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Assignment 1 Version A

Assignment 1​

Overview​

Your assignment will calculate the number of weekend days (Saturdays and Sundays) within a given period of time. The time period in question will be calculated from a start date and an end date.

Example:

python3 assignment1.py 2023-05-01 2023-05-30

The period between 2023-05-01 and 2023-05-30 includes 8 weekend days.

Restrictions​

  • You may only use sys for parsing command line arguments.
  • No other modules are allowed

Instructions​

The assignment will be broken into two milestones and one final submission. Please update your repository for each milestone and complete the final submission in order to earn all marks.

Deadlines will be given to you by your instructor.

Preparation

  1. Accept the assignment on Blackboard.
  2. Once you accepted the assignment, you will get access to a starting repo.
  3. Add your code to the existing assignment1.py file.
  4. Commit after each significant change to the code.
  5. You can never have too many commits. GitHub is your proof of work and your backup if things go wrong.

Milestone 1

  1. You are provided with a function called after(). This function is complete and should successfully return the next day’s date when provided with a starting date in YYYY-MM-DD format. You can experiment with this function by importing it into the Python interpreter:
from assignment1 import after
after('2023-01-25')
  1. Study the after() function and explain how it works. Use in-line comments for each line of code.

This Milestone will ask you to refactor your code. This means modifying existing code to make it more portable.

  1. Complete the leap_year() function, using the relevant code that’s already inside after().
  2. Edit your after() function. Replace any code that calculates leap years with a leap_year function call.
  3. Repeat the same process for the mon_max() function.
  4. Verify that after() still works after your changes.
  5. Don’t forget to push your code.

Check Your Work

Use the check script to verify your work so far.

python3 CheckA1.py -f -v TestAfter
python3 CheckA1.py -f -v TestLeap
python3 CheckA1.py -f -v TestMonMax

Feedback

I will provide you feedback on GitHub. Check the Issues tab, and make any changes that are required before the next deadline. You can close the issue to indicate that you have seen the comment.

Milestone 2

  1. Complete the day_count() function. Given a starting date and ending_date, day_count() should call after() inside of a loop. For each date (including the start and end dates), your function should call the provided day_of_week() function. Count each Saturday and Sunday, and return that number as an integer.
  2. Complete the valid_date() function. This should use error checking to make sure that any date entered by the user is valid.

Check Your Work

Use the check script to verify your work.

  • python3 CheckA1.py -f -v TestValidDate
  • python3 CheckA1.py -f -v TestDayCount

Feedback

Once again I will provide you feedback on GitHub. Check the Issues tab, and make any changes that are required before the next deadline. You can close the issue to indicate that you have seen the comment.

Final Submission

For the final submission you should integrate your functions into a working script, add relevant comments and implement some error checking so that invalid or dates will cause a usage message to be displayed. In addition, the earlier date should always be considered the start date even if the user enters the dates in the wrong order.

  1. In the main block, check the number of arguments. Both arguments should be valid dates.
  2. Create or research a function to verify that the start date is always earlier than the end date. Failing to do so will cause an infinite loop.
  3. Print the number of weekend days in the given time period.
  4. Complete the usage() function. This should print a helpful message to the user when they make a mistake, and exit.

Final Checks

  • python3 CheckA1.py -f -v TestFinal to test the final version of your script.

Submitting Your Code For Review

  1. Push your code to GitHub before the deadline.
  2. In addition, submit your code to Blackboard. A link will be provided.

Formatting And Style​

A significant amount of your mark will be based on the things that aren’t your code. Please review the following guidelines to maximise your grade.

Comments And Documentation

You need to be commenting your code. The following documentation is required:

  • in-line comments: Any line of code that is doing something non-obvious should be commented. Explain why you are doing something, rather than what you are doing.
  • function docstrings: After your def line, you enter a docstring inside ““. Any function that doesn’t already come with a docstring should have one.
  • top-level docstring: You will have noticed that the top of your assignment1.py file already has this docstring. Complete the Academic Honesty declaration and complete the docstring.

PEP

The PEP-8 Style Guide is an official Python document that describes best practices for formatting your code. You should follow this guide as much as possible. You may find that using a linter to check style to be useful.

Functions and Variables

  • In addition to the required functions, you may create as many functions as you need.
  • Functions should be in lower case, and spaces should be represented with an underscore. For example: function_name.
  • Any data used inside of a function should be passed in as a parameter. Avoid global variables.
  • Variables should have a sensible name. Avoid naming things x.
  • Variables should be in lower case, and spaces represented by an underscore. For example: start_date.

Git Commits

A workplace will have its own policy about how often to commit, and how to document commits. For us, git commits are your proof of work. Assignments that lack commits are subject to Academic Integrity review.

  • A good practice is to create a commit for every significant change to your code. At the very least, commit after completing each of the required functions.
  • An acceptable commit message needs to short, but should also describe the change. For example: git commit -m "completed the leap_year function".

Rubric​

ElementMarks
Milestone 1:
Documentation for after function4
TestAfter Checks2
TestLeap Checks2
TestMonMax Checks2
Milestone 2:
TestValidDate Checks4
TestDayCount Checks6
Final Submission:
TestFinal Checks16
Comments and Documentation5
github use5
functions and style2
error checking2

Sample Output​

assignment1.py 2023-05-18 2023-06-04

The period between 2023-05-18 and 2023-06-04 includes 6 weekend days.

Works with the dates reversed:

assignment1.py 2023-05-21 2023-05-01

The period between 2023-05-01 and 2023-05-21 includes 6 weekend days.

Wrong number of arguments:

assignment1.py 2023-05-21

Usage: assignment1.py YYYY-MM-DD YYYY-MM-DD

If either of the dates is invalid, print usage:

assignment1.py 2023-02-31 2023-99-99

Usage: assignment1.py YYYY-MM-DD YYYY-MM-DD