Programming Project #1

CMPS 111, Spring 2006

Assigned: April 6
Due: Thursday, April 20th at 11:59 PM

Remember: your project must be turned in online.

Purpose

The main goals for this project are to familiarize you with the MINIX 3 operating system—how it works, how to use it, and how to compile code for it and to give you an opportunity to learn how to use system calls. To do this, you're going to implement a Unix shell program. A shell is simply a program that conveniently allows you to run other programs; your shell will resemble the shell that you're familiar with from logging into unix.ic or other Unix computers.

Basics

You should read over the general project information page before you start this project. In it, you'll find valuable information about the MINIX 3 operating system and the x86 emulators available to run it as well as general guidelines and hints for projects in this class. Before going on to the rest of the assignment, get MINIX running in your choice of emulator. Note that if you're going to be doing the assignment on unix.ic, you'll need your quota increased by about 150 MB, and you'll need this before you can do anything else. This can take at least one business day, so make your request early.

You are provided with the files shell.l and myshell.c that contain some code that calls getline() , a function provided by shell.l to read and parse a line of input. The getline() function returns an array of pointers to character strings. Each string is either a word containing the letters, numbers, period (.), and forward slash (/), or a character string containing one of the special characters: ( ) < > | & ; (these all have syntactical meaning to the shell).

To compile shell.l, you have to use the lex command in MINIX. This will produce a file called lex.yy.c. You must them compile and link lex.yy.c and myshell.c in order to get a running program. In the link step, you also have to use -L/usr/lib -lfl to get everything to work properly. Use cc for compiling and linking.

Details

Your shell must support the following:

The internal shell command exit which terminates the shell.
Concepts: shell commands, exiting the shell
System calls: exit()
A command with no arguments.
Example: ls
Details: Your shell must block until the command completes and, if the return code is abnormal, print out a
message to that effect. This holds for all command strings in this assignment.
Concepts: Forking a child process, waiting for it to complete, synchronous execution.
System calls: fork(), execvp(), exit(), wait()
A command with arguments.
Example: ls -l
Details: Argument zero is the name of the command other arguments follow in sequence.
Concepts: Command-line parameters.
A command, with or without arguments, whose output is redirected to a file.
Example: ls -l > file
Details: This takes the output of the command and puts it in the named file.
Concepts: File operations, output redirection.
System calls: close(), dup()
A command, with or without arguments, whose input is redirected from a file.
Example: sort < scores
Details: This uses the named file as input to the command.
Concepts: Input redirection, file operations.
System calls: close(), dup()
A command, with or without arguments, whose output is piped to the input of another command.
Example: ls -l | more
Details: This takes the output of the first command and makes it the input to the second command.
Concepts: Pipes, synchronous operation
System calls: pipe(), close(), dup()

Your shell must check and correctly handle all return values. This means that you need to read the manual pages for each function and system call to figure out what the possible return values are, what errors they indicate, and what you must do when you get that error.

Deliverables

You must hand in a compressed tar file of your project directory, including your design document. You must do a "make clean" before creating the tar file. In addition, you should include a README file to explain anything unusual to the teaching assistant. Your code and other associated files must be in a single directory; the TA will copy them to his MINIX installation and compile and run them there.

Do not submit object files, assembler files, or executables. Every file in the tar file that could be generated automatically by the compiler or assembler will result in a 5 point deduction from your programming assignment grade.

Your design document should be called design.txt (if plain ASCII text, with a maximum line length of 75 characters) or design.pdf (if in Adobe PDF), and should reside in the project directory with the rest of your code. Formats other than plain text or PDF are not acceptable; please convert other formats (MS Word, LaTeX, HTML, etc.) to PDF. Your design document should describe the design of your assignment in enough detail that a knowledgeable programmer could duplicate your work. This includes descriptions of the data structures you use, all non-trivial algorithms and formulas, and a description of each function including its purpose, inputs, outputs, and assumptions it makes about the inputs or outputs. A sample design document is available on the course web page.

Hints

START EARLY! You should start with your design, and check it over with the course staff.
Build your program a piece at a time. Get one type of command working before tackling another.
Experiment! You're running in an emulated system—you can't crash the whole computer (and if you can, let us know...).
You may want to edit your code outside of MINIX (using your favorite text editor) and copy it into MINIX to compile and run it. This has several advantages:
- Crashes in MINIX don't harm your source code (by not writing changes to disk, perhaps).
- Most OSes have better editors than what's available in MINIX.
START EARLY!
Test your shell. You might want to write up a set of test lines that you can cut and paste (or at least type) into your shell to see if it works. This approach has two advantages: it saves you time (no need to make up new commands) and it gives you a set of tests you can use every time you add features. Your tests might include:
- Different sample commands with the features listed above
- Commands with errors: command not found, non-existent input file, etc.
- Malformed command lines (e.g., ls -l >| foo)
Use RCS to keep multiple revisions of your files. RCS is very space-efficient, and allows you to keep multiple "coherent" versions of your source code and other files (such as Makefiles).
Did we mention that you should START EARLY!

We assume that you are already familiar with makefiles and debugging techniques from earlier classes such as CMPS 101 or from the sections held the first week of class. If not, this will be a considerably more difficult project because you will have to learn to use these tools as well.

This project doesn't require a lot of coding (typically fewer than 200 lines of code), but does require that you understand how to use MINIX and how to use basic system calls. You're encouraged to go to the class discussion section or talk with the course staff during office hours to get help if you need it.

You should do your design first, before writing your code. To do this, experiment with the existing shell template (if you like), inserting debugging print statements if it'll help. It may be more "fun" to just start coding without a design, but it'll also result in spending more time than you need to on the project.

IMPORTANT: As with all of the projects this quarter, the key to success is starting early. You can always take a break if you finish early, but it's impossible to complete a 20 hour project in the remaining 12 hours before it's due....

Project groups

The first project must be done individually; however, later projects (numbers 2–4) may be done in pairs. It's vital that every student in the class get familiar with how to use the MINIX system; the best way to do that is to do the first project yourself. For the second, third, and fourth projects, you may pick a partner and work together on the project.

Last updated 5 Apr 2006 by Ethan L. Miller