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CMSC 201
Programming Project Four
ASCII Art
Out: Wednesday 11/5/03
Due: Before Midnight, Sunday 11/16/03
The design document for this project, design4.txt ,
is due: Before Midnight, Sunday 11/23/03
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Objectives
This project will give you practice
- working with external data files,
- manipulating character data,
- using command line arguments,
- working with two-dimensional arrays, and
- writing recursive functions.
Background - ASCII Art
Manipulating character data is a common task performed by computer programs.
So, it makes sense that there should be a standard format in which to store
characters, just as there are standard formats for storing numeric
data. ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange),
developed by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), is one such
format. It is also currently the most common character storage format.
According to the ASCII standard, each character (number, letter, symbol,
control character) is represented as a unique one-byte bit pattern. (See
Appendix D of your textbook.) Text files, such as your program source code
and data files, are simply sequences of ASCII characters.
Back in the "old days" (when I was your age?), computer monitors
could not display graphics as we know them today. Pictures where simply
displayed as lines of text. Well, people soon got creative, and ASCII
art was born. Here is a sample of some ASCII artwork (a Cessna 150):
<![CDATA[
|
____________________|____________________
\ | | /
`.#####.'
/`#_#'\
O' O `O
]]>
Pretty cool, huh? (OK, so it's not Soul Calibur II.) There are thousands of
interesting, and quite impressive, pieces of ASCII art on the web. Just do a
Google search on "ascii art" and you'll see.
The Task
You are to write a program that will read an ASCII art pattern from a file,
display the pattern on the screen within a border, and allow the user to move
the pattern up, down, left, and right within the border. If the user moves the
pattern partially or totally out of the border, the pattern will be partially or
totally lost, respectively.
More Details
- The name of the file containing the ASCII art pattern must be read from the
command line. That is, the program is invoked as follows:
<![CDATA[
a.out filename]]>
where "
filename" is the name of the pattern file
(e.g., snoopy.dat).
- A pattern will always have exactly 20 rows and 50 columns (use #define's).
- The pattern must be moved up, down, left, or right within the same
array. That is, do not copy the pattern back and forth between two
arrays.
- Surround the pattern by a border as shown below in Sample Output.
- The user may move the pattern by any positive integer amount in any
of the four directions (watch out for seg faults!).
- The user's choice from the pattern movement menu can only be one of
the letters L, l, R, r, U, u, D, d, Q, and q; i.e., you cannot use
numbers for the choices.
- The function(s) you write to display the pattern and the border
must be written recursively; i.e., no loops allowed.
The Data File
Here is a sample pattern file:
<![CDATA[
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000.----.000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000_.'__0000`.0000000000000000000000
0000000000000.--(#)(##)---/#\000000000000000000000
00000000000.'0@0000000000/###\00000000000000000000
00000000000:000000000,000#####00000000000000000000
000000000000`-..__.-'0_.-\###/00000000000000000000
000000000000000000`;_:0000`"'000000000000000000000
0000000000000000.'"""""`.0000000000000000000000000
000000000000000/,00JOE00,\000000000000000000000000
00000000000000//00COOL!00\\00000000000000000000000
00000000000000`-._______.-'00000000000000000000000
00000000000000___`.0|0.'___00000000000000000000000
0000000000000(______|______)0000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
]]>
When you display the pattern, convert all zeros (0) to blanks.
Two sample pattern files are provided for you (snoopy.dat and
whale.dat). Copy the files from my directory into the directory that
you will be using to work on this project. Go to that directory and then issue
the following commands:
<![CDATA[
cp /afs/umbc.edu/users/s/m/smitchel/pub/cs201/snoopy.dat .
cp /afs/umbc.edu/users/s/m/smitchel/pub/cs201/whale.dat .
]]>
Remember that the space and the period at the end of each command are part
of the command.
Sample Output
Since the output file is large, instead of showing the output here, I am
just providing a link to my output file, output.
Although your output may look different than mine, you should display the
same information.
What to Turn In
You must use separate compilation for this project and should have a
file called proj4.c that contains only the function main().
You should also have files called pattern.c (all other function
definitions) and pattern.h (all corresponding function prototypes).
If you wish to create other .c and corresponding .h
files, you may.
Submit as follows:
<![CDATA[
submit cs201 Proj4 proj4.c pattern.c pattern.h
]]>
The order in which the files are listed doesn't matter. However, you must
make sure that all files necessary to compile your project are listed.