CSCI 159: exam practice questions

These are just meant as a way to get some practice answering exam-style questions with pen/paper. I'd encourage students to attempt them with minimal references to their notes, but for the final exam you will be permitted one double-sided sheet of notes.

There is one question on each side of the page.

After you've attempted the question, a good way to evaluate your answer while also getting additional practice is to coding and compiling/running the answer you came up with.

The program below is used as the basis for both question 1 and question 2. It maintains a linked list of names and identifiers: getting names/ids from the user until the user enters "q" instead of a name, then printing out the list contents. 
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;

struct item {
   string name;
   int id;
   item* next;
};

int main()
{
   item* front = nullptr;
   string person;
   do {
      cout << "Enter the name of the next person, e.g. Luthor, or q to quit" << endl;
      cin >> person;
      if (person != "q") {
         int personid;
         cout << "Enter an integer id for " << person << ": " << endl;
         cin >> personid;
         item* i = new (std::nothrow) item;
         if (i != nullptr) {
            i->next = front;
            front = i;
            i->name = person;
            i->id = personid;
         }
      }
   } while (person != "q");

   item* current = front;
   while (current != nullptr) {
      cout << current->name << " " << current->id << endl;
      current = current->next;
   }

}

Question 1: Basic linked lists: deleting

Just before the end of the main routine (i.e. after all the prints have been completed), add a loop that deallocates each of the items in the list. (Don't rewrite the whole main routine, just the new loop and an arrow to where it goes.)

Question 2: Basic linked lists: insert function

Write an insert function for the program above that could be called from the loop in the main routine, so that using insert the do-while loop in main would look more like 
   do {
      cout << "Enter the name of the next person, e.g. Luthor, or q to quit" << endl;
      cin >> person;
      if (person != "q") {
         int personid;
         cout << "Enter an integer id for " << person << ": " << endl;
         cin >> personid;
         insert(person, personid, front);
      }
   } while (person != "q");