Rules for Assignment Submission

In this course, you will be submitting parts of your assignments electronically. We will be printing them for the TA's to mark, and we will also perform some testing automatically. Read and follow the following rules carefully.

We apologize for having to be so strict, but remarking takes a huge amount of time per assignment -- and with so many students, it becomes intractable.

The most important rules

If you violate any of the following rules then you may get a zero on some or all parts of the assignment, WITH NO APPEAL ALLOWED. (Notice that you have to go out of your way to violate them!)

1. Put only one public class in each .java file.
2. Submit your .java files (the source code), not your .class files. Do NOT rename your .class file to make the electronic submission work!
3. Don't ever use package statements, even if your favourite IDE inserts them automatically. Delete them if they appear.
4. Capitalization matters in Java, including in filenames. This means that class names must match the filenames exactly. For example, if your class is called AssignmentZero, your file must be called AssignmentZero.java, and not assignmentzero.java or Assignmentzero.java. Use the capitalization asked for in the handout and starter code.
5. Sometimes we will ask you to submit written answers to questions. Any submissions must be plain text only. You can easily ensure this by typing your answers in DrJava or CodeWarrior. (Important: these files MUST NOT be in Microsoft Word format, because Microsoft doesn't make a Unix version of Word. Using Notepad is OK.)
6. When an assignment specifies output, the output of your code must follow the specification precisely. This includes using exactly the capitalization, number of spaces, punctuation and line breaks specified. And you must not add anything extra to the output (like prompts, information messages, error messages, etc). Your program may be marked automatically (by another program!) and any output which isn't exactly as specified will receive a zero.

Style rules

If you violate any of the following rules you will lose substantial style marks.

1. Each line must be less than 80 characters long including tabs and spaces. Beware of "soft returns" -- some word processors, like WordPad, wrap lines automatically. If you use such a program, make sure that you press the return key yourself.
   If your editor doesn't display the line width, you can always make a line of 80 characters and paste it in to check whether you've gone over. If you're reading this electronically, you can copy and paste the following line into your file (make sure to align it at the left margin, i.e., with no space in front):

   /********10********20********30********40********50********60********70********/

2. Do NOT use TAB characters in your source files. Use only spaces to indent your code, because different programs display TAB characters in different ways, so you can never be sure how much space one TAB character corresponds to.
   Always use exactly 4 spaces to indent.

Some tips on how the system works

1. If you resubmit a file, that is the only copy we will have. Your old submission will be overwritten, including the timestamp.
2. It's okay to submit extra files. We will ignore all files that we didn't ask for.
3. You will usually get some marks if your program compiles, even if it doesn't run correctly. Thus, it is always in your best interest to turn in something that compiles.
4. It is possible that these rules will be overridden for particular assignments. Any such changes will be announced in class or on the web site.
5. Note that every student is assigned a "disk quota" at the beginning of the term, i.e., a limit on the amount of disk space that they can use. The submit directories are part of the same disk quota that applies to your home directory, that is the space occupied by files in both areas counts toward your total usage.
   If you fill your home directory with large files, you will be unable to submit until you remove enough unnecessary files to create space for your submission. This will NOT be accepted as an excuse for late submissions. It is your responsibility to monitor your disk usage. (And remember that you are not supposed to use your account for non-course-related files...)
   If you fill your submit directory, you will be unable to submit more files, but you will also be unable to delete the files you deposited. Someone who does this will have to contact a system administrator to have files removed from the submit directory. (You can delete files from your home directory yourself.)

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