Project Submission

We are using shared directories on GL's Andrew File System (AFS) for project submission. Using AFS's permission system, we can specify that certain directories are only accessible to an individual student and the instructors and teaching assistants. These directories are the "shared directories". You will submit your projects simply by copying your files into these directories.

Initial Setup

Shared directories for each student have already been prepared. (If you added this class late, please contact the course coordinator Prof. Richard Chang chang@umbc.edu.) The first step is to make a symbolic link to your shared directories in your home directory on GL. In the examples that follow, we will use smurf19 as the example username. You should replace this with your own user name.

Step 1: Log into GL (using Putty, TeraTerm, Terminal, ...). If you are unfamiliar with the GL system, the lecture notes from CMSC 121 Introduction to Unix will walk you through the steps.

Step 2: In the Unix shell, make a symbolic link to your shared directory in your home directory. Your shared directory resides in /afs/umbc.edu/users/c/h/chang/pub/cs341/ under your username. So, if your username is smurf19 your shared directory is /afs/umbc.edu/users/c/h/chang/pub/cs341/smurf19.

A symbolic link will allow you to refer to your shared directory in a more convenient form. The following Unix command will add a link called cs341proj to your home directory. (If you already have a directory called cs341proj, you should rename it.)

ln -s /afs/umbc.edu/users/c/h/chang/pub/cs341/smurf19 ~/cs341proj

Henceforth, you can refer to your shared directory as ~/cs341proj.

Shared Directory Layout

Explore your shared directory. You will notice that there are already subdirectories in your shared directory.

linux2% cd ~/cs341proj/
linux2% ls
00Gradesheets  hw4    proj1-late1  proj2-late2  proj3-late3  proj5
exception      hw5    proj1-late2  proj2-late3  proj4        proj5-late1
hw1            hw6    proj1-late3  proj3        proj4-late1  proj5-late2
hw2            proj0  proj2        proj3-late1  proj4-late2  proj5-late3
hw3            proj1  proj2-late1  proj3-late2  proj4-late3

The idea is quite simple. For example, to submit your code for Project 3, simply copy all your files from Project 3 into the proj3 subdirectory. After the due date for Project 3, you will no longer be able to write into the proj3 subdirectory. You would need copy your files into proj3-late1 in order to submit Project 3 one day late. The second day after the due date, you would have to submit to proj3-late2 because you will not be able to write into either proj3 or proj3-late1. Four days after the due date for Project 3, you will not be able write into any of the Project 3 directories (as per the Late Submission Policy).

If you have files submitted to more than one of the directories for a particular project, we will assume that you want to have the files in the most late directory graded. The appropriate late penalty will then be applied.

You might notice that you do not have write permission at the top level of your shared directory. Thus, you cannot create Additional subdirectories in your shared directory or rename the subdirectories. These actions would break the scripts used to collect your projects for grading. At the project level (e.g., ~/cs341proj/proj3/) you have all of the AFS permissions to read and write.

Note that proj0 and the homework assignments must be submitted on time. So there are no corresponding late directories for these assignments.

Submitting Your Files

If you already know how to copy files to the GL system, then whatever you are using now is fine. For example, you might be using scp on a Linux or MacOS and WinSCP on a Windows machine. Just make sure that you are copying the files into the correct project directory. Also, make sure that the files reside in the top level of the project directory and not in a subdirectory. For example, a listing of the directory for Project 3 might look like:

linux2% ls ~/cs341proj/proj3
BST.cpp         BST.h          Driver.cpp

and NOT LIKE

linux2% ls ~/cs341proj/proj3
myproj3/

Some Tips:

If you are using scp on Linux or MacOS and your files are in a myproj3 directory, you cannot overwrite ~/cs341proj/proj3 with myproj3 since you do not have those permissions. Instead, you must copy all of the files in myproj3 into ~/cs341proj/proj3.

For example, the following variation of scp will give you a permission error:
```
scp -r myproj3 smurf19@gl.umbc.edu:cs341proj/     <-- BAD
```
This next command creates a subdirectory ~/cs341proj/proj3/myproj3/ on GL which is NOT WHAT YOU WANT.
```
scp -r myproj3 smurf19@gl.umbc.edu:cs341proj/proj3/    <-- BAD
```
Instead, use:
```
scp -r myproj3/* smurf19@gl.umbc.edu:cs341proj/proj3/
```
Consider using rsync instead of scp, especially if you want to submit your files several times over the duration of the project (which is actually a good idea). For example, the following rysnc command will copy new files in myproj3 to the proj3 directory on GL. It will also delete files that were copied over previously, but have been removed from myproj3.
```
rsync -rv --delete myproj3/ smurf19@gl.umbc.edu:cs341proj/proj3/
```
Note that the trailing / are needed. Here, the -r option asks rsync to look recursively in myproj3 and the -v option asks rsync to be verbose so you can see which files are copied. The --delete option tells rsync to delete files in the remote host that are no longer on the local host.

If all your files are already on GL (perhaps you are using the UMBC Linux machines in the labs), then the rsync command is just:
```
rsync -rv --delete myproj3/ ~/cs341proj/proj3/
```

Compiling Your Submission

You are required to demonstrate that your code compiles and runs on GL using the specific Unix command string given for each project. Failure to do so means your project will not run with the grading scripts and will incur severe penalties.

For example, the Project 3 description might require you to compile your submission using these Unix commands:

g++ -I ../../00Proj3/ ../../00Proj3/p3test1.cpp BST.cpp -o p3test1.out
g++ -I ../../00Proj3/ ../../00Proj3/p3test2.cpp BST.cpp -o p3test2.out

To demonstrate that your files actually compiles and runs on GL, use the Unix script command. The script command will create and record a nested shell session. Running the script command would look like this:

linux2% script
Script started, file is typescript
linux2% g++ -I ../../00Proj3/ ../../00Proj3/p3test1.cpp BST.cpp -o p3test1.out
linux2% g++ -I ../../00Proj3/ ../../00Proj3/p3test2.cpp BST.cpp -o p3test2.out
linux2% ./p3test1.out
linux2% ./p3test2.out
linux2% exit
exit
Script done, file is typescript

Remember to issue the exit command. Otherwise you will still be inside the nested shell. After the script session, you should have a file named typescript in the current directory. Check that the file is not empty:

linux2% cat typescript

Do not worry about control characters that might appear in the typescript file.

Copies and Storage Limits

Even though you can read and write in your shared directory, you should not use this space for permanent storage. You should use the shared directory for submission only. Files in the shared directories may be deleted without warning. We will routinely remove extraneous files, executable files and past submissions from the shared directory to free up storage space.