RMIT Classification: Trusted

Programming Fundamentals (COSC2976)

Assignment 1
Assessment Type Individual assignment (no group work).
Submit online via Canvas/Assignments/Assignment 1.

Marks are awarded per rubric (please see the rubric on Canvas).
Clarifications/updates may be made via announcements.
Questions can be raised via the lectorial, practical sessions or Canvas
discussion forum. Note the Canvas discussion forum is preferable.
Due Date End of Week 6 (exact time is shown in Canvas/Assignments/Assignment
1) Deadline will not be advanced, but they may be extended. Please check
Canvas/Assignments/Assignment 1 for the most up to date information
regarding the assignment.

As this is a major assignment, a university standard late penalty of 10% per

each day (e.g., 2 marks/day) applies for up to 5 days late, unless special
consideration has been granted.
Weighting 20 marks out of 100

1. Overview
The objective of this assignment is to develop your programming and problem-solving skills in a
step-by-step manner. The different stages of this assignment are designed to gradually introduce
different basic programming concepts.

You should develop this assignment in an iterative fashion (as opposed to completing it in one
sitting). You can and should get started now (when this assignment specification is posted on
Canvas) as there are concepts from previous lessons that you can employ to do this assignment.
If there are questions, you can ask via the lectorial, practical sessions or the Canvas discussion
forum (Canvas/Discussions/Discussion on Assessment 1). Note that the Canvas discussion forum
is preferable as it allows other students to see your questions as well. Also, you should ask
questions in a general manner, for example, you should replicate your problem in a different
context in isolation before posting, and you must not post your code on the Canvas discussion
forum.

2. Assessment Criteria
This assignment will determine your ability to:
i. Follow coding, convention and behavioural requirements provided in this document and in
the course lessons;
ii. Independently solve a problem by using programming concepts taught over the first several
weeks of the course;
iii. Write and debug Python code independently;

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iv. Document code;

v. Provide references where due;
vi. Meet deadlines;
vii. Seek clarification from your "supervisor" (instructor) when needed via the Canvas
discussionforums; and
viii. Create a program by recalling concepts taught in class, understand and apply concepts
relevant to solution, analyse components of the problem, evaluate different approaches.

3. Learning Outcomes
This assignment is relevant to the following Learning Outcomes:
1. Analyse simple computing problems.
2. Devise suitable algorithmic solutions and code these algorithmic solutions in a computer
programming language.
3. Develop maintainable and reusable solutions.
Specifically, upon the completion of this assignment, you will be able to:
• Demonstrate knowledge of basic concepts, syntax and control structures in programming
• Devise solutions for simple computing problems under specific requirements
• Encode the devised solutions into computer programs and test the programs on a computer
• Demonstrate understanding of standard coding conventions and ethical considerations in
programming

4. Assessment Details
Please ensure that you have read Sections 1-3 of this document before going further.

Problem Overview: In this assignment, you are developing a retail management system for a
department store. The cashiers or the store managers from the department store are the ones that
use this system to process customers' purchases. You are required to implement the program
following the below requirements.

Requirements: Your code must meet the following functionalities, code, and documentation
requirements. Your submission will be graded based on the rubric published on Canvas. Please
ensure you read all the requirements and the rubric carefully before working on your assignment.

A - Functionalities Requirements:
There are 3 parts, please ensure you only attempt one part after completing the previous part.

------------------------------------------------ PART 1 (6 marks) ------------------------------------------------

In this part, your program can perform some simple interactions with users (i.e., the cashiers or the
store managers):
1. Display a message asking the user to enter the name of the customer.
2. Display a message asking the user to enter the name of the product the customer chooses. In
this part, you can assume the product to be entered is always a valid product.

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3. Display a message asking the quantity of the product ordered by the customer that was
entered earlier. In this part, you can assume the quantity to be entered is always a positive
integer, e.g., 1, 2, 3 …
4. Calculate the total cost for the customer including the discount (see No. 5 below).
5. For customers with membership, 5% discount will apply. No discount for customers without
membership.
6. The total cost will be displayed as a formatted message to the user, e.g.
<customer name > purchases <quantity> x <product>.
Unit price: <the price of the product> (AUD)
<customer name> gets a discount of <discount percentage>%.
Total price: <the total price> (AUD)
7. In the program, you should have some lists (or dictionaries or other data types) to store the
names of all customers, the names of customers with membership, the available products, the
prices of those products. You can assume the customer names and the product names are all
unique and case sensitive.
8. When a new customer purchases an item, your program will add the customer's name to the
customer list. Also, when any customer purchases an item, check if they have a membership;
if they currently don't have a membership, display a message asking if they want to have a
membership. If yes, then your program will add the customer's name to the customers with
membership list. The discount is applied immediately after the customer is added to the
customers with membership list. In this part, you can assume the answer entered is always
either y or n (meaning yes or no, respectively).
9. Note: in the requirements No. 7 & 8, we use the term 'list' when describing the customer list,
customer with membership list, etc. But you can use other data types to store this information
such as dictionaries and other data types. Make sure you think and analyse the requirements
in detail so that you can choose the most appropriate/suitable data types.

---------- PART 2 (6 marks, please do not attempt this part before completing PART 1) -----------
In this part, your program can: (a) perform some additional requirements compared to PART 1, and
(b) be operated using a menu.
First, compared to the requirements in PART 1, now your program can:
1. Display an error message if the product entered by the user does not exist in the product list.
When this error occurs, the user will be given another chance, until a valid product is entered.
2. Display an error message if the product quantity is 0, negative or not an integer. When this
error occurs, the user will be given another chance, until a valid positive integer quantity is
entered.
3. Display an error message if the answer by the user is not y or n when asking if the customer
wants a membership. When this error occurs, the user will be given another chance, until a
valid answer (i.e., y, n) is entered.
Second, your program will be operated using a menu. A menu-driven program is a computer program
in which options are offered to the users via the menu. Your program will have the following options:
place an order, add/update products and prices, display all existing customers, display all customers
with membership, display all existing products with their prices, exit the program (please see Section
5 in this document regarding an example of how the menu program might look like). Below are the
specifications of the options:

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1. Place an order: this option includes all the requirements from 1 to 8 in PART 1 and the
requirements 1 to 3 in the first part of PART 2.
2. Add/update products and prices: this option displays a message asking users to add new
products or update products, and another message asking users to enter the prices of the
entered products. The products must be entered as a list that separates by commas, e.g., shirt,
dress, oven, towel, kettle. The prices will also be entered as a list separating by commas, e.g.,
50.0, 60.0, 300.0, 20.0. If the products are new, the products and their prices will be added to
the data collection of the program. If the products are existing products, the newly entered
prices will replace existing prices. The order of the prices is the same as the order of the
products, e.g., in our example, the prices of shirt, dress, oven, and towel are 50, 60, 300, 20
respectively. A product may have no price, e.g., in our example, kettle does not have any
price. You can assume the product names are always unique, and each product name is a
single word with no comma but only alphanumeric characters. You can assume users always
enter the correct formats of the product and price lists. In this part, you can assume the prices
entered are always valid and positive numbers and has no comma. And in this part, you can
also assume users never purchase products with no price.
3. Display existing customers: this option displays the names of all existing customers onscreen.
4. Display existing customers with membership: this option displays the names of all customers
with membership on screen.
5. Display existing products: this option displays all the products on screen, with their prices.
Products with no price will also be displayed.
6. Exit the program: this option allows users to exit the program.
Note that in your program, when a task (option) is accomplished, the menu will appear again for the
next task.

----------- PART 3 (5 marks, please do not attempt this part before completing PART 2) ----------
In this part, your menu program is equipped with some advanced features. Note, some features
maybe challenging.
1. In this part, in the "Place an order" option, your program will allow customers to purchase
multiple items in one order. That is, after each item is entered into the system, the user will be
asked if another item is being purchased, if the answer by the user is y (meaning yes), then
the system will ask for the product name and the quantity. The process will be repeated until
the user answers n (meaning no). Note that, in this requirement, if the answer by the user is
not y or n then requirement 3 in PART 2 will be activated. The formatted message for the
order cost will be as follows.
<customer name > purchases <quantity> x <product>.
Unit price: <the price of the product> (AUD)
<customer name > purchases <quantity> x <product>.
Unit price: <the price of the product> (AUD)
……………………………………….
<customer name> gets a discount of <discount percentage>%.
Total price: <the total price> (AUD)

2. Besides, in the "Place an order" option, a product with no price cannot be sold and a message
will be shown if customers attempt to order such products. When this error occurs, your
program will skip this product, and continue to process the next product. If the customer

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decides to not order any product, then your program will directly go back to the main menu,
without adding the customer's name to the data collection (for new customer) or checking the
customer membership.
3. In this part, your program will check the prices entered in the "Add/update products and
prices" option. If they are not valid numbers, or negative numbers, or 0, they will be treated
as no price.
4. The menu also has an option "Reveal the most valuable customer" to display the customer
with maximum total money spent to date and the total money they've spent. If there are
multiple customers with the same maximum money spent, you can just display only one
customer (or all customers, it's your choice).
5. The menu now has an option "Display a customer order history". The option will display a
message asking users to enter the name of the customer, and the program will display all the
previous orders of that customer, including the products they purchased and the
corresponding quantities. For example, if a customer named Lily purchased 2 times
previously, the first time with 2 dresses, 1 shirt, and the second time with 1 oven, 1 shirt and 2
towels, then the program will display the formatted message as follows.
This is the order history of Lily.
dress shirt oven towel
Purchase 1 2 1
Purchase 2 1 1 2

Note that for this option, if the user enters non-existing customer, then your program needs to
give the user another chance, until an existing customer is entered. Also, you can assume that
in each order (via the "Place an order" option), the product to be entered each time is
different, e.g., in one order, a user can buy dress, then shirt, then oven, but the user will never
buy dress, then oven, then dress again.

B - Code Requirements:
The program must be entirely in one Python file named ProgFunA1_<Your Student ID>.py. For
example, if your student ID is s1234567, then the Python file must be named as
ProgFunA1_s1234567.py. Other names will not be accepted.

Your code needs to be formatted consistently. You must not include any unused/irrelevant code (even
inside the comments). What you submitted must be considered as the final product.

You should use appropriate data types and handle user inputs properly. You must not have any
redundant parts in your code.

You must demonstrate your ability to program in Python by yourself, i.e., you should not attempt to
use external special Python packages/libraries/classes that can do most of the coding for you. The
only Python library allowed in this assignment is the sys module.

Note that in places where this specification may not tell you how exactly you should implement a
certain feature, you need to use your judgment to choose and apply the most appropriate concepts
from our course materials. You should follow answers given by your "client" (or "supervisor" or the
teaching team) under Canvas/Discussions/Discussion on Assessment 1.

C - Documentation Requirements:

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You are required to write comments (documentation) as a part of your code. Writing documentation
is a good habit in professional programming. It is particularly useful if the documentation is next to
the code segment that it refers to. NOTE that you don't need to write an essay, i.e., you should keep
the documentation succinct.

Your comments (documentation) should be in the same Python file, before the code blocks
(e.g., functions/methods, loops, if, etc.) and important variable declarations that the comments
refer to. Please DO NOT write a separate file for comments (documentation).

The comments (documentation) in this assignment should serve the following purposes:
• Explain your code in a precise but succinct manner. It should include a brief analysis of your
approaches instead of simply translating the Python code to English. For example, you can
comment on why you introduce a particular function/method, why you choose to use a while
loop instead of other loops, why you choose a particular data type to store the data
information.
• Document any problems of your code and requirements that you have not met, e.g., the
situations that might cause the program to crash or behave abnormally, the requirements your
program do not satisfy. Note that you do not need to handle or address errors that are not
covered in the course material yet.
• Document some analysis/discussion/reflection as a part of your code, e.g., how your code
could be improved if you have more time, which part you find most challenging, etc.

D - Rubric:
Overall:
Part Points
Part 1 6
Part 2 6
Part 3 5
Others (code quality, modularity, comments) 3

More details of the rubric of this assignment can be found on Canvas (here). Students are required to
look at the rubric to understand how the assignment will be graded.

5. Example Program
We demonstrate a sample program that satisfies the requirements specified in Section 4. Note that
this is just an example, so it is okay if your program looks slightly different, but you need to make
sure that your program satisfies the requirements listed in Section 4.

5.1. PART 1
As an example, this is how the output screen of our sample program looks like for PART 1. In this
example, the customer has the name Huong, purchasing an oven with the quantity of 1, no existing
membership and then choose y (yes) for the membership registration option. Note that in this sample
program, we use the values Huong, shirt, towel, oven, 1, 2, 3, etc as examples only. In your program,
you can, and you should use different values. Also, you should test your program with different test
cases, e.g., customers choose n (no) for the membership registration options, to make sure your
program satisfy the requirements in Section 4.

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5.2. PART 2
As an example, this is how the output screen of our sample program looks like for a menu with all
the options described in PART 2.

When the user (a cashier or the store manager at the department store) enters an option, the
corresponding functionality will appear. For example, if the user chooses option 1, which is to make
an order, then the output screen of our sample program is as follows.

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Other requirements in PART 2 (add/update products and prices, display existing customers, etc.) can
also be displayed in a similar manner.

5.2. Part 3
As an example, this is how the output screen of our sample program looks like for a menu with all the
options described in PART 3.

And this is an example showing the output screen of our sample program when we select option 7,
which is to display a customer order history. Other options can also be displayed in a similar manner.

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6. Submission
As mentioned in the Code Requirements, you must submit only one file named
ProgFunA1_<Your Student ID>.py via Canvas/Assignments/Assignment 1. It is your
responsibility to correctly submit your file. Please verify that your submission is correctly submitted
by downloading what you have submitted to see if the file includes the correct contents. The final
.pyfile submitted is the one that will be marked.

Late Submission
All assignments will be marked as if submitted on time. Late submissions of assignments without
special consideration or extension will be automatically penalised at a rate of 10% of the total marks
available per day (or part of a day) late. For example, if an assignment is worth 20 marks and it is
submitted 1 day late, a penalty of 10% or 2 marks will apply. This will be deducted from the
assessed mark. Assignments will not be accepted if more than five days late, unless special
consideration or an extension of time has been approved.

Special Consideration
If you are applying for extensions for your assessment within five working days after the original
assessment date or due date has passed, or if you are seeking extension for more than seven days,
you will have to apply for Special Consideration, unless there are special instructions on your
Equitable Learning Plan.

In most cases you can apply for special consideration online here. For more information on special
consideration, visit the university website on special consideration here.

7. Referencing Guidelines
What: This is an individual assignment, and all submitted contents must be your own. If you have
used sources of information other than the contents directly under Canvas/Modules, you must give
acknowledgement of the sources, and give references using the IEEE referencing format.

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Where: You can add a code comment near the work (e.g. code block) to be referenced and include
the detailed reference in the IEEE style.

How: To generate a valid IEEE style reference, please use the citethisforme tool if you're unfamiliar
with this style.

8. Academic Integrity and Plagiarism (Standard Warning)

Academic integrity is about honest presentation of your academic work. It means acknowledging the
work of others whilst developing your own insights, knowledge and ideas. You should take extreme
care that you have:
• Acknowledged words, data, diagrams, models, frameworks and/or ideas of others you have
quoted (i.e., directly copied), summarized, paraphrased, discussed or mentioned in your
assessment through the appropriate referencing methods.
• Provided a reference list of the publication details so your readers can locate the source if
necessary. This includes material taken from the internet sites.

If you do not acknowledge the sources of your material, you may be accused of plagiarism because
you have passed off the work and ideas of another person without appropriate referencing, as if they
were your own.

RMIT University treats plagiarism as a very serious offence constituting misconduct. Plagiarism
covers a variety of inappropriate behaviors, including:
• Failure to properly document a source
• Copyright material from the internet of databases
• Collusion between students

For further information on our policies and procedures, please refer to the University website (link).

9. Assessment Declaration:
When you submit work electronically, you agree to the assessment declaration:
https://www.rmit.edu.au/students/student-essentials/assessment-and-results/how-to-submit-your-
assessments

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