Lab: Queue Quicksort

Objective

In this lab you will implement and test the Queue sort secondary method using the quicksort algorithm. You will also familiarize yourself with an implementation of the SortingMachine kernel using the same implementations of sort and partition.

Setup

To get started, import the project for this lab, QueueQuicksort, from the QueueQuicksort.zip file available at this link. If you don't remember how to do this, see the Setup instructions in an earlier lab.

Method

  1. First carefully look through the file QueueSortMain.java, which is a test driver for a Queue1LSort4<T> extension for Queue1L<T>, to get an idea of the overall structure and to see what the main method does. (Except for using Queue1LSort4<T> instead of Queue1LSort3<T>, this is the same main program you used in the previous lab.) In particular, note the declaration of the StringLT nested class that provides an implementation for the Comparator<String> interface using the lexicographic order for Strings, and its use in the main method.
  2. In Queue1LSort4.java, complete the body of the partition static method and the body of the sort instance method with the code you wrote for your homework.
  3. Run the QueueSortMain test program. You can use the lines.txt file in the data folder in your project as a test input. Fix any problems you discover.
  4. Once you are confident that your implementation of quicksort works, open the SortingMachine4.java file. This is a skeleton for an implementation of SortingMachine kernel. Look through the file carefully and follow these steps.
    • In the "Private members" section, note the representation which includes three instance variables (or fields): a boolean insertionMode to keep track of the machine mode (insertion or extraction), a Comparator<T> machineOrder that records the ordering used to sort, and a Queue<T> entries to keep track of the entries in the machine. (These are the same fields that were used in SortingMachine3 in the previous lab.)
    • Find the createNewRep method and note how it initializes the representation fields. (Same as SortingMachine3.)
    • Fill in the body of the private methods partition and sort by copying and pasting your code from the previous part of the lab. Here the code for sort is slightly different from what you wrote on the homework and used in the earlier part of the lab, because the sort method is a static (not an instance) method, and the queue being sorted is called q, not this. Make sure you update the recursive calls to call the static method sort, otherwise your code will compile but instead of sort being recursive it will call the Queue sort secondary method.
    • In preparation for filling in the bodies of the six kernel methods, contrast this representation invariant (found in the @convention tag) with the one in SortingMachine3 in Eclipse project QueueInsertionSort. (SortingMachine3's representation invariant is also available here.)
    • Find the "Kernel methods" section and fill in the bodies of the six kernel methods. Each of these methods can be implemented with a single line of code except for one that will require two lines of code.
  5. Back in the QueueSortMain test program, update the main program so that it sorts the input from the file using your SortingMachine4 implementation. This requires just a few changes that you should have already experienced in the previous lab. If you are not sure, you should look at Slides 49-50 in SortingMachine. Run your program again and make sure the output is correct. If not, find the bug(s) and fix them.

Additional Activities

  1. In the test folder, open SortingMachineTest.java and carefully review the code provided. In particular, note the StringLT implementation of Comparator<String>, the variable ORDER, and how it is used in the two sample test cases provided. Add test cases to test the kernel methods of SortingMachine. Run your JUnit test fixture and fix any problems that come up. Note that if you already developed a test plan for SortingMachine for the Additional Activities of the previous lab, you can just copy and paste the SortingMachineTest.java file from the QueueInsertionSort project into this lab's project.