Thread: Big Program, Dont Know Where to begin, any help would be greatly appreciated!

Problem Statement

Write a program that examines a text file that contains a report of the day’s previous weather. The report may contain any of the following: wind speed in mph or km/hr, description of wind speed, damage reports, and wave conditions. Your task is to decipher this report (usually 1 to 2 paragraphs in length) and determine the most likely wind force based on Beaufort Wind Scale (attached).

Beaufort Wind Scale

Requirements

1. Read a file that resides in the root directory of the drive supplied (example: E:\weatherreport.txt)

2. Scan the file for keywords or phrases (descriptions, damage, wind speeds, etc) and save each instance.

3. Assign a Beaufort wind force to each instance.

4. Calculate the most likely Beaufort wind force for the report by averaging all the instances by giving wind speeds and wave heights 2x weighing and all others 1x weighing.

5. Generate a report (display and file) according to Appendix A.

6. Prompt the user for another file (1 to continue else exit).

Appendix A

Report Prepared by: Your Name and Date

File Scanned: drive:\XXXXXXXX.txt

Numerical Indicators:

1. wind speed instance number Beaufort force

2. wave heights number Beaufort force

_____________________

Average Beaufort force

Textual Indicators:

1. Damage Type Beaufort force

2. Tree Indications Type Beaufort force

3. Other Type Beaufort force

_____________________

Average Beaufort force

Summary

Numerical Beaufort Force Average (XXXX) x2

Textual Beaufort force Average (XXXX) x1

Synopsis Beaufort force XXXXX (add above/3)

Here are some suggestions to get started.

Write each part first and do not move onto the next part until the first part is working.

Requirements
1. Read a file that resides in the root directory of the drive supplied (example: E:\weatherreport.txt)
2. Scan the file for keywords or phrases (descriptions, damage, wind speeds, etc) and save each instance.
3. Assign a Beaufort wind force to each instance.
4. Calculate the most likely Beaufort wind force for the report by averaging all the instances by giving wind speeds and wave heights 2x weighing and all others 1x weighing.
5. Generate a report (display and file) according to Appendix A.
6. Prompt the user for another file (1 to continue else exit).
Appendix A

It looks like you are writing a parser to start with. The best way to to work each part before you move to the next. This way if there is some kind of error/bug in the code you know it is with that small chuck of code you are dealing with, and that you don't have some error that is cascading into other functions.

First write something that will simply open the required file, and to make sure you can open it, and it would help just to to do a straight file copy but as reading lines.

Then perform any tasks required to work with the line (ie remove white space, check to see if live isn't a comment, skip the line if invaild, etc)

Extract your KEY/VALUE and make sure those are legal to use.

Use your KEY/VALUE to feed your program.

Hope that helps!