CoSc2030: Computer Science II Fall Semester 2007 Instructor: Dr. Thomas Bailey

Lab 4: Time Complexity

Performance has always been a hot topic in computer science. This lab gives us a chance to step away from the consumer-oriented Gigahertz and Gigabytes view, and take a more scientific route of algorithm performance analysis.

Lab Assignment:

Please open this MS Word document for task descriptions: Lab 4 assignment. You will also need the following source files: LOOPTIMEa.CPP, LOOPTIMEb.CPP, LOOPTIMEc.CPP, Factorial.cpp, Factorial.two.cpp, BigInt.h, BigInt.cpp, Timer.h, Timer.cpp.

Turn In:

You will create an Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that shows the data tables for each part of the lab, along with the plot that shows the linear relationship between code's time complexity function and the actual execution time for different sizes of n.

To create a spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel, open Microsoft Excel (which can be found on the "Start" menu, under "Microsoft Office"). It will automatically open a new worksheet, select the "File" menu, and then select "Save as". Then, name the worksheet in the form shown below under the Upload instructions, and then save. Now name the first spreadsheet "Part1", to do this, right click the tab at the bottom entitled "Sheet1" and select "Rename" from the pop-up menu. Do this for each part of the lab, ie for the second part of the lab, select the sheet entitled "Sheet2" and rename it "Part2." If you need to add another worksheet to your spreadsheet, go the the "Insert" menu and select "Worksheet" you should now have a new worksheet, which you can rename appropriately as you did earlier.
Upload the worksheet file entitled:
Lab4_Analysis_yourName