CSCI 1302 - Urgency Queue v2025.fa

This document contains the description of the Urgency Queue project assigned to the students in the Fall 2025 CSCI 1302 classes at the University of Georgia.

Deadline Options

There are different deadline options for this project. Students who perform their final submission via the submit command before the date/times listed below automatically receive the associated Submission-Based (SB) extra credit.

• FRI 2025-10-24 (Oct 24) @ 11:55 PM EST (+10 SB Extra Credit)
• SAT 2025-10-25 (Oct 25) @ 11:55 PM EST (+5 SB Extra Credit)
• SUN 2025-10-26 (Oct 26) @ 11:55 PM EST (+0 SB Extra Credit)

Read the entirety of this file before beginning your project.

Seriously. Read this entire file before starting.

Table of Contents

• Course-Specific Learning Outcomes
• Academic Honesty
• Updates
• Project Description
• Project Requirements & Grading
  • Functional Requirements
  • Non-Functional Requirements
  • Absolute Requirements
• How to Download the Project
• Submission Instructions
• Appendix - Suggested Checklist
• Appendix - FAQ

Course-Specific Learning Outcomes

• LO1.c: Create and modify text files and source code using a powerful terminal-based text editor such as Emacs or Vi.
• LO1.d: Use shell commands to compile new and existing software solutions that are organized into multi-level packages and have external dependencies.
• LO2.a: (Partial) Identify redundancy in a set of classes and interfaces, then refactor using inheritance and polymorphism to emphasize code reuse.
• LO2.b: Define, throw, and propagate exceptions appropriately in a software solution.
• LO2.d: Implement new generic methods, interfaces, and classes in a software solution.
• LO2.e: Utilize existing generic methods, interfaces, and classes in a software solution.
• LO3.a: Create and update source code that adheres to established style guidelines.
• LO3.b: Create class, interface, method, and inline documentation that satisfies a set of requirements.
• LO4.a: Design, create, and use interfaces in a software solution.
• LO4.b: Utilize interface-based polymorphism in a software solution.
• LO4.c: (Partial) Design, create, and use inheritance relationships in a software solution.
• LO7.c: Use common abstract data types and structures, including lists, queues, arrays, and stacks in solving typical problems.

Academic Honesty

You agree to the Academic Honesty policy as outlined in the course syllabus. In accordance with this notice, I must caution you not to fork this repository on GitHub if you have an account. Doing so will more than likely make your copy of the project publicly visible. Please follow the instructions contained in the How to Download the Project section below in order to do your development on Odin. Furthermore, you must adhere to the copyright notice and licensing information at the bottom of this document.

Updates

If there has been an update and you have already cloned the project to Odin, then you can update your copy of the project using the $ git pull command while inside your project directory.

Project Description

In this project, you will be providing two different implementations of the UrgencyQueue interface, which defines different operations that one should be able to do with a queue of items ordered by their relative level of urgency.

An urgency queue is an abstract data type that defines urgency-based queue operations. From an external (user) perspective, each urgency queue object maintains a "line" of zero or more items (non-null references to objects of the appropriate type). Unlike a standard queue, which orders its "line" of items according to FIFO (first-in-first-out) semantics, an urgency queue associates a level of urgency with each item and orders its items according to their relative level of urgency.

Each implementation of the UrgencyQueue interface will be a concrete class with specific functional and non-functional requirements. These classes need to implement UrgencyQueue via a common abstract parent class.

For this project, you will NOT have access to the .java files for the interface. Instead, you will have access to the generated API documentation for the UrgencyQueue interface (may require a VPN connection to view). Implementers should make sure that each method functions or behaves as described by the interface's API documentation.

Implementers are free to implement additional methods in addition to the ones defined by the interface. However, they should not assume that users (e.g., graders) will use these additional methods (even if declared with public visibility) since they are not defined in the interface. These additional methods may help avoid redundancy and promote code reuse within an implementation.

Based on discussions with past students, we have prepared a Suggested Checklist section in the Appendices which contains some suggestions on how to work through the project from start to finish.

Required Prerequisite Reading

• 1302 TextBook Chapter: Generics
• 1302 TextBook Chapter: Lambda Expressions
• java.util.function.Predicate Interface Documentation
• java.util.function.Consumer Interface Documentation

Project Requirements & Grading

This assignment is worth 100 points. The lowest possible grade is 0, and the highest possible grade is 110 (due to extra credit).

Functional Requirements

A functional requirement is added to your point total if satisfied. There will be no partial credit given for visual inspection of your code. Points are assigned for each test case that executes properly.

For this project, you are required to create two different classes that implement the same interface via a common abstract parent. While the specific details are listed later in this document, the following diagram illustrates the general relationship between your classes and the interface. The package cs1302.gen is provided for you in the cs1302-urgency-queue.jar file which is included in the download for the project (details later). You do not have access to the source code for classes in cs1302.gen. However, you do have access to the byte code and the API documentation website. You will need to use both UrgencyQueue and Node in your code since BaseLinkedUrgencyQueue depends on UrgencyQueue and Node.

The specific requirements for each class are presented below (See the Suggested Checklist for the suggested order of implementation).

• BaseLinkedUrgencyQueue: Create the abstract cs1302.p3.BaseLinkedUrgencyQueue class such that it properly implements a subset of the abstract methods in the UrgencyQueue interface. Since BaseLinkedUrgencyQueue is abstract, it is not mandatory to implement all methods of UrgencyQueue within this class. The exact list of methods this class must implement is in the method section for BaseLinkedUrgencyQueue in the provided UML diagram above. Since both LinkedUrgencyQueue and CustomLinkedUrgencyQueue use a linked list data structure, it is appropriate to have head as an instance variable of the BaseLinkedUrgencyQueue class.

  • Note: The methods that are listed in the UML diagram in BaseLinkedUrgencyQueue must be implemented in that class. You are not allowed to move any of them into either of the child classes. You may, however, find that you can move one or more methods from LinkedUrgencyQueue and CustomLinkedUrgencyQueue up into BaseLinkedUrgencyQueue. Moving methods up is allowed. In fact, it is encouraged. Any method that you can move up only has to be written once! However, accomplishing this will require some thought. We hope that all of you spend some time trying to move additional methods up to BaseLinkedUrgencyQueue.

• LinkedUrgencyQueue: Create the cs1302.p3.LinkedUrgencyQueue class such that it properly extends cs1302.p3.BaseLinkedUrgencyQueue and fully implements the cs1302.gen.UrgencyQueue interface with additional requirements listed below.

  • The LinkedUrgencyQueue implementation of UrgencyQueue uses a linked list of Node objects to maintain its queue ("line") of items and imposes a Comparable Upper Bound so that it can compare items. Since each item is compatible with the generic type parameter Type, and Type is required to implement Comparable<Type>, this class is able to directly determine the relative level of urgency between two items using the natural ordering defined by the item type's compareTo(Type) method.

  • The starter code for LinkedUrgencyQueue contains the class declaration along with the signature for the default constructor. You are not allowed to change the class declaration or the signature of the constructor.

    Here is the class declaration:

    public class LinkedUrgencyQueue<Type extends Comparable<Type>> extends BaseLinkedUrgencyQueue<Type> {

    Here is the signature for the constructor:

    public LinkedUrgencyQueue()

  • There is a requirement related to this class's storage included in the Absolute Requirements section.

• CustomLinkedUrgencyQueue: Create the cs1302.p3.CustomLinkedUrgencyQueue class such that it properly extends cs1302.p3.BaseLinkedUrgencyQueue and fully implements the cs1302.gen.UrgencyQueue interface with additional requirements listed below.

  • The CustomLinkedUrgencyQueue implementation of UrgencyQueue uses a linked list of Node objects to maintain its queue ("line") of items and requires a Comparator Constructor Parameter so that it can compare items. Although the generic type parameter Type does not have any explicit upper-bound requirements, this class is still able to determine the relative level of urgency between two items using the ordering imposed by the comparator supplied to the constructor (i.e., it uses comparator's compare(Type, Type) method).

  • The starter code for CustomLinkedUrgencyQueue contains the class declaration along with the signature for the one-parameter constructor. You are not allowed to change the class declaration or the signature of the constructor.

    Here is the class declaration:

    public class CustomLinkedUrgencyQueue<Type> extends BaseLinkedUrgencyQueue<Type> {

    Here is the signature for the constructor:

    public CustomLinkedUrgencyQueue(Comparator<Type> cmp) {

  • There is a requirement related to this class's storage included in the Absolute Requirements section.

• (100 points) Test Cases: The bulk of this project will be graded based on 50 or more test cases, each likely worth the same amount of points. This is the same as someone using the classes you wrote based purely on the interface definitions. If you implement the interface correctly, then you should pass the associated test cases.

Non-Functional Requirements

A non-functional requirement is subtracted from your point total if not satisfied. In order to emphasize the importance of these requirements, non-compliance results in the full point amount being subtracted from your point total. That is, they are all or nothing.

• (0 points) [RECOMMENDED] No Static Variables: Use of static variables is not appropriate for this assignment. However, static constants are perfectly fine.

  • (20 points) Code Style Guidelines: You should be consistent with the style aspect of your code in order to promote readability. Every .java file that you include as part of your submission for this project must be in valid style as defined in the CS1302 Code Style Guide. All of the individual code style guidelines listed in that document are part of this single non-functional requirement. If check1302 on Odin reports any style violations for your submission, then 5 points will be subtracted from your earned point total for each violation, up to a maximum deduction of 20 points.

  NOTE: The CS1302 Code Style Guide includes instructions on how to use the check1302 program to check your code for compliance on Odin.

  • In-line Documentation (10 points): Code blocks should be adequately documented using in-line comments. With in-line comments, you should explain tricky, large, complicated, or confusing blocks of code. This is especially necessary whenever a block of code is not immediately understood by a reader (e.g., yourself or the grader). You might also include information that someone reading your code would need to know but not someone using it (that is more appropriate for a Javadoc comment). A good heuristic for this: if you can imagine that, after six months, you might not be able to tell in under a few seconds what a code block is doing, then then you probably need to write some in-line comments.

Absolute Requirements

An absolute requirement is similar to a non-functional requirement, except that violating it will result in an immediate zero for the assignment. In many cases, a violation will prevent the graders from evaluating your functional requirements. No attempts will be made to modify your submission to evaluate other requirements.

• Project Directory Structure & Compilation: The location of the default package for the source code should be a direct subdirectory of cs1302-urgency-queue called src. When the project is compiled, the -d option should be used with javac to make the default package for compiled code a direct subdirectory of cs1302-urgency-queue called bin. The following options are also required for this project:

  • -Xlint:rawtypes
  • -Xlint:unchecked
  • -Werror

  If you follow this structure, then you would type the following to compile BaseLinkedUrgencyQueue.java to the bin directory, assuming you are in the top-level project directory cs1302-urgency-queue:

  $ javac -Xlint:rawtypes -Xlint:unchecked -Werror -d bin -cp cs1302-urgency-queue.jar src/cs1302/p3/BaseLinkedUrgencyQueue.java
  

  Remember, when you compile .java files individually, there might be dependencies between the files. In such cases, the order in which you compile the code matters. Also, if more than one default package is needed (e.g., cs1302-urgency-queue.jar and some other directory like bin), then a colon : can be used to separate each path in a list of multiple paths supplied to -cp (e.g., -cp cs1302-urgency-queue.jar:bin). Since LinkedUrgencyQueue and CustomLinkedUrgencyQueue depend on files in cs1302-urgency-queue.jar and BaseLinkedUrgencyQueue (in bin), we need both to be on the classpath as follows:

  $ javac -Xlint:rawtypes -Xlint:unchecked -Werror -cp bin:cs1302-urgency-queue.jar -d bin src/cs1302/p3/LinkedUrgencyQueue.java
  $ javac -Xlint:rawtypes -Xlint:unchecked -Werror -cp bin:cs1302-urgency-queue.jar -d bin src/cs1302/p3/CustomLinkedUrgencyQueue.java
  

• Development Environment: This project must must compile and run correctly on Odin using the specific version of Java enabled by the CSCI 1302 shell profile.

  If you decide to introduce additional .java files into your project, then they are expected to fulfill all non-functional and absolute requirements, even if the main parts of the project do not use them. You may assume graders will compile your source code in an order that satisfies compilation dependencies. You should remove any .java files that you do not need before submission.

• Storage Requirement: You must use a sequence of cs1302.gen.Node objects for this class's storage. If you use Java's java.util.LinkedList class or something similar (e.g., a class that implements java.util.Collection), then that will result in an immediate violation of this non-functional requirement, regardless of any use of any Node objects elsewhere in the class. This requirement also prohibits any use of third-party implementations of list or list-like interfaces.

• No Implementation Dependencies: You are not permitted to use one implementation of the UrgencyQueue interface in another implementation. For example, you cannot use the LinkedUrgencyQueue class inside of your CustomLinkedUrgencyQueue class or vice versa. Additionally, BaseLinkedUrgencyQueue cannot depend on either of its children, however, it can (and should) depend on the UrgencyQueue interface itself. If you have any questions about this, then please ask your instructor.

  You can check this using the jdeps tool. Inspect the output of the command below after everything is compiled. You don't want to see LinkedUrgencyQueue pointing to CustomLinkedUrgencyQueue or vise-versa.

  $ jdeps -v -cp cs1302-urgency-queue.jar bin
  

• No java.util.Arrays Dependency: You are also NOT allowed to use the java.util.Arrays class. For more information on why, please read this FAQ item. You can also check for the presence of this dependency using jdeps as described in an earlier requirement — you don't want to see java.util.Arrays anywhere in the output.

  NOTE: The System.arraycopy method is in the System class and not java.util.Arrays; however, its use is frowned upon for the same reasons that we provide here for the java.util.Arrays class.

Grading

This project will be graded using unit tests, none of which will be made available before the project deadline. You can test your implementations yourself via interface polymorphism.

How to Download the Project

On Odin, execute the following terminal command in order to download the project files into a sub-directory within your present working directory:

$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/cs1302uga/cs1302-urgency-queue.git

This should create a directory called cs1302-urgency-queue in your present working directory that contains a clone of the project's repository. Take a look around.

If any updates to the project files are announced by your instructor, you can merge those changes into your copy by changing into your project's directory on Odin and issuing the following terminal command:

$ git pull

If you have any problems with these download procedures, then please contact your instructor.

UrgencyQueue Testing

You are responsible for implementing test cases to test your LinkedUrgencyQueue and CustomLinkedUrgencyQueue classes. There are a few examples of test cases are provided in the UrgencyQueue API Documentation.

Additionally, we have provided Oracle classes for both LinkedUrgencyQueue and CustomLinkedUrgencyQueue that you can instantiate and use in your driver program. The Oracle will allow you to run test cases that you write using a trusted implementation of UrgencyQueue so you can compare the Oracle output to the output of your UrgencyQueue implementations.

• The Oracle implementation of LinkedUrgencyQueue is provided in the cs1302.oracle.OracleLinkedUrgencyQueue class.
• The Oracle implementation of CustomLinkedUrgencyQueue is provided in the cs1302.oracle.OracleCustomLinkedUrgencyQueue class.

Submission Instructions

You will be submitting your project via Odin before the deadline indicated near the top of this document.

Before you attempt to submit your project, it is very important that you make sure it compiles without errors and warnings using the specific javac commands mentioned earlier in this project description.

Make sure your project files are on odin.cs.uga.edu. Change into the parent directory of your project directory. If you've followed the instructions provided in this document, then the name of your project directory should be cs1302-urgency-queue. While in your project's parent directory, execute the following command:

$ check1302 cs1302-urgency-queue/src

If there are style guide violations, then fix them and retest your code! Once you have no style guide violations, you can submit using the following command:

$ submit cs1302-urgency-queue csci-1302

If you have any problems submitting your project then please send a private post to your instructor via the course Piazza as soon as possible. However, creating a post about something like this the day or night the project is due is probably not the best idea.

Appendix - Suggested Checklist

To help you with planning out this project, here are some suggested steps you can take that your instructors believe will help you complete the project more easily. Some of the items in this checklist may not make sense until you have read the entire project description, including the API Documentation. These steps are suggestions and, therefore, do not constitute an exhaustive list of steps that you may need to take to complete the project.

1. Preparation (Suggested Deadline: Monday, Oct 13th. 11 days before the deadline):

   • Read through the entire project description, including the appendices, and write down questions as you go.
   • Read through the entire API Documentation for the classes in the cs1302.gen package linked below:
   • cs1302.gen.Node
   • cs1302.gen.UrgencyQueue
     • Be sure to read everything up to the "Method Details" section. That section is important but will make more sense later - you will want to reference it when you are ready to start writing code.
     • Carefully trace through any code examples that are given. These will help you understand how your class will be used. In the examples, the object created of one of the oracle types. When you are testing your code, you will replace the oracle type with LinkedUrgencyQueue and CustomLinkedUrgencyQueue.
   • Read both of them again! This time, you may be able to answer some of your own questions.

2. Before you write any code (Suggested Deadline: Tuesday, Oct 14th. 10 days before the deadline):

   • For each method in the interface, make sure you understand how to call each method and what a user expects to happen when calling that method on an object of an implementing class. For example, what would occur if the driver program executed the line queue.enqueue("end") on a preexisting object of a class that implements UrgencyQueue? Use the code examples in the documentation to get you started.
   • For each method in the interface, try to write down what you think the basic steps need to be in order to produce the desired outcome.
     • Try to keep it high level. If the steps that you write down sound like they can be accomplished with another method, then replace those steps with a note to refer to that method. If that other method does not yet exist, then you might introduce that as a private or protected helper method. Using existing methods can greatly cut down the amount of code you need to write and minimize the number of bugs in your code.
   • Based on the previous suggestion, draw out what the method dependencies are for each method (i.e., what method depends on what). If you notice any circular dependencies, then those should be eliminated.
     • The methods that don't depend on other methods are good candidates to start within the next phase of your development. We'll call these the independent methods.

3. Prepare to implement the methods (Suggested Deadline: Wednesday, Oct 15th. 9 days before the deadline):

   • Create the .java files for each implementing class and the common parent (BaseLinkedUrgencyQueue) and make sure all classes are in the correct package and all entities have the proper visibility. For each file:

     • Write all of the method signatures (member-level declarations). Remember, in the child classes (LinkedUrgencyQueue and CustomLinkedUrgencyQueue), you don't need to include method signatures for inherited methods that aren't overridden in the child classes.
     • In the body of each method, throw an UnsupportedOperationException. Do not attempt to actually implement the method yet.
     • Run checkstyle to make sure that you're off to a good start, style-wise. Yes, this includes Javadoc comments; read this for a recommended way to handle the inherited documentation.
     • Make sure the files compile, even though they're not really implemented yet. We recommend making a compile script to simplify compilation in the future. This will make it easier to test/debug your code.

   • Create a class called cs1302.test.QueueTester and add any code snippets found in the API documentation for the cs1302.gen package. Place each code snippet in its own method with an appropriate name. Then, create a main method in QueueTester that calls the methods you just created. If everything is set up properly, all of the tests should pass because the Oracle code provides working implementations of the UrgencyQueue interface. Now, you will have your testing environment set up and you will be able to seamlessly plug in your implementations of UrgencyQueue to test the functionality.

   • If you haven't already done so, make a script to compile all of the classes and run your UrgencyQueue class. At this point, you will likely see an UnsupportedOperationException. That's okay. Those will go away as we start implementing the method bodies.

   At this point, you should have the complete environment set up with templates for each class you will implement (LinkedUrgencyQueue and CustomLinkedUrgencyQueue) along with a simple tester program. If you take the first three checkpoints seriously, then you will be able to:

   • write less code for each method and overall;
   • identify and fix bugs faster;
   • not have to go back and fix as many style errors and/or comments; and
   • have a better understanding of how your class works.

4. Start by implementing a few methods in BaseLinkedUrgencyQueue (Suggested Deadline: Thursday, Oct 16th. 8 days before the deadline):

   • Begin with size. Since this method is inherited by the children, we won't need to write it in the child classes! Now, go ahead and add the method called testSize() to your QueueTester class and call it from the main method. The code for these methods should look something like the code below:

     public static void testSize() {
        UrgencyQueue<Integer> queue = new LinkedUrgencyQueue<Integer>();
        // Testing size on an empty queue
        if (queue.size() == 0) {
            System.out.println("size: Test Passed");
        } else {
            System.out.println("size: Test Failed");
            System.exit(0);
        } // if
     } // testSize

     If you've done everything properly so far, this should run and print a "Test Passed" message to the console. The code above contains a possible test case that we could run when grading your program.

     At this point, you should have the basic foundation for your program done including skeleton code, a compile script, and a good understanding of what all of the methods do (and how they do them). As you move forward, we recommend completing the methods in the order described below.

     Make sure to do one method at a time, fully test it, run check1302, and do a proper git commit to save your modifications before moving to the next method.

5. Implement the methods in the order they are listed below (Suggested Deadline: Saturday, Oct 18th. 6 days before the deadline): Check the method detail section for hints and more details about each method before implementing

   • BaseLinkedUrgencyQueue: constructor, size, and peek
   • LinkedUrgencyQueue: constructor and enqueue
   • BaseLinkedUrgencyQueue: toString

   Now, you can improve your QueueTester class by creating objects of type LinkedUrgencyQueue, adding items to it, and printing the queue to the console!

   When testing, you should rerun all previous tests and make sure they still work. This iterative process of testing code is sometimes called regression testing. You may need to go back and fix a bug in a method you have already written.

6. Complete BaseLinkedUrgencyQueue (Suggested Deadline: Sunday, Oct 19th. 5 days before the deadline):

   • implement the remaining methods in the order they are presented in the UML diagram above.
   • Test, run checkstyle, and commit after completing each method (before moving on to the next).

7. Complete LinkedUrgencyQueue (Suggested Deadline: Tuesday, Oct 21st. 3 days before the deadline):

   • implement the remaining methods in the order they are presented in the UML diagram above.
   • Test, run checkstyle, and commit after completing each method (before moving on to the next).

8. Implement CustomLinkedUrgencyQueue (Suggested Deadline: Thursday, Oct 23rd. 1 day before the deadline):

   • Write the code for the constructor.
   • implement the remaining methods in the order they are presented in the UML diagram above. * When it comes time to write tests, if your test methods operate on an UrgencyQueue variable, then there is probably very little, if any, changes that you need to make in order to test the methods in this class.
   • Test, run checkstyle, and commit after completing each method (before moving on to the next).

9. Final Run-through (Suggested Deadline: Friday, Oct 24th 0 days before the deadline):

   • Thoroughly test all of your methods on objects of both LinkedUrgencyQueue and CustomLinkedUrgencyQueue.
   • Remember to run check1302 often and commit changes as you fix bugs.
   • Your driver program does not need to be submitted. If you choose to submit it, you must make sure it compiles and passes the checkstyle audit.

Appendix - FAQ

Below are some frequently asked questions related to this project.

1. Is the java.util.Arrays class allowed?

   No, this violates a requirement; instead, you should write your own version of the method you want to use. Most of the methods that you think you might need from that class can be written in 6 lines of code or less (often much less), and writing your own version will serve as some much-needed practice.

We very much appreciate any feedback you might have for this section. Please don't hesitate to send us a private Piazza message with suggestions on how to make it better after you complete your project.

Have a question? Please post it on the course Piazza.

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Copyright © Michael E. Cotterell and the University of Georgia. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License to students and the public. The content and opinions expressed on this Web page do not necessarily reflect the views of nor are they endorsed by the University of Georgia or the University System of Georgia.