This assignment involves converting your assignment #2 customer database to an ADT (Abstract Data Type) as per the discussions in Chapter 4. It also requires the use of a Dev-C++ project.

Note that this assignment involves structs (as per Chapter 4), not classes (as per Chapter 5). Do not create a customer database class. That will likely be a future assignment!

You are to take your solution to assignment #2 (or the sample solution that will be posted after the due date/time), and rearrange the code so that you have three files:

• a3main.cpp: the main program and any functions relating only to the main program
• customerDB.h: the header file for the customerDB ADT (the ADT is just a struct)
• customerDB.cpp: the implementation file for the customerDB ADT
• You will also need "stdstuff.h"

Hints/Approach:

• customerDB.h will contain the customer struct (from assignment #2)
• customerDB.h must also contain a new struct called customerDB that contains the customer database information (i.e. the array of customer information, plus the current number of customers)
• the number of customer database functions is unchanged from assignment #2, but the parameter lists will all change to include a customerDB ADT/struct instead of the array and number of customers
  • do we pass structs by value or by reference?
  • how do we indicate that a function does not change a struct?
• remember that the header file contains the function prototypes, and the implementation file contains the function implementations
• in addition to the function prototypes, the header file must contain comments explaining what each function does

Your job is to complete the three files (using the above hints) so that the overall behaviour of assignment #3 is exactly like that of assignment #2 (but with the customer database now written using partial "information hiding").

As the functionality of assignment #3 is exactly the same as that of assignment #2, you can refer to assignment #2's sample executable for any testing.

Submit three files: "a3main.cpp", "customerDB.h" and "customerDB.cpp". Note: If you put all the files in the same directory, when you select the first one, the submit program will find all the files, and clicking submit will submit them all. Do not attempt to submit the files separately, or you will likely get 0!!!

Updated: Sat Jan 15th, 2011