COMP9315 Notices

COMP9315 Exam

Posted by John Shepherd Monday 26 August 2019, 10:32:11 AM.

Reminder: the Final Exam is on Tuesday 27 August at 1:45pm in the CSE Labs (3rd floor Ainsworth and ground floor K17). Reading time starts at 1:45pm. The exam proper runs from 2:00pm to 5:00pm.

All you need during the exam is your student card and a pencil/pen. All of your devices (laptops, phones, calculators, watches, etc) must be placed in your bag and left at the front of the lab.

You have allocated seats which you can find here .

Make sure to plan your time carefully during the exam. Don't spend more than an hour on either of the programming questions. It's probably best to do the "theory" questions first and then do the practical questions. The total marks for the exam is 60. Marks awarded to questions give a rough guide on how much time to spend on that question (multiply by three e.g. 10 marks = 30 mins)

If you're feeling sick tomorrow, don't attend the exam. Get a medical certificate and put in a special consideration request via MyUNSW .

Good luck.

Quiz 3 and 5 Sample Answers

Posted by John Shepherd Wednesday 21 August 2019, 04:02:16 PM, last modified Wednesday 21 August 2019, 07:34:55 PM.

I've put sample answers for Quiz 3 , Quiz 4 , and Quiz 5 behind these links.

Pre-exam Consultations

Posted by John Shepherd Saturday 17 August 2019, 12:01:34 PM.

Consultations on Wed 21 Aug 10:00 - 11:50, Thu 22 Aug 2:00 - 4:00, Mon 26 Aug 11:00 - 1:30

Reminder: I'm away on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday (Aug 18-20) with minimal internet access. Feel free to answer each others' Forum questions on those days if I'm taking too long to respond.

Seating Allocations for Final Exam

Posted by John Shepherd Thursday 15 August 2019, 09:28:23 PM.

The seating allocations for the Final Exam are now available.

Assignment 2 Groups

Posted by John Shepherd Wednesday 14 August 2019, 04:49:55 PM.

The following people are not registered as being in an Assignment 2 group

3351805 3375709 5146286 5152380 5155901 5162201

5176208 5187737 5197405 5202067 5220473

Could you let me know ASAP whether you are in a group and who the other members are (presumably they are also in this list).

Please do this even if you worked alone. Let me know that as well.

Assignment 2 Portability

Posted by John Shepherd Tuesday 13 August 2019, 07:36:52 AM.

A few people are reporting that their code runs ok on CSE lab machines and their laptop, but not on Grieg. At the very least, this indicates a portability problem, if not a genuine bug. However, to alleviate this, I will test your code both on grieg and on williams and pick the better of the two testing results. But I will also make rude comments about portability if the results are different on the two machines.

Assignment 2 Testing

Posted by John Shepherd Sunday 11 August 2019, 12:14:26 PM.

I've just added info on linear hashing to the testing page . However, as I noted in lectures, there are many equally-valid variations in the implementation of splitting, so it's not possible to give a definitive "correct expected output". All of the submissions so far produce different final states for the database, but all look OK (and produce correct results for select tests, which, after all, is the ultimate goal).

Assignment Marking

Posted by John Shepherd Saturday 10 August 2019, 08:36:44 PM, last modified Saturday 10 August 2019, 08:48:15 PM.

When I mark assignments, the way Give/SMS is set up, the mark and collectable info is only given initially to the person who submitted the assignment.

I need to write a script to copy the information across to all members of the group. I don't run this script after each assignment I mark, so it make take a few hours/days for *all* members of the groups to get their marks and collectable info.

Be patient.

P.S. I just realised that I'd marked Assignment 1 out of 17 (plus early bonus). !$@#!$@! I'll have to go back and re-mark all of the ones I've finished so far to convert them into a mark out of 13 (plus early bonus).

Assignment 2 Submissions

Posted by John Shepherd Saturday 10 August 2019, 11:00:51 AM.

Looks like I had the wrong access permissions on the Webcms3 page for submitting Assignment 2. I've now fixed this.

Of course, there was always the option of submitting it via give on the Linux command line on a CSE server or under VLab.

If you're trying to submit only via Webcms3, then I'm concerned that you might have done all of the work on your laptop/desktop and haven't tested it on Grieg. Grieg is where I'll be running the marking tests, so you ought to make sure that it works there before submitting.

Ass 1 Marks, Ass 2 Testing

Posted by John Shepherd Friday 09 August 2019, 03:28:57 PM.

Too many interruptions to finish the Ass1 marking today. Will do it tomorrow.

Similarly, will try to sort out the Ass2 splitting examples tomorrow.

MyExperience Course Evaluation

Posted by John Shepherd Friday 09 August 2019, 02:23:50 PM, last modified Friday 09 August 2019, 02:27:17 PM.

Please fill out the MyExperience Course Evaluation for COMP9315.

Assignment 2 Consulations

Posted by John Shepherd Friday 09 August 2019, 07:46:00 AM, last modified Friday 09 August 2019, 11:10:39 AM.

Fri 9 Aug 2.00-3.30 ... Mon 12 Aug 10.30-12.00 ... Tue 13 Aug 2.00-4.00 ... all in K17-410

Assignment 2 Deadline

Posted by John Shepherd Monday 05 August 2019, 10:25:32 AM, last modified Monday 05 August 2019, 12:43:58 PM.

I just set up a poll to get feedback on the Assignment 2 deadline.

Please fill it out before tomorrow evening if you want to have a say.

If the results are not overwhelmingly in favour of an extension, then I wont.

The results were overwhelmingly in favour (of 83 responses, 78 wanted an extension), so the assignment is now due by 23:59 on Tuesday 13 August.

Assignment 2

Posted by John Shepherd Saturday 27 July 2019, 06:23:55 PM.

Make sure that you read the Comments on the Ass 2 Specification page. The comment that starts "Question about splitting" and my response gives some hints on how I was intending you to implement splitting. If you've already solved it some other way, that's fine.

Assignment 2 Code

Posted by John Shepherd Thursday 25 July 2019, 07:23:09 AM.

Ok. I have installed a new ass2.zip containing code which I have compiled "out of the box" on williams, grieg and my Mac. (I ended up writing my own version of strdup(), which you can find in util.c if you're interested)

I don't know whether there'll be problems if you compile on some other platform (e.g. Windows). If you do encounter problems, let me know.

Assignment 2 Code

Posted by John Shepherd Wednesday 24 July 2019, 08:14:38 PM, last modified Wednesday 24 July 2019, 08:26:08 PM.

Well, well ... I compile the supplied code on williams under my account and it's fine ... you compile it under your account on williams and it throws errors. Grrrrrrrr. I'll need to work out what's causing this. Will let you know as soon as I work it out.

The error message suggesting that you need strmcp() rather than strdup() is wrong. Ignore it..

In the meantime, make sure the CFLAGS in your Makefile DOES NOT include -std=c99 , and maybe start reading the code and revising multi-attribute hashing and linear hashing.

UPDATE : Hmmm ... if I remove the -std=c99 , my system compiles. Can someone else confirm this?

Assignment 2

Posted by John Shepherd Wednesday 24 July 2019, 12:24:21 AM.

Assignment 2 is now available. There's a specification and a whole lot of supplied code .

I'll talk about in the Wednesday lecture, so it would be worth looking at the spec (if not the code) before the lecture.

Note that the assignment is different from the one I talked about in last week's lecture. I decided that that one was becoming way too messy.

You'll need to form Assignment 2 groups. You can keep the same group members, but you must create a new group of type "Assignment 2".

Assignment Submission

Posted by John Shepherd Friday 05 July 2019, 01:05:33 PM.

PLEASE make sure that your assignment groups are set up properly in Webcms3. You need to set up a group even if you're working alone. Once the deadline passes, I will download the group data and set it up in SMS so that when the assignment is marked, the mark will be transferred to each member of the group (possibly modified by peer assessment info). If you're not registered as being in a group, you won't get a mark.

Only one member of each group needs to submit the assignment. And the only person who can see a record of the submission is the person who actually did the submission. The other group members won't see anything until the assignments are marked, at which point they'll see a mark.

If there are multiple submissions from a group, I will mark the most recent submission.

Why do I feel like I'm repeating myself .... ?

Quiz Schedule

Posted by John Shepherd Thursday 04 July 2019, 08:04:38 PM, last modified Thursday 04 July 2019, 08:05:12 PM.

I messed up the quiz schedule in the Course Outline. There are actually 5 quizzes and the next one is due next Thursday (July 11).

I've now fixed the Course Outline.

Assignment Testing and Assessment

Posted by John Shepherd Monday 01 July 2019, 02:03:16 PM.

I've added another tranche of testing material for you to play with. This gives a subset of the final testing set. Try your code on this before submitting.

Note that the early submission bonus is based on the most recent submission. If you submit today and then again on Thursday, you get the bonus applicable to Thursday.

I will be running peer assessment on assignment groups. If you have made no contribution to the work submitted by the group, and think you're going to get some free marks ... think again.

Week 5

Posted by John Shepherd Saturday 29 June 2019, 12:09:03 PM.

Reminder: no lectures in Week 5, and no regular consulation times.

Special consultation times for week 5: Mon 11-1, Wed 9.30-11, Thu 2-4, Fri 1-2.30.

All consultations in K17-410

Assignment Testing

Posted by John Shepherd Wednesday 26 June 2019, 01:48:31 PM.

I've added a page with testing data under the Assignments link.

Over the weekend, I'll add a script that you can use to run the battery of tests that we'll be using to mark your assignment.

I've made the assignment spec accessible only to enrolled students because I've noticed it popping up on various student do-my-assignment websites. Too late of course.

Assignment Groups

Posted by John Shepherd Sunday 23 June 2019, 09:23:38 PM.

There are still 80 people who have not registered a group for doing the assignments. Even if you plan to do the assignment alone, you need to register a group (see the Groups link in the menu).

Only one member of each group needs to submit the assignment. If more than one member submits, I'll take the most recent submission.

I'll also be doing some peer assessment to make sure that everyone in each group is making some contribution.

Ass1 Spec Update

Posted by John Shepherd Sunday 23 June 2019, 11:27:43 AM.

Yixiong Liu pointed out an inconsistency in the spec. One place said that the Local and Domain parts are max 128 bytes each. Another place said max 256 bytes each. It should be max 256 bytes for both. Now fixed in the spec.

Assignment 1

Posted by John Shepherd Monday 17 June 2019, 11:22:19 PM.

The spec for Assignment 1 is now available.

I'll post some testing material soon.

New Prac and Theory Exercises

Posted by John Shepherd Saturday 15 June 2019, 01:15:30 PM.

I've added a couple of Prac Exercises and the first batch of Theory Exercises. They mostly cover the material from the first two weeks of lectures, but may have some extra stuff that we haven't covered.

Feedback on your tutorial/lab class experience

Posted by John Shepherd Wednesday 12 June 2019, 10:39:13 PM.

We are collecting feedback on the effectiveness of tutorials and labs in COMP courses. Since all of you have experience with multiple COMP courses, we would like to seek some feedback from you.

Your participation is not compulsory. If you are happy to provide us with your feedback, fill in the form below:

Feedback Form

Thanks, jas

Quiz 1

Posted by John Shepherd Sunday 09 June 2019, 09:00:27 AM.

Quiz 1 is now available, and is due at 2pm Thursday 13th June (just before the Thursday lecture).

In general quizzes are made available after the Thursday lecture and are due just before the Thursday lecture of the following week.

Late submissions are not accepted, because I want to discuss the solutions in the lecture immediately after the quiz is due.

Run your PostgreSQL servers only on Grieg

Posted by John Shepherd Saturday 08 June 2019, 01:39:03 PM.

Your PostgreSQL servers should only be run on Grieg.

I think the Lab Exercise might have left open the possibility of running on other CSE servers, but to simplify things do all your PostgreSQL work on Grieg .

If you compiled PostgreSQL on one of the other CSE machines, it probably won't run on Grieg. The fix is to ssh to Grieg and then do ...

cd /srvr/YOU/
rm -fr pgsql
cd postgresql-11.3
make clean
make install

You can then continue with the Prac Exercise.

In all future sessions with PostgreSQL, first ssh to Grieg.

Prac Exercise P01

Posted by John Shepherd Thursday 06 June 2019, 01:04:30 PM.

The first prac exercise (Installing your PostgreSQL server) is now available. Please do it ASAP, and let me know if anything doesn't work as claimed.

Welcome to COMP9315 19T2!

Posted by John Shepherd Tuesday 21 May 2019, 11:24:56 AM.

The COMP9315 website is now (partly) set up and contains the Course Outline and a couple of polls. There's not much content yet, but this will be added over the next week or so. Make sure that you read the entire Course Outline before May 31.