CMSC 106 HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT #2

DUE: January 12, 1998 (start of class)

1. Design and code a program which takes a packed date as input, converts the date to unpacked form, determines the previous date, converts it back to packed form and then prints out the new date in both forms.

2. NB: A twentieth-century date can be written with integers in the form day/month/year. An example is 1/7/33, which represents 1 July 1933. "Packing" stores the date compactly. Since we need 31 different values for the day, 12 for the month and 100 different value for the year, we can use 5 bits to represent the day, 4 bits to represent the month and 7 bits to represent the year. Your functions should be able to convert between the 3 integer (year, month, day) and 1 16-bit integer (and vice versa) representations.

3. Document the code. Comments should be brief but informative. A good rule of thumb is a comment for each function. Also a header comment with your name, social security number, the assignment number, a general description of the program and the names of any files in your account needed to execute the program.

4. Execute the code (at least four times) using the "script" command to retain the runs. Make sure at least one of the runs is an interesting example (e.g. change month/year, leap year).

5. Hand in a print-out of the documented code along with the runs.