CS 580 Exam Spring 2004
Answer 9 of the following 10 questions. Indicate which problems you want graded.
1. We have a client-server system where the client can make multiple requests on one
connection. That is a client opens a connection, makes a request, receives a response,
makes another request, etc. In such a system the server needs to know when it has received
the entire contents of a single message. What are the different techniques that can be used in
a protocol so the server knows when it has received the entire contents of a single message?
2. Some protocols use key-value pairs to transmit data, others do not. What is the advantage of
using key-value pairs?
3. We have a protocol that sends a series of key-value pairs. The basic format is key1=value1;
key2=value2;…;keyN=valueN;. That is the pairs are separated by the character “;” and the
key and value in a pair are separated by the character “=”. What problem(s) can occur in
reading & parsing this format? How can one solve the problem(s)?
4. Some protocols are text based, others are binary. Give one advantage of a text based
protocol over a binary protocol. Give one advantage of a binary protocol over a text based
protocol.
5. We have a method multiply( int a, int b) ( multiply: anInteger by: integer2 for Smalltalkers)
that returns the result of multiplying two integers . The method is an instance method on the
class Foo. Write a test case for this method.
6. What are the advantages of using a thread pool over creating a new thread for to handle new
connections in a concurrent server?
7. What uniquely defines a connection between two machines using TCP/IP?
8. Why might logging be important in client-server applications? What type of information might
be important to log?
9. When would one use an iterative server over a concurrent server?
10. A student was hired to create a database to hold the grades of students in computer science
courses. The student produced the following table with the columns listed below. Produce a
normalized version of the table.
Student_First_Name, Student_Last_Name, Student_Red_ID
CS107_Assignment1, …, CS107_Assignment25,
CS108_Assignment1, …, CS108_Assignment25,
… (not shown are the other course offered by the department)
CS696_Assignment1, …., CS696_Assignment25
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