW

Hi, The output has to go to standard output, so if you've put it in a file, cat the file and then delete the file. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Faraz, I have a class shortly, but I'll check after that. I thought they all had been provided by last night. Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, Having removed the rows for entities which do not have a country code, the combination of country code - year will be unique. You need to do a join across that shared combined code, and taken in all the data (including empty cell...

Hi Everyone, I have now posted the marks (on csmarks) and feedback (on cssubmit) for the last few people. Sorry for the delay. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Zeke, This is not an error. The data is valid; the Cantril values just happen to be the same. (Perhaps they asked the same person each year?? ). In any case, from the point of view of data cleaning, it is clean data, and for this analysis, all ...

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi When you are working to the screen you cannot tell whether the data came from stdout or stderr. The only way is to redirect the streams program tested from stdout 2 from stderr Cheers MichaelW

Hi, Given that you posted anonymously I can't comment, but most marks feedback have been posted, with just a small number left of those which had been set aside groan and then the auto-testing failed, so they have to tested by hand. I'm down to the...

Hi, That is not how I understand things, which are illustrated in the sample1.xlsx worked example based on sample1.tsv. For each country there are 3 corrections to be done GDP, Homicide Rate, Life Expectancy, each versus Cantril, based on predicto...

Hi Kai, Empty cells are fine anywhere for the data cleaning program, so long as the rows are within the range of years of interest. Re double quotes, you only need these in CSV format, because comma can occur naturally within a string, so the whole s...

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, as far as I know, you the marks are on csmarks, but the feedback files are associated with cssubmit. I'm down the last few, which had to be marked by hand, for a variety of reasons. Speaking of which, I really should get back to m...

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi I certainly believe so. Don't forget, you have all the TSV source files, so you can work forward and see what should be there. Have I made a mistake? Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, No need for screen shots. The testing script will query the submitted .git directory directly. Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, I have no idea why this is happening. Does anyone else know, please? Cheers MichaelW

Hi Evan, Yes (how would you know which is the Continent column, for example, and Yes (see example ouputs) Cheers MichaelW

Hi, I'm not that fussed about how many decimal places. Three seems reasonable. As always, please use commonsense. Cheers MichaelW

Hi, I'm not sure I understand the question. The output file is to be send to standard output, where, if stdout is not redirected into a file, it will appear on the screen. Is that what you mean? Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, it mostly is, but in a few cases no; the difference is really whether a code is present at all in the code cell, or absent. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Runzhi, Yes, you can use a number of scripts to get the job done, including more than one awk script, if you wish. You then put all the scripts for the two programs, plus the .git repo for the assignment, in the single zip'd tar'd directory. Re inf...

Hi Boya, Good questions. I'll reply to each below it. The trick with all of these is to place yourself in the role of a user of the system. What will they expect? What information will be useful? As far as I can see, the country data (ie data that has a...

Hi Eusha Try again now. Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, Yes. It includes penalties for late submission based on UWA Assessment Policy, which, for some people, has been modified by Special Consideration or UAAP. If you have either of those and believe it has not been taken into account, ...

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, If I taught it, it's examinable. I can't say what the questions will be. For more general comments about the style of the questions in the exam, please review Monday's lecture slot, where that was covered (also stuff on Assignment ...

Hi Eusha, The error message about the incorrect row goes to stderr. Then you move on to the the next input line, which has the effect of deleting the from the output. That is, the line won't be there so it appears to have been deleted. (Of course, the...

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, Yes, please include the .git directory in the directory with the other bits, which you then zip or tar for submission. Cheers MichaelW

Hi, Please email me and I can check the submission logs to see where your submission may be. Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, The requirements are cantril data cleaning output is sent to standard output; input is from the 3 TSV format files best predictor takes a TSV format file of cleaned data, and sends the output of the analysis to standard o...

Hi I'll answer each part after the question. ANONYMOUS wrote I posted it primarily as input to best predictor (particular in relation to the correlation calculation). However, it also serves to show what the output to the cleaning stage looks like. Diff...

ANONYMOUS wrote The data from data cleaning should be sent to standard output. This will go to the terminal, but generally stdout is redirected into a file, but that is up to the person running the program, not you. Makes sense? Cheers MichaelW ...

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi Quite the opposite the input to best predictor will be a TSV file. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Evan, Yes. The structures of the respective files will not change. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Kaichao, The testing for the correct number of cells per row should happen for the 3 files submitted to the data cleaning program, after which all the lines in a given file should have the same number of cells. Joining two files containing lines wi...

Not sure which program you are referring to. The data cleaning program should output .tsv formatted data via stdout (error messages to stderr). The analysis program will report plain text results, similar to the example, via stdout. Cheers MichaelW ...

ANONYMOUS wrote That is correct. There will be other cleaned data for the analysis program (as there will be for the inputs to the data cleaning program). cheers MichaelW

Hi Evan, Yes, after reporting the ill-formed lines on stderr, ignore the line and just move on to the next line. Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, The input to best predictor is a cleaned data file (which I will supply) that was created by the cleaning program. Cheers MichaelW

Hi, Yes. Use whatever data there is in the range 2011 to 2021. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Chensu, Good question. For our purposes, to keep things simple, accept any entities with a code in the country-code column. Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote The output of best predictor is just a text report, like in Assignment 1, and going to stdout. Cheers MichaelW

Hi, I'll respond to each bit below it, ANONYMOUS wrote As always,that depends on whether the problem is local fixable or not fixable. A .csv file instead of the expected .tsv (or some other separator) is not readily fixable (if done properly), so erro...

Hi Zhiyang, Yes, of course the program can create as many temporary files as are needed; just make sure that they are tidied up at the end. The ouput from the cleaning program is to go to stdout. (I will then redirect stdout, as required.) Cheers Michae...

Hi Evan, As far as I can see, the main thing we are interested in across the files is that Life file header has the word Life, GDP data has the word GDP, etc. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Evan, The Cantril scores must be, as there was only one organisation providing the data for each country in a given year. The population counts come from a range of sources, and could differ, but as far as I know they are the same, all the files ha...

Hi Zhenlong, I hope that my recent email to the class makes that a bit clearer. Please get back to me if that is not the case. Cheers MichaelW

Hi, I hope that the email I sent to everyone this afternoon clarifies things. Please get back to me if things are still unclear. Cheers MichaelW

Hi, Thanks for the reminder, done. Cheers MichaelW

Hi, Yes, the sample data is correct. Because I was worried on that score, I did a couple countries by hand in the Excel spreadsheet. That corresponds to Sample 1, which is the same as Sample 2, except the later also contains a couple countries which...

Hi Rayhan, For either program, but particularly the data-cleaning program, error messages should be printed on stderr, with all the real data going to stdout. cheers MichaelW

Hi, Thanks for the reminder. I've released Lab 8. Lab 9 next week. Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, Please see the response to the earlier thread About the description of best predictor, and get back to me if anything there is unclear. Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, The fundamental misconception here is that the value needs to be at least 3. That is not correct. What I'm trying to say is that, for a given country, there needs to be at least 3 years with Cantril data. For example, in Sample2.tx...

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, The names may also change. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Zhenlong, The output should go to standard output rather than a file. (The analysis example has a file name because I simply had to use something ) Cheers MichaelW

Hi Runzhi That is correct. Tabs are simply replacing the commas that are used in the .csv format. Spaces can appear in either format, and are just parts of strings; never separators. Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, The full data-set has many more than 3 countries, but yes, ignore years before 2011 and after 2021. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Zexu, The file names are not relevant, and can change. Rather the content of each file can be judged by words appearing in the header line. The program needs 1 of each of the 3 types of data-file one GDP, one homicide rate, one life expectancy. Che...

Hi Ming, You, in effect, delete them by not printing them to stdout. Cheers MichaelW

Yes, that is correct.

Hi Zhiyang, The columns will be correct to type. That is, you'll get numbers where numbers are expected and strings where strings are expected (or an empty cell). Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, I would assume so, ignoring blank lines. Put another way, I cannot see a circumstance where a cleaned file of the same input data would be different. What am I missing, please? Cheers MichaelW

Hi, Not sure that I understand the question, I'm sorry, but if you use git only your local machine, git init creates a director called .git in the current directory. (Of course, you will need to use ls -a to see it.) You are being asked to include tha...

Hi Rayhan, That is now provided (Sample1.tsv is just the first two countries in Sample2.tsv) Cheers MichaellW

Hi I'll respond to each part after the question; ANONYMOUS wrote In effect, both. You ignore the row, in the sense of not printing it to stdout, but you also print an error message (to stderr). That is correct. HINT Ignore the name of the file. Instead...

Hi Zhenlong, Yes, just the range 2011 to 2021 (inclusive). The data for 2022 is uniformly not available in these data-sets. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Zhiyang, Sample1.tsv is just the first two countries round in Sample2.tsv (with the other two not have enough data-points). I have now made that explicit, but also provided Sample1.tsv, to avoid further confusion. Yes, cells may be empty, but if the...

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, To help check your (and my) calculations, I created an Excel spreadsheet which gives a breakdown of the correlation computations. Unless you are using scipy, and have coded the correlation computation in Python yourself, you may ha...

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, The specification says that the 3 files can appear in any order, so no, explicit names cannot be used (assuming I understood your question correctly). Cheers MichaelW

Hi, Please see the thread Assignment 2 clarification, below Cheers MichaelW

Hi Zhiyang, I cannot find those patterns in the data I provided. It looks like unicode characters have been introduced(??), but I cannot reproduce that problem. Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, I do not plan to change the due date for Assignment 2, firstly because the release of the specification was only a couple days late, and secondly because it is due the last week of term, after which it will class with the study br...

ANONYMOUS wrote Sorry for being unclear. You will notice that there is no Cantril data for years before 2011 or after 2021, so years outside that range can be ignored. However, years with no Cantril data which are within the range should be included....

Hi, Marking 300 assignments, which can arrive across a span of two weeks (with Special Consideration, etc) takes a little time. We're doing our best, and do appreciate that you'd like to get feedback as soon as possible. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Zexu, I am impressed. It's actually not trivial as .csv data can have commas in the strings, and also hidden CR . Was your solution able to cope with these? Cheers MichaelW

Hi, Responding to an earlier posting, I made the Lab 7 answers available earlier today (Mon). Cheers MichaelW

The solutions are now uploaded, and are available next to the Quiz Cheers MichaelW

Hi Suan, That is what I thought I was setting up. While I investigate whether your answers can be released to you, I'll at least make the solutions visible. Cheers MichaelW

Hi, I did it yesterday (Sunday). I hope you got the class email. If not, please get in contact. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Eusha That was in today's class; you need to use the Awk function sprintf. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Suan, It starts in the current directory and then all sub-directories, and looks for all files called Makefile or makefile. For each such file it executes the function make, which we will visit on Wednesday. It then prints the full path to that Mak...

Hi Rabea, The main purpose for asking for Git in Ass2 is to get you used to using this industry-standard (and really useful) Shell tool, and more generally the need for version control. The auto-testing will print the evidence for the human marker to...

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, That was a mistake on my part. Now fixed. Long story short, a csv file would be an error as it cannot be interpreted as a .tsv file. Cheers MichaelW

Hi, Yes, any of the Shell tools covered in the unit can be used (and, of course, Bash). Cheers MichaelW

Hi, Done. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Ziyuan and everyone, It turns out that there was a feedback tool I need to set up, and a setting I had missed. That done, I believe you should be able to see both the mark and the respective answers feedback. Please let me know if that's not what...

Hi Suan, I can assure you, and everyone, that all the submitted scripts were marked, and I have clicked the links to release the answers. Clearly something is not happening as it should. I'll follow up with the LMS people tomorrow after the lecture. Ch...

Hi Everyone, As Ziyuan said, you can download the recording and play it on your own device. I tried it just now. I have no idea why the streaming version is not working, but there is a work around. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Ziyuan, Your (and everyone's) learning is important to us, which is why we do it. When I know all the submissions have been marked, I'll figure out how to release the feedback. LMS is a complicate beast. In any case, soon. Have a good weekend Cheers M...

Hi Kai, Some material for the workshops was shuffled around, so arcade.csv is in Lab6, australian-universities.csv is in Lab8. Must put that on the list of things to tidy up for next year. Cheers MichaelW

I have made Lab 6 answers visible. Lab 7 will be next week. Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, I will say more about the final exam close to the time, but yes, as before, you will be allowed to bring a single A4 page into the exam (printed or hand-written, both sides, if you wish). Cheers MichaelW

Hi Yu, That's fine. Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, Seeing all of them are the maximum, just print any one of them. Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Country code should be treated the same as gender. Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Yes, capitalization of country codes will be treated similar to gender. Cheers MichaelW

Hi, I shall respond to each in turn. ANONYMOUS wrote See earlier response (no) This was discussed in lectures See earlier threads See earlier threads The file should not end in .sh (but ok this time), but yes, any directory, which you then zip. The directo...

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, The idea behind both discussions is that if input has a sensible reading, disregarding capitalisation, then you could logically call it a mistake, or you can use the data you've been given for full marks (if correct ). Logically, t...

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, Having multiple scripts called by the top-level one is perfectly fine; providing for that possibility is why a zip'd or gzip'd directory is required for the submitted program. However, please do not have you own call to chmod. The ...

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, The first argument is the full pathname to the file, which the testing program will supply. All your program has to do is open the file associated with 1; if it's not there, the program should simply stop and print an error messag...

Hi Anandhu, The testing script will set everything up for so please do not change the PATH variable. Cheers MichaelW

Hi, I think you'll find the answer to that in earlier threads. (You'll note that helpOSTS provides a string search facility.) Cheers MichaelW

Hi Alexandra, Given the actual range of survey dates, and the fact that we are coding this now, I took the pragmatic view that 2022 (and earlier) is past, while 2025 is future. Still, nice idea. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Zichen, It just means that whatever you did was submitted as is, so that's all that will be marked. Does it matter? Not really, given the context. (I'll set it up differently next time.) Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, I have no idea how or why one might use the find command in a situation where the input data consists of a single file (not directory). More to the point, you have to be very careful with find as the command can traverse a lot of f...

Hi, We've only just covered it. As I mentioned a while back, I release solutions a couple weeks after the week when the lab would cover the lecture, to give people time to try it. I've recently released the solutions for Lab 5. (Congratulations on bei...

Hi, That is correct, so there must be a different way. (See next response). Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi What I was trying to indicate is that treating malE as an error is not wrong, but does make use of perfectly usable information, so would be worth less as an answer, therefore half marks for that question. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Suan Not quite echo 'fred cat' sed -e 's a-z a-z ' The single quote are also important (to top the info for sed being instead processed by Bash. Cheers MichaelW

Hi, Please see my responses to the earlier thread "Assignment 1 Use of BC". Short answer, No. For the reasons, please read the thread. Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, Please see my reply to the earlier thread, unhelpfully entitled, "doubts in assignment" Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, In the words of Han Solo, I have a bad feeling about this . (My apologies if I'm being unfair.) Please make sure your script works on the standard environment provided by either the Docker class image, or Linux Lab in the UniAp...

Hi, I'll answer each part after the question ANONYMOUS wrote I hope it's clear that I'm expecting the program to deal with other error states. Given that I've not told you what they are, I can hardly be pedantic about the error message. True? While you...

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, One thing you need to learn is that if something is made explicit in a specification, typically because it needs to work with other modules then you must keep to the spec. However, just this time, I shall accept tobacco nation or t...

Hi, It's way too early to talk about the final exam, and the truth is that I've not designed it yet. There will be a past exam you can look at, which we'll also discuss in class. As you mention, you will be allowed to bring in a single sheet of A4 pap...

Hi Eusha L1 to L9 (so not Ed style regular expressions) are covered. Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote The best hint I can offer, short of spelling it out, is to go back to the lectures L1 to L6 (including L5, though the order was swapped). While the efficiency will be poor, you only need to use the language structures and Unix command...

Hi Junyu Just pick one. (They are all correct, after all). Cheers MichaelW

Hi Kaichao, Try again now, please. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Kaichao, I cannot see why there is a problem, so I've extended the test till tomorrow, 11 59pm and will ask IT for help. Thanks for letting me know Cheers MichaelW

Hi Kaichao Oh dear. I was in a workshop till now, but I'll go right now and see what is happening. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Eusha I think I answered that for Runzhi, above. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Aadil, Yes, same order. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Runzhi, Seeing you've asked a number of questions, I'll follow each, in turn, with my response, rather than leaving it to the end. sort has been used for some time, and grep is also fairly recent, so sure. They are still "simple" Linux commands. (Th...

My reasoning is, quite simply, does the different rendering still have an unambiguous interpretation? Cheers MichaelW

Hi Eusha, Done. For good measure, I also uploaded the code that was created for L6 and today's lecture, L9. Enjoy ... (ok, perhaps not, but I hope you find it useful). Cheers MichaelW

Hi Everyone, I realised that the lecture did not define what a Bash while loop is, beyond the examples. I have now revised the lecture slides (and PDF) to include a slide on what a while loop looks like, and how it works. I also took the opportunity to...

Hi Everyone, This is in response to some questions I was asked in the lab. What if the user types male rather than the expected Male? My attitude to error handling is quite pragmatic - Is there a sensible interpretation of the input data that is close...

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi ) The name of the directory containing the script can be anything. ) You don't need to include the .csv file, as I shall be using my own. However, no harm done if you do include it; I'll simply ignore it. ) Don't worry about file ...

Hi, The number of white spaces is not relevant; I believe in auto-testing (for uniformity and fairness), but not auto-marking, because humans are much better at dealing with differences in the output that are actually not relevant. In particular, diff...

Hi Kushan The spec says, "We will not be using Both, which is the mean of the Famale and Male smoking rates" Cheers MichaelW

Hi, I discussed dev stderr in response to another query. Please look there. Regarding the file name, the specification says that the name has to be tobacco nation (with no suffix). However, people find it very hard not to add a .sh, so - while techni...

Hi, There is a little confusion here. For all Bash messages you need to use echo. The only question then is where the message is to be printed. echo "Fred here" will print to stdout (or dev stdout). That is the default destination, so you don't have ...

Hi Rabea, Use of Bash functions is fine; It's just that we've not covered them yet. The are not "advanced" (I really should have chosen a different word), by which I intended more advanced Unix tools, such as awk (and bc), where you can pretty much ge...

Using gzip (and then gunzip) on the directory containing the script(s) is also fine. In retrospect, given that I've been pushing Unix Linux specific tools, for authenticity I really should have asked for Linux native gzip over the more optional zip. ...

Hi Suan, For example, let's say that the argument to this program is a word 1 being sought in a text 2 if grep 1 2 dev null then echo "The word 1 is found in 2" else echo "The word 1 is not found in 2" fi In this case we don't want ...

Hi, This makes no sense to me. If you are able to capture a floating point real in this way (outside of Awk), you will comparing strings, which is not a good idea if you actually are working with numbers (see the discussion on arithmetic versus string...

Hi Nathan, Textbook? How wonderfully old-fashioned . Which one are you using, please? Cheers MichaelW

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, If you are running the standard Ubuntu Bash Gnu-Shell-Tools set up, having the .sh on the end of file name should not matter. Instead you need the usr bin env bash as the first line. (To my taste, having .sh at the end of Shell ...

Hi Suman, I don't really understand the question. Bash printf prints data to standard output. I can't see how you can use Bash's printf to compare floating point values. Sorry. Confused. (Bash only supports integer arithmetic - which we'll cover short...

Hi, Sorry for being unclear, no, you cannot use bc. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Baoyue, Please go back over Lecture 5 Variables, particularly the material on the PATH variable. You will notice I have put '.' in my PATH, so did not have to explicitly use . count occurrences. Cheers MichaelW

Hi, I wouldn't class the read command as advanced. It's just that we've not covered it yet as it's related to loop structures, which we only get to do next teaching week. Please just use the stuff we've covered - for now. Trainer-wheels will come off...

Hi Nathan, short answers are No and Yes. Longer answer, bc is a small language similar to awk in concept, though more limited. The point of this assignment is get you using the language structures we have covered in the unit, literate programming, an...

Hi Suan, They are both places where standard output, e.g. from echo, can be redirected. dev stderr (don't forget the first ' ' ) is standard error output (for error messages), while dev null is literally nowhere, a black hole, which simply gobbles u...

Hi Suan A better way of saying 1 2 echo ERROR is echo ERROR dev stderr The first of these can be used by all Unixes Linuxes, but is very unobvious syntactically; translation take the output sent to stdout (file descriptor 1) and send it instead t...

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, I have no idea why you are unable to submit your Assignment 1 file, as 6 people have managed to do so, including 2 just today. All I can suggest is please try again. Cheers MichaelW

Hi, I'll talk about that tomorrow (Wed 27th), but the specification says that what the program should expect is a 3 letter ISO country code. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Zichen, Unless I'm missing something, I think I covered that in yesterday's (Monday 25th) lecture on where binaries are to be found, and the PATH variable. No? Cheers MichaelW

Hi Everyone, Given the questions I'm being asked about Assignment 1, I plan to use the first part of the lecture on Wednesday (27th) as a Q A about Ass 1, so BYO Questions. I'll also show you a useful command for tracking through your program as it ex...

ANONYMOUS wrote Hi, The range column is actually not relevant for this assignment, and the maths you suggest is well beyond the tools that I have asked you to use. Please just use the medianPC for the calculations. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Eusha, Yes, it would be okay to ignore the output format in this particularly. Clearly my intention was to have Male where I would otherwise have Female, but I forgot to do that in my implementation and therefore in the examples. To be honest, I wo...

Yes, tobacco nation and . tobacco nation are intended to be the same variable. This will be made clear at Monday's lecture, and - long story short - involves how you set up the PATH variable. Starting with the . is arguably better (which is anothe...

Hi Everyone, You are aware that we don't have a lecture tomorrow morning (9am March 20). What I strongly suggest you do is make sure you have had a go at Labsheet 3. The language structures covered there are directly relevant to Assignment 1, and whil...

Hi Suan, Don't worry. I engineered some slack in the timetable to deal with these interruptions, or simply the fact that I want to go more slowly over something, or spend the time answering questions. If you get on LMS you'll see that the Weekly sched...

Hi Everyone, What I usually do if I receive an email query whose answer could apply to the whole, is reply to the sender and then post the answer as a FAQ. Here is the first. Cheers MichaelW ... " I saw there are 2 spaces in some of your examples in the d...

Onto it. See you next Monday.

Hi Kaichao, wc is very simple it just counts the number of characters, words and lines in a plain-text file. In general, if you are unsure about any command, I recommend using man, e.g. man wc Finally, beware of using ChatGPT for anything; it can "hall...

Hi Zeke, This is what I'll be talking about in tomorrow (Monday's) lecture, and why I brought that lecture forward. As they say, All Will be Revealed ...... (cue the dramatic music) Cheers MichaelW

Hi Suan, It looks like you are using Windows System for Linux (due to the Windows-format pathnae), rather than Linux itself, which you can get via the Docker image, or download and install UniApps and search for Linux Lab. Cheers MichaelW

Hi Weng That is entirely fair and reasonable. It should be included. However, I know from experience that classes hate it when the specification of an assignment is changed after it has been released. I'll therefore leave the specification as it is. I...

Welcome to helpOSTS I've now tried the two class discussion systems available on LMS Discussion Forums and Wiki. Neither is suitable, as far as I'm concerned. The Discussion Forums are only for topics set by the unit coordinator, and are used in ca...