
Project 2: CS 61A Autocorrected Typing Software cats.zip
Programmers dream of
Abstraction, recursion, and
Typing really fast.
Introduction
Important submission note: For full credit:
- Submit with Phase 1 complete by Tuesday, September 27, worth 1 pt.
- Submit with all phases complete by Friday, September 30.
Try to attempt the problems in order, as some later problems will depend on earlier problems in their implementation and therefore also when running
ok
tests.The entire project can be completed with a partner.
You can get 1 bonus point by submitting the entire project by Thursday, September 29.
In this project, you will write a program that measures typing speed. Additionally, you will implement typing autocorrect, which is a feature that attempts to correct the spelling of a word after a user types it. This project is inspired by typeracer.
When students in the past have tried to implement the functions without thoroughly reading the problem description, they’ve often run into issues. 😱 Read each description thoroughly before starting to code.
Final Product
Our staff solution to the project can be interacted with at cats.cs61a.org. If you’d like, feel free to try it out now. When you finish the project, you’ll have implemented a significant part of this match yourself!
Phase 1: Typing
When students in the past have tried to implement the functions without thoroughly reading the problem description, they’ve often run into issues. 😱 Read each description thoroughly before starting to code.
Problem 1 (1 pt)
Throughout the project, we will be making changes to functions in cats.py
.
Implement pick
. This function selects which paragraph the user will type. It takes three parameters:
- a list of
paragraphs
(strings) - a
select
function, which returnsTrue
for paragraphs that can be selected - a non-negative index
k
The pick
function returns the k
th paragraph for which select
returns True
. If no such paragraph exists (because k
is too large), then pick
returns the empty string.
1 | def pick(paragraphs, select, k): |
Problem 2 (1 pt)
Implement about
, which takes a list of topic
words. It returns a function which takes a paragraph and returns a boolean indicating whether that paragraph contains any of the words in topic
.
Once we’ve implemented about
, we’ll be able to pass the returned function to pick
as the select
argument, which will be useful as we continue to implement our typing test.
To be able to make this comparison accurately, you will need to ignore case (that is, assume that uppercase and lowercase letters don’t change what word it is) and punctuation in the paragraph. Additionally, only check for exact matches of the words in topic in the paragraph, not substrings. For example, “dogs” is not a match for the word “dog”.
Hint: You may use the string utility functions in
utils.py
. You can reference the docstrings of the utility functions to see how they are being used.
1 | def about(topic): |
Problem 3 (2 pts)
Implement accuracy
, which takes a typed
paragraph and a source
paragraph. It returns the percentage of words in typed
that exactly match the corresponding words in source
. Case and punctuation must match as well. “Corresponding” here means that two words must occur at the same indices in typed
and source
—the first words of both must match, the second words of both must match, and so on.
A word in this context is any sequence of characters separated from other words by whitespace, so treat “dog;” as a single word.
If typed
is longer than source
, then the extra words in typed
that have no corresponding word in source
are all incorrect.
If both typed
and source
are empty, then the accuracy is 100.0. If typed
is empty but source
is not empty, then the accuracy is zero. If typed
is not empty but source
is empty, then the accuracy is zero.
1 | def accuracy(typed, source): |
Problem 4 (1 pt)
Implement wpm
, which computes the words per minute, a measure of typing speed, given a string typed
and the amount of elapsed
time in seconds. Despite its name, words per minute is not based on the number of words typed, but instead the number of groups of 5 characters, so that a typing test is not biased by the length of words. The formula for words per minute is the ratio of the number of characters (including spaces) typed divided by 5 (a typical word length) to the elapsed time in minutes.
For example, the string "I am glad!"
contains three words and ten characters (not including the quotation marks). The words per minute calculation uses 2 as the number of words typed (because 10 / 5 = 2). If someone typed this string in 30 seconds (half a minute), their speed would be 4 words per minute.
1 | def wpm(typed, elapsed): |
Phase 2: Autocorrect
When students in the past have tried to implement the functions without thoroughly reading the problem description, they’ve often run into issues. 😱 Read each description thoroughly before starting to code.
In the web-based GUI, there is an autocorrect button, but right now it doesn’t do anything. Let’s implement automatic correction of typos. Whenever the user presses the space bar, if the last word they typed doesn’t match a word in the dictionary but is close to one, then that similar word will be substituted for what they typed.
Problem 5 (2 pts)
Implement autocorrect
, which takes a typed_word
, a word_list
, a diff_function
, and a limit
.
If the typed_word
is contained inside the word_list
, autocorrect
returns that word.
Otherwise, autocorrect
returns the word from word_list
that has the lowest difference from the provided typed_word
based on the diff_function
. However, if the lowest difference between typed_word
and any of the words in word_list
is greater than limit
, then typed_word
is returned instead.
Important: If
typed_word
is not contained insideword_list
, and multiple strings have the same lowest difference fromtyped_word
according to thediff_function
,autocorrect
should return the string that appears first inword_list
.
A diff function takes in three arguments. The first is the typed_word
, the second is the source word (in this case, a word from word_list
), and the third argument is the limit
. The output of the diff function, which is a number, represents the amount of difference between the two strings.
Note: Some diff functions may be asymmetric (meaning flipping the first two parameters may yield a different output), so make sure to pass in the arguments to
diff_function
in the correct order. We will see an example of an asymmetric diff function in problem 7.
Here is an example of a diff function that computes the minimum of 1 + limit
and the difference in length between the two input strings:
1 | def length_diff(w1, w2, limit): |
Assume that typed_word
and all elements of word_list
are lowercase and have no punctuation.
Hint: Try using
max
ormin
with the optionalkey
argument.
1 | def autocorrect(typed_word, word_list, diff_function, limit): |
Problem 6 (3 pts)
Implement feline_fixes
, which is a diff function that takes two strings. It returns the minimum number of characters that must be changed in the typed
word in order to transform it into the source
word. If the strings are not of equal length, the difference in lengths is added to the total.
Important: You may not use
while
,for
, or list comprehensions in your implementation. Use recursion.
Here are some examples:
1 | >>> big_limit = 10 |
Important: If the number of characters that must change is greater than
limit
, thenfeline_fixes
should return any number larger thanlimit
and should minimize the amount of computation needed to do so.These two calls to
feline_fixes
should take about the same amount of time to evaluate:
1
2
3
4
5 >>> limit = 4
>>> feline_fixes("roses", "arose", limit) > limit
True
>>> feline_fixes("rosesabcdefghijklm", "arosenopqrstuvwxyz", limit) > limit
True
1 | def feline_fixes(typed, source, limit): |
Problem 7 (3 pts)
Implement minimum_mewtations
, which is a diff function that returns the minimum number of edit operations needed to transform the start
word into the goal
word.
There are three kinds of edit operations, with some examples:
- Add a letter to
start
.- Adding
"k"
to"itten"
gives us"kitten"
.
- Adding
- Remove a letter from
start
.- Removing
"s"
from"scat"
givs us"cat"
.
- Removing
- Substitute a letter in
start
for another.- Substituting
"z"
with"j"
in"zaguar"
gives us"jaguar"
.
- Substituting
Each edit operation contributes 1 to the difference between two words.
1 | >>> big_limit = 10 |
We have provided a template of an implementation in cats.py
.
Hint: This is a recursive function with three recursive calls. One of these recursive calls will be similar to the recursive call in
feline_fixes
.
You may modify the template however you want or delete it entirely.
Important: If the number of edits required is greater than
limit
, thenminimum_mewtations
should return any number larger thanlimit
and should minimize the amount of computation needed to do so.These two calls to
minimum_mewtations
should take about the same amount of time to evaluate:
1
2
3
4
5 >>> limit = 2
>>> minimum_mewtations("ckiteus", "kittens", limit) > limit
True
>>> minimum_mewtations("ckiteusabcdefghijklm", "kittensnopqrstuvwxyz", limit) > limit
True
1 | python3 ok -q 07✂️ |
(Optional) Extension: final diff (0pt)
You may optionally design your own diff function called final_diff
. Here are some ideas for making even more accurate corrections:
- Take into account which additions and deletions are more likely than others. For example, it’s much more likely that you’ll accidentally leave out a letter if it appears twice in a row.
- Treat two adjacent letters that have swapped positions as one change, not two.
- Try to incorporate common misspellings.
You can also set the limit you’d like your diff function to use by changing the value of the variable FINAL_DIFF_LIMIT
in cats.py
.
You can check your final_diff
‘s success rate by running:
1 | python3 score.py |
If you don’t know where to start, try copy-pasting your code for feline_fixes
and minimum_mewtations
into final_diff
and scoring them. Looking at the typos they accidentally fixed might give you some ideas!
Phase 3: Multiplayer
When students in the past have tried to implement the functions without thoroughly reading the problem description, they’ve often run into issues. 😱 Read each description thoroughly before starting to code.
Typing is more fun with friends! You’ll now implement multiplayer functionality, so that when you run cats_gui.py
on your computer, it connects to the course server at cats.cs61a.org and looks for someone else to race against.
To race against a friend, 5 different programs will be running:
- Your GUI, which is a program that handles all the text coloring and display in your web browser.
- Your
cats_gui.py
, which is a web server that communicates with your GUI using the code you wrote incats.py
. - Your opponent’s
cats_gui.py
. - Your opponent’s GUI.
- The CS 61A multiplayer server, which matches players together and passes messages around.
When you type, your GUI uploads what you have typed to your cats_gui.py
server, which computes how much progress you have made and returns a progress update. It also uploads a progress update to the multiplayer server, so that your opponent’s GUI can display it.
Meanwhile, your GUI display is always trying to keep current by asking for progress updates from cats_gui.py
, which in turn requests that info from the multiplayer server.
Each player has an id
number that is used by the server to track typing progress.
Problem 8 (2 pts)
Implement report_progress
, which is called every time the user finishes typing a word. It takes a list of the words typed
, a list of the words in the prompt
, the user’s user_id
, and a upload
function that is used to upload a progress report to the multiplayer server. There will never be more words in typed
than in prompt
.
Your progress is a ratio of the words in the prompt
that you have typed correctly, up to the first incorrect word, divided by the number of prompt
words. For example, this example has a progress of 0.25
:
1 | report_progress(["Hello", "ths", "is"], ["Hello", "this", "is", "wrong"], ...) |
Your report_progress
function should do two things: upload a message to the multiplayer server and return the progress of the player with user_id
.
You can upload a message to the multiplayer server by calling the upload
function on a two-element dictionary containing the keys 'id'
and 'progress'
. You should then return the player’s progress, which is the ratio of words you computed.
Hint: See the dictionary below for an example of a potential input into the
upload
function. This dictionary represents a player withuser_id
1 andprogress
0.6.
1 {'id': 1, 'progress': 0.6}
Before writing any code, unlock the tests to verify your understanding of the question:
1 | python3 ok -q 08 -u✂️ |
Once you are done unlocking, begin implementing your solution. You can check your correctness with:
1 | python3 ok -q 08✂️ |
Problem 9 (2 pts)
Implement time_per_word
, which takes in a list words
and times_per_player
, a list of lists for each player with timestamps indicating when each player finished typing every individual word in words
. It returns a match
with the given information.
A match
is a dictionary that stores words
and times
. The times
are stored as a list of lists of how long it took each player to type every word in words
. Specifically, times[i][j]
indicates how long it took player i
to type words[j]
.
For example, say words = ['Hello', 'world']
and times = [[5, 1], [4, 2]]
, then [5, 1]
corresponds to the list of times for player 0, and [4, 2]
corresponds to the list of times for player 1. Thus, player 0 took 5
units of time to write the word 'Hello'
.
Important: Be sure to use the
match
constructor when returning amatch
. The tests will check that you are using thematch
dictionary rather than assuming a particular data format.Read the definitions for the
match
constructor incats.py
to learn more about how the dictionary is implemented.
Timestamps are cumulative and always increasing, while the values in times
are differences between consecutive timestamps for each player.
Here’s an example: If times_per_player = [[1, 3, 5], [2, 5, 6]]
, the corresponding times
attribute of the match
would be [[2,2], [3, 1]]
. This is because the differences in timestamps are (3-1)
, (5-3)
for the first player and (5-2)
, (6-5)
for the second player. The first value of each list within times_per_player
represents the initial starting time for each player.
Before writing any code, unlock the tests to verify your understanding of the question:
1 | python3 ok -q 09 -u✂️ |
Once you are done unlocking, begin implementing your solution. You can check your correctness with:
1 | python3 ok -q 09✂️ |
👩🏽💻👨🏿💻 Pair programming? We suggest switching roles now, if you haven’t recently. Almost done!
Problem 10 (2 pts)
Implement fastest_words
, which returns which words each player typed fastest. This function is called once both players have finished typing. It takes in a match
.
Specifically, the fastest_words
function returns a list of lists of words, one list for each player, and within each list the words they typed the fastest (against all the other players). In the case of a tie, consider the earliest player in the list (the smallest player index) to be the one who typed it the fastest.
For example consider the following match with the words ‘Just’, ‘have’, and ‘fun’. Player 0 typed ‘fun’ the fastest (3 seconds), Player 1 typed ‘Just’ the fastest (4 seconds), and they tied on the word ‘have’ (both took 1 second) so we consider to Player 0 to be the fastest, because they are the earliest player in the list.
1 | >>> player_0 = [5, 1, 3] |
The match
argument is a match
dictionary, like the one returned in Problem 9. You can access words in the match
with the selector get_word
, which takes in a match
and the word_index
(an integer). With get_word
you can access the time it took any player to type any word using time
.
Important: Be sure to use the
match
constructor when returning amatch
. The tests will check that you are using thematch
dictionary rather than assuming a particular data format.Make sure your implementation does not mutate the given player input lists. For the example above, calling
fastest_words
on[player_0, player_1]
should not mutateplayer_0
orplayer_1
.
Before writing any code, unlock the tests to verify your understanding of the question:
1 | python3 ok -q 10 -u✂️ |
Once you are done unlocking, begin implementing your solution. You can check your correctness with:
1 | python3 ok -q 10✂️ |
Congratulations! Now you can play against other students in the course. Set enable_multiplayer
to True
near the bottom of cats.py
and type swiftly!
1 | python3 cats_gui.py |
At this point, run the entire autograder to see if there are any tests that don’t pass.
1 | python3 ok |
Once you are satisfied, submit to Ok to complete the project.
1 | python3 ok --submit |
If you have a partner, make sure to add them to the submission on okpy.
Check to make sure that you did all the problems by running:
1 | python3 ok --score |