This course gives a solid understanding of the principles and abstractions used in computer systems and machine programs using C. Towards this aim, it covers a broad range of topics, providing students with an in-depth perspective and programming experience regarding the basic topics of C language and how programs are formed and executed at the microprocessor-level.
Upon the completion of COMP201, student will be able to (1) demonstrate proficiency in writing C programs that require effective memory management, (2) gain a deep knowledge of the compilation flow and runtime behavior of C programs, (3) have a clear understanding of computer arithmetic in a modern computing system, (4) recognize the relationship between a C program and its assembly translation, and (5) gain a general sense of working in a Unix environment as a power user, getting familiar with shell tools, version control systems, compilers, debuggers, profilers.
The course is taught by Aykut Erdem, Muhammed Burak Kizil, Doga Kukul, Yusuf Bayindir, Hakan Capuk, Eda Guven, Enes Talha Gunay, Can Kadri Eltepe, Farnaz Alinezhad.
Lectures: Tuesday, Thursday at 13:00-14:10 (SOSB10)
Labs: Friday at 12:00-13:40 (Lab A) (SNA B242), 10:00-11:40 (Lab B)
Policies: All work on assignments must be done individually unless stated otherwise. You are encouraged to discuss with your classmates about the given assignments, but these discussions should be carried out in an abstract way. That is, discussions related to a particular solution to a specific problem (either in actual code or in the pseudocode) will not be tolerated.
In short, turning in someone else’s work, in whole or in part, as your own will be considered as a violation of academic integrity. Please note that the former condition also holds for the material found on the web as everything on the web has been written by someone else.
The course webpage will be updated regularly throughout the semester with lecture notes, presentations, assignments and important deadlines. All other course related communications will be carried out through Blackboard.
COMP201 is open to second-year undergraduate students. Non-COMP students should ask the course instructor for approval before the add/drop period. The prerequisites for this course is COMP 132 - Advanced Programming.
Grading will be based on
Date | Topic | Notes |
Oct 8 | Introduction. Course logistics, A tour of C programs (slides) (code) | B&O 1 Additional Reading: The Strange Birth and Long Life of Unix, Warren Toomey, IEEE Spectrum, 28 Nov 2011 “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C, Arstechnica |
Oct 10 | Bits and Bytes, Representing and Operating on Integers (slides) (code) | B&O 2.2-2.3 Additional Readings:
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Oct 11 | Bootcamp: Programming with C and Git basics (slides) | |
Oct 15 | Bits and Bitwise Operators (slides) (code) | B&O 2.1 |
Oct 17 | Floating point (slides) (code) Assg0 out: Getting Started with Unix and C |
B&O 2.4 Additional Reading: What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic, David Goldberg, ACM Computing Surveys, 23(1), 1991 Demos: |
Oct 18 | Lab 1: The Linux Shell (slides) | MIT MS The Shell Stanford CS107 Unix videos 1-15, 24, 25 |
Oct 22 | Chars and Strings in C (slides) (code) | K&R 1.9, 5.5, Appx B3 |
Oct 24 | More Strings, Pointers (slides) (code) Assg0 in, Assg1 out: Strings in C |
K&R 1.6, 5.5, Essential C 3 (strings and string.h library functions, The mechanics of pointers and arrays) |
Oct 25 | Lab 2: Bits, Ints and Floats, Vim (slides) | MIT MS Editors (Vim) Stanford CS107 Unix videos 28 |
Oct 29 | No class - Republic Day | |
Oct 31 | Arrays and Pointers (slides) (code) | K&R 5.2-5.5, Essential C 6 (Advanced pointers) |
Nov 1 | Lab 3: C-Strings and GDB (slides) | Stanford CS107 Unix videos 26 |
Nov 5 | The Stack and The Heap (slides) | K&R 5.6-5.9, Essential C 6 (The heap) |
Nov 7 | Realloc, Memory Bugs (slides) (code) Assg1 in, Assg2 out: Heap Management |
K&R 5.6-5.9, Essential C 6 (The Heap) |
Nov 8 | Lab 4: Arrays, Pointers and Valgrind (slides) | Stanford CS107 Unix videos 27 Harvard CS50 short on GDB |
Nov 12 | void *, Generics (slides) (code) | K&R 5.6-5.9, Essential C 6 (The Heap) |
Nov 14 | Function Pointers (slides) (code) | K&R 5.11 |
Nov 15 | No labs this week | |
Nov 19 | const, Structures (slides) (code) | K&R 6.1-6.7 |
Nov 21 | Compiling C programs (slides) (code) Assg2 in |
Stanford Unix Programming Tools 1 |
Nov 22 | Lab 5: Structs, Working with multiple files, writing your own Makefiles | |
Nov 26 | Midterm Review | |
Nov 28 | Introduction to x86-64, Data Movement (slides) (code) | B&O 3.1-3.4 Additional reading:
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Nov 29 | No lab this week | |
Nov 26 | Midterm Exam (Midterm Exam Guide) | |
Dec 3 | Arithmetic and Logic Operations | B&O 3.5-3.6 |
Dec 5 | x86-64 Control Flow | B&O 3.6.1-3.6.2 |
Dec 6 | No labs this week | |
Dec 10 | More Control Flow | B&O 3.6.3-3.6.8 |
Dec 12 | x86-64 Procedures (code) Assg3 out: Defusing a Binary Bomb |
B&O 3.7 |
Dec 13 | Lab 6: Machine Programming with Assembly | |
Dec 17 | Data and Stack Frames | B&O 3.8-3.9 |
Dec 19 | Security Vulnerabilities (code) | B&O 3.10 Additional Reading: Smashing the Stack for Fun and Profit, Aleph One |
Dec 20 | Lab 7: Runtime Stack | |
Dec 24 | Cache Memories | B&O 6.1-6.4.2 |
Dec 26 | More Cache Memories Assg3 in, Assg4 out: Buffer Overflow Attacks |
B&O 6.4-6.7 Demos: Cache Simulator |
Dec 27 | Lab 8: Memory organization | |
Dec 31 | Optimization (code) | B&O 5 |
Jan 2 | Linking | B&O 7 |
Jan 3 | Lab 9: Code Optimization | |
Jan 7 | Managing The Heap | B&O 9.9 |
Jan 9 | More Heap Allocators, Wrapping Up Assg4 in |
B&O 9.10 |
Jan 10 | No labs this week | |
TBA | Final Exam |