Everything you need to do in this assignment, aside from editing code, is handled by the Gradle build system. You can run Gradle from the command line, or use it from within VS Code or IntelliJ IDE if you prefer (see below).
You do not need to install Gradle yourself, as we've included a 'Gradle wrapper' that will download a compatible version of the tool, along with various library dependencies, if required. This will be very slow the first time that it runs!
You should run Gradle commands in the cwk1 directory. On Linux, macOS or
Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2), use ./gradlew. On Windows, use
gradlew. (The commands below assume the use of Linux, macOS or WSL2.)
NOTE: if your PC is running anti-virus software, you should add an exclusion
for the cwk1 directory to avoid potential problems with Gradle.
You can simplify the use of Gradle by installing the Gradle Tasks extension. This will add a Gradle button to the side bar. Clicking on this will active a panel in which you can see and run the Gradle tasks for the various projects.
Please use the most recent version of the IntelliJ, on your own PC. We do not support the use of older versions for the coursework, and may not be able to help you if you encounter problems.
Use the New Project button to import cwk1 as the project directory.
After the project has been imported, you should be able to use the Gradle
button on the right-hand edge of the IntelliJ window to active the Gradle
tool window. From here you can access a hierarchical list of all the
supported Gradle tasks. The list entries you will need to use for the
coursework are
Tasks/verification/test
Tasks/verification/style
Tasks/application/run
Tasks/application/runFixed
Note: once you've used one of these entries, IntelliJ will create a run configuration for it, allowing you to rerun it in future in a more convenient way.
To run all the unit tests, recompiling code where necessary, do
./gradlew test
Test names and status (PASSED or FAILED) are listed in the terminal.
A test report is also generated in HTML, containing detailed information
about the tests and any failures that have occurred. You can access this
by pointing your browser at build/reports/tests/test/index.html.
We suggest you keep this page open in a browser tab, refreshing it after
each test run, so that you always have full information available on test
results.
Note that Gradle won't normally rerun tests if they have all passed, unless you've changed something in your code. You can force it to recompile everything and rerun the tests using
./gradlew test --rerun-tasks
To check coding style for all classes (apart from the tests), do
./gradlew style
If there are any style violations, you'll see a count reported in the
terminal window. A full report on the violations can be viewed by pointing
your browser at build/reports/checkstyle/main.html.
Treat this as a rough guide. Note that style checking is not exhaustive, and we may still penalise you on style grounds even if no violations are reported here. As with unit tests, Gradle normally won't rerun the style check unless you change something in your code.
The application should be run in a terminal window, configured with a dark
background. If you are doing the coursework on Windows, note that the default
command window provided by cmd.exe is NOT suitable. You should install the
Windows Terminal app from the Microsoft Store and use that instead.
You can run the application like this:
./gradlew run
This will run the program in the Wordle class that we have provided for
you. Note that this won't work properly until you've implemented the Game
class fully, with both constructors and the play() and save() methods
defined.
This command runs the application without any command line arguments, and
the expected behaviour in this case is that today's Wordle puzzle will
be played. If you've implemented the save() method properly then a
summary of the game will be written to build/lastgame.txt. You can view
this in the terminal with
cat build/lastgame.txt
(At the Windows command prompt, use type build\lastgame.txt instead.)
For more convenient testing, you can do this:
./gradlew runFixed
This runs the application under fixed conditions, providing a specific game number as a command line argument. You will see the game number and the corresponding target word displayed in the terminal before the application itself executes.
To remove all files generated by the build process, use
./gradlew clean
Your coursework solution must be submitted to Minerva and must also be visible as a series of commits in your GitLab repository.
To generate your Minerva submission, do this:
./gradlew submission
This will produce a Zip archive named cwk1.zip, containing everything that
you need to submit. You must then submit this manually to Minerva, using
the link provided in the Submit My Work area.