CS101 - Lab 2

Introduction to Java programming: loops

You will most likely encounter many problems in this lab. Before you raise your hand for help, try to understand what happens with your program. If it is a compile problem, read the messages on the screen; the compiler tries to give you a hint of what went wrong; can you figure out what it's telling you?

If your program compiles, but when run it does not give you quite the desired output, then we say that it has bugs. Try to debug it. Try to understand what happens, what are the instructions that are being executed, in what order. To debug, people use lots of "print" instructions. Print out the values of the variables that are relevant; this will help you understand how values change and when the errors occurs.

Programming style: Pay attention to issues of programming style:

• use indentation
• comment your code
• use meaningful names for variables
• leave spaces between logical blocks of the code.

Work individually, and call me if you need help. You are encouraged to discuss ideas and techniques broadly with other class members, but not specifics. Discussions should be limited to questions that can be asked and answered without using any written medium (e.g. pencil and paper or email). You should at no point look at the screen of your colleagues.

1. Blood cell histogram

   Write a program that takes as input an arbitrary number of red blood cell counts in the range 0 to 50 and does two things:

   1. computes and prints the average red blood cell count
   2. prints out a simple histogram of the red blood cell counts using the following categories:
      • healthy red blood cell: 35 to 50 (inclusive)
      • anemic red blood cell: 0 to less than 35

   You can assume that the user enters valid blood cell counts.

   Example: The program should look like this (or similar):

   Number of patients: 7
   Enter the blood cell counts: 
   24.5 
   36.8 
   25.66
   44.12 
   48.0 
   45.22 
   33.9 
   
   The average blood cell count was 36.8857
   
   The distribution of the red blood cell counts was: 
   
   healthy: ****
    anemic: ***
   

What to turn in:

• The program (by e-mail).

Send me only the .java file (not the entire folder), as attachment.