Assignment 2 - Database

Suppose that you are a software developer. Some company from your town ask you to develop a database to store information about office equipments belonging to the company. Your first task is to design and develop a little prototype of the database application. The Database will be used to store and manage information about desktop computers, laptop computers and printers at the company. The following example shows a possible print out version from your program when queries about a desktop, a laptop and a printer, are appeared to it.

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DESKTOP
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            name: DS1254
            user: Henke Larsson
          office: 342
       processor: PIII 700MHz
	     RAM: 128Mb
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LAPTOP
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            name: LP4235
            user: Lars Svensson
       processor: PIV 1GHz
             RAM: 256Mb
     manufacture: DELL
--------------------------------------------

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PRINTER
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            name: PR123
          office: 123
     manufacture: Hewlett Packard
           model: HP LaserJet 5Si MX
--------------------------------------------

It has to be possible to show and manipulate the content of the database via an simple text-based menu which, at least, must contains the following operations:

Add a new desktop, laptop or printer to the database
Delete a desktop, laptop or printer from the database
Change a desktop, laptop or printer information.
List the content of the database
Search for a desktop, laptop or printer based on its name, search for a desktop or laptop based on its user, or search for a printer based on office.

The following part is voluntary

Add a functionality to the database which lets the user to list the content of the database where desktops and laptops are sorted by name or user, and printers are sorted by name or office.
Add a functionality by which the user can print the content of the database to a file. Use a format as simple as possible to save each desktop/laptop/printer in one row. (See for example. chap 5.4 and 16.1-16.3 in Java Direkt to get information about java.io.)

You have to try to reuse as many component as possible (use inheritance and overriding). For example you should create a (possible abstract) base class for a common state and behaviour for desktops, laptops and printers.

Tips 1: See the following program (with source code here) to get some idea about how one can read from the terminal and write it late back to the same terminal. (Note that you do not need to understand everything about how it works to be able to use it in this assignment).

Tips 2: You can read about the class java.util.Vector in chapter 19.4 in the book to get some tips about how you can store records of database in a table with varying size.

Clarification:

This program has to be able to execute as an application. It has to have either a window- or text-based menu system.

<oopj@csd.uu.se>

Last modified: Mon Jun 23 13:45:42 MET DST 2003