ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to thank A/P Leong Hon Wai, Mr Tok Wee Hyong and Mr Dany
for reading the draft and offering me valuable comments and suggestions.
Tan Tuck Choy, Aaron
Instructor
School of Computing
National University of Singapore
June 2000
CONTENTS
Preface
Relevant Web Sites
vii
viii
PART I: PREPARATION FOR THE MIND
Chapter 1. Learning In The University
1.1 Welcome To NUS
1.2 Handy Tips For New Students
1.3 Some Words Of Advice For Foreign Students
1.4 Different Strokes For Different Beings
1.5 Learning At Tertiary Level
1.6 Balancing The Act
1.7 Learning About Learning
1.8 Course Of Actions
1.9 Summary
Article 1-1: Learning and Jigsaw Puzzles
Article 1-2: Six-and-a-half cookies
Article 1-3: The ‘I know that...’ trap
References
Web Sites
Chapter 2. Problem Solving
2.1 Preliminaries
2.2 The Problem Solving Process
2.3 Creative Thinking
2.4 Summary
Article 2-1: Barometer
Article 2-2: Impatient Guests.
Exercises
References
Web Site
3
4
5
5
6
6
8
12
14
15
16
18
18
19
19
21
22
24
26
27
28
29
30
32
32
PART II: PREPARATION FOR THE COMPUTING SYSTEM
Chapter 3. Introduction To UNIX System
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.6
3.7
3.8
3.9
Introduction
Rules On Computer Usage
Logging In To NUSNET-III
Logging Out Of NUSNET-III
Installing New Applications Via Windows Shopping
Logging In To A UNIX Machine
Changing Your Password
Logging Out Of A UNIX Machine
The UNIX File System
35
36
36
37
38
39
39
42
43
43
iv

Contents
3.10 Basic UNIX Commands
3.10.1 Command Format
3.10.2 Self Help: The man Command
3.10.3 Organising Your Home Directory
3.10.4 File Access Permissions
3.10.5 Manipulating Files
3.10.6 Printing Files
3.10.7 Useful UNIX Features
3.11 A Text Editor: pico
3.12 Customising Your Environment
3.13 Summary
Acknowledgement
Exercises
References
Web Site
Chapter 4. Communication
44
45
46
46
49
51
53
54
55
57
59
60
60
62
62
63
4.1 Introduction
4.2 An E-mail Program: pine
4.3 The Bulleting Board: bbs
4.4 Browsing The Web
4.5 Summary
Exercises
Reference
64
65
69
73
75
75
75
Chapter 5. Preparing C Programs
77
5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4
5.5
Introduction
Creating A Working C Program
High-Level Languages And Compilation
A Sample C Program
Creating Your Own C Programs
5.5.1
Creating Your First C Program first.c
5.5.2
Compile And Run Your Program
5.5.3
Another Program: second.c
5.5.4
A Program With Errors: thiird.c
5.6
More Exercises
5.7
Summary
Exercises
78
78
79
80
81
81
82
82
83
83
83
84

Contents
PART III: PREPARATION FOR PROGRAMMING
Chapter 6. Algorithmic Problem Solving
89
6.1 Algorithms
6.2 Data Types And Data Structures
6.3 Characteristics Of An Algorithm
6.4 Pseudo-codes And Flowcharts
6.5 Control Structures
6.6 Summary
Exercises
90
92
92
93
95
95
96
Chapter 7. C Language Preliminaries
7.1
7.2
7.3
The C Programming Language
A Sample Program
Basic C Elements
7.3.1
Preprocessor Directives
7.3.2
Comment Statements
7.3.3
The main() Function
7.3.4
Reserved Keywords
7.3.5
Standard Identifiers
7.3.6
User-defined Identifiers
7.3.7
Constants
7.3.8
Variable Declarations
7.3.9
Data Types
7.4 Programming Style
7.5 Data Validation
7.6 Variables And Memory
7.7 Summary
Exercises
Chapter 8. Arithmetic And Relational Operations
8.1
8.2
8.3
Introduction
Assignment Statement
Arithmetic Operators
8.3.1
Unary Operators: +, –
8.3.2
Binary Operators: +, –, *, /, %
8.3.3
Data Type Of An Expression
8.3.4
Promotion And Casting
8.3.5
Precedence And Associativity Rules
8.3.6
Compound Assignment Operators
8.3.7
Increment (++) And Decrement (--) Operators
8.4 Mathematical Functions
8.5 Equality And Relational Operators
8.6 Logical Operators
8.7 Summary
Exercises
97
98
99
102
102
103
104
106
106
106
107
108
108
109
110
111
113
114
115
116
116
118
119
119
119
120
120
121
121
122
123
124
125
126
v
vi
Chapter 9. Input/Output Operations And Functions
9.1
9.2
Introduction
Formatting Output: printf()
9.2.1
Conversion Specification
9.2.2
Field Width And Precision
9.2.3
Flags
9.2.4
Literals And Escape Sequences
9.3 Formatting Input: scanf()
9.3.1
Field Width
9.3.2
Assignment Suppression Character *
9.4 Summary
Exercises
Chapter 10. Control Structures
10.1 Introduction
10.2 Selection Structure
10.2.1 The ‘if’ Construct
10.2.2 The ‘if-else’ Construct
10.2.3 Conditional Operator (?:)
10.2.4 The ‘switch’ Construct
10.3 Repetition Structure
10.3.1 The ‘while’ Construct
10.3.2 The ‘do-while’ Construct
10.3.3 Flag-controlled Loops
10.3.4 The ‘for’ Construct
10.3.5 Common Mistakes
10.4 The ‘break’ and ‘continue’ Statements
10.5 Nested Loops And Combined Structures
10.6 Summary
Exercises
129
130
130
131
133
135
137
138
140
141
141
142
143
144
145
145
150
155
156
157
157
160
160
161
162
162
164
165
166

Preface
vii
PREFACE
The Preparatory Course for Programming is intended to bring a more pleasant experience to
you, new foreign student enrolling into the School of Computing. The reason being that the
first programming module is often a tough nut to crack for many freshmen, especially for those
who have to cope with the new environment and culture in their first few months after arrival.
There are two components of this preparatory course, one aimed at the Computing
students taking CS1101, and the other at the Computer Engineering students taking CS1101C.
The first four chapters of this book can be read by both groups of students, while the
remaining chapters gear towards the C programming language, and so are more relevant to the
Computer Engineering group. The course is covered over a 13 half-day period, with two hours
of lecture followed by an hour of tutorial or laboratory activities every day.
Instead of solely touching on topics related to programming, we take this opportunity
also to address some of the immediate concerns of a freshman. To this end, we present the
series of challenges that you will face, and to get you psychologically prepared and geared for
the necessary changes, to give you a head start.
In this course as well as in this book, we have chosen to exclude certain areas from our
discussion. Concerns and queries over curriculum matters are best answered through the
various existing channels such as the School’s web site. Survival guides, which have been
written by your kind Computing seniors and Computer Engineering seniors, contain more
complete and up-to-date information on stuffs like dial-up numbers. Dynamic information
such as these that change quickly are best left to the providers of these resources to maintain
and update their information, while this book can provide reference to these resources.
I have put together in this book what I think are useful to the freshmen. But this is in
most part just my guess, as this is the first time such a transition module is offered. I therefore
wish for generous feedback from you, to help make this manuscript of real benefit for future
batches of students. The margins of the book are all ready to be filled with your ‘graffiti’. Just
send in your note, be it serious advice, or light-hearted comments. You may request for
anonymity, if you so wish.
This book isn’t complete at the time of this writing, which means that it has plenty of
room for improvement. It also means more late nights for me.
I wish all of you an enjoyable stay in NUS.
Aaron Tan Tuck Choy (tantc@comp.nus.edu.sg)
Instructor
Department of Computer Science
School of Computing
National University of Singapore
26 June 1999
viii

Relevant Web Sites
RELEVANT WEB SITES
http://www.nus.edu.sg/
http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg
http://www.eng.nus.edu.sg
http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~tantc/prep/
http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~cs1101/
http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~cs1101c/
National University of Singapore
School of Computing, NUS
Faculty of Engineering, NUS
Foreign Students Preparatory Course
CS1101: Programming Methodology (Java)
CS1101C: Programming Methodology (C)