This is a work in progress. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to work on it.
I want to do my best to clear up a very common misconception that I'm seeing come up over and over again. Suppose I have some expression along the lines of
int x = // Some mathematical expression that might cause positive
overflow.
It is NOT universally true that I can check for overflow with
if (x < 0) println("OVERFLOWBAD!");
This was okay when we were checking for overflow when we were adding two numbers. Since overflow obeys modular arithmetic, it is the case that overflow here will always give a negative number. However, this is a special case. In other cases, the expression being evaluated can wrap back around to positive numbers.
For example, these both overflow:
Coin 0.3.1 'Nickel' (r108, Wed Aug 29 08:36:24 EDT 2012)
Type `#help' for help or `#quit' to exit.
--> 0x7fab36c1 * 3;
2130814019 (int)
--> 0x7e829512 + 0x7fabbaef + 0x7e111111;
2084528402 (int)
In general, a good way to think about overflow is to catch it before
it happens, rather than trying to reason about it after the fact. For
example, another way we can check for overflow when adding two positive
numbers x + y is
if (x > int_max() - y) // Comes from rearranging x + y > int_max(), which we can't actually check.
println("OVERFLOW");
else
// Do something.
Notice that I was able to check for overflow without ever adding
x and y. This reasoning can be generalized to
apply to other situations. Here int_max() is a function
defined in util.c0, returning the maximal integer. Later in C (where we
have macros), we will use INT_MAX instead.
As another example, suppose the expression is
k = 2 * i + j. This time, our check can be:
if (j > int_max() - 2 * i) ...
Over the past few semesters, I've put together many examples that highlight important differences between C0 and C. As these files are heavily commented, they should still be useful to look through
If you use emacs, here are some lines you may consider adding to your
.emacs file (open with emacs ~/.emacs). Each one is pretty
self-explanatory.
(column-number-mode) ;; Shows the column number in the status
bar.
(show-paren-mode) ;; Highlights the matching paren.
(global-linum-mode) ;; Shows the line numbers in a column on the
left.
(add-hook 'before-save-hook 'delete-trailing-whitespace) ;; Trailing
whitespace is pure evil.
(setq require-final-newline t) ;; Good practice.
(setq-default indent-tabs-mode nil) ;; Don't indent with tabs.
;; If indent-tabs-mode is off, untabify before saving, just in case
another program put them there.
(add-hook 'write-file-hooks (lambda () (if (not indent-tabs-mode) (untabify (point-min) (point-max)))))
;; Highlight things like tabs and long lines. Can you tell that I hate
tabs?
(require 'whitespace)
(setq whitespace-style '(face lines tabs tab-mark))
(global-whitespace-mode 1)
I think that Windows is a great OS for many things. I'll be the first to admit that your CMU CS coursework is not one of them. While we make every effort to accommodate all major OSes, Windows will never be great for Unix programming. So, you may find it in your best interest to get some sort of Linux setup running. Dual booting is one option and you will find plenty on that from googling (be careful). My preference is to run Ubuntu in a virtual machine using Virtual Box. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer. The bottom line is to try things out and see what works best for you.