Fall term 2012

KAIST EE209 Programming Structures for EE

Final exam
Thursday Dec 20, 2012

Student's name:

Student ID:

The exam is closed book and notes. Read the questions carefully and focus your answers on
what has been asked. You are allowed to ask the instructor/TAs for help only in understanding
the questions, in case you find them not completely clear. Be concise and precise in your
answers and state clearly any assumption you may have made. All your answers must be
included in the attached sheets. You have 120 minutes to complete your exam. Be wise in
managing your time.

Scores
Question 1 __________/10___
Question 2 __________/20___
Question 3 __________/15___
Question 4 __________/10___
Question 5 __________/10___
Question 6 __________/15___

Total __________/80___

1
1. Briefly explain following terms or answer the question (10 pt)

(a) Virtual memory (2pt)

(b) Page table (2pt)

(c) External fragmentation (2pt)

(d) Trap (2pt)

(e) What is the difference between read(int fd, void* buf, size_t count) (system call) and
fread(void* ptr, size_t size, size_t nmemb, FILE *stream) (C library function)? (2 pt)

2
2. Fun programming (20 pt)

a) Assume a[99] has 99 distinct natural numbers from 1 to 100. Fill out the following
function that finds the missing number out of 1 to 100 that does not exist in a[99]. Be
concise and be cautious about memory use (including the stack usage) (5pt)

int find_missing(int a[99])

{

b) The function stack grows from high to low address in the Intel architecture. Assume
the stack could grow low to high or high to low address in general. Write a function
that returns 1 if the stack grows from high to low address, 0 if it grows from low to
high address. You can add another function if you want. (5pt)

int does_stack_grow_to_low_address(void)
{

3
c) What does this function do? (5pt)
typedef struct node {
void *data;
struct node *next;
} Node;

int f(Node *p)

{
Node *p1, *p2;

if (p == NULL) return 0;

p1 = p2 = p;

do {
p1 = p1->next;
p2 = p2->next;
if (p2 == NULL)
return 0;
p2 = p2->next;
} while (p1 != NULL && p2 != NULL && p1 != p2);

return 1;
}

d) What’s the output of the second printf() (printf(“parent ..”))? If it’s called multiple
times, show every possible output (5pt).

int g = 1;

int main(void)
{
int k = 1;

if (fork() == 0) {
k++; g++;
printf(“child k+g=%d\n”, k+g);
}
g--;
k += 2;
wait(NULL);
printf(“parent k+g=%d\n”, k+g);
return 0;
}

4
3. The following assembly code was generated by gcc209 by compiling a simple C function
(named f). It takes one signed integer parameter and returns a signed integer value. You
may assume the passed-in parameter is in the range of 1 to 40. (15pt)

file "f.c"
.text
.globl f
.type f, @function
f:
pushl %ebp
movl %esp, %ebp
pushl %ebx
subl $20, %esp
cmpl $1, 8(%ebp)
jg .L2
movl $1, %eax
jmp .L3
.L2:
movl 8(%ebp), %eax
decl %eax
movl %eax, (%esp)
call f
movl %eax, %ebx
movl 8(%ebp), %eax
subl $2, %eax
movl %eax, (%esp)
call f
addl %ebx, %eax
.L3:
addl $20, %esp
popl %ebx
popl %ebp
ret

(a) At label .L2, what do 4(%ebp) and 8(%ebp) have? (4pt, 2pt each)

5
(b) What’s the value of f(5)? (4pt)

(c) Write the equivalent code in C. (5pt)

(d) It looks that the assembly code is inefficient in stack memory usage. How would you
change the code to reduce the unnecessary stack memory usage? (2pt)

6
4. Memory management (10 pt)
a) List three kinds of cache misses and explain each of them. (3pt)

b) What is the “first fit” memory allocation strategy? Discuss the advantages and
disadvantages of “first fit”? (3pt)

7
c) Write a program that shows the minimum memory allocable chunk unit including the
header/footer overhead. (4pt)

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main(void)
{

return 0;

8
5. Exceptions and Process control (10pt)

(a) What is the difference between function calls and exceptions. List at least three. (3pt)

(b) Process context refers to the state that each process maintains. What does the context
consist of? List at least three. (3pt)

d) Explain each of the following system call functions in one sentence (4pt)
A. fork()

B. exec()

C. wait()

D. kill()

9
6. Big integer operations (15pt)
We are writing a library that can add and multiply two unsigned large integer values that
cannot be represented by the C’s built-in integer type (unsigned int, unsigned long,
unsigned long long). Assume that the largest integer in the library can be represented by
32 * sizeof(unsigned int) bytes. u_int is typedef’ed to be unsigned int.

For example, 0x11111111222222223333333344444444 can be represented by an integer

array of size 4. That is

u_int a[16] = {0};

a[0] = 0x44444444
a[1] = 0x33333333
a[2] = 0x22222222
a[3] = 0x11111111

represents 0x11111111222222223333333344444444. a[3] represents the most significant

four bytes whereas a[0] represents the least significant four bytes.

a) add_large() takes two unsigned big integers (a[16], b[16]) and write the sum to c[17].
Please fill out the function. (5pt)

void add_large(u_int a[16], u_int b[16], u_int c[17])

{

10
b) multiply_large() takes two unsigned big integers (a[16], b[16]) and writes the result of
the multiplication of the values into c[32]. Please fill out the function. (10pt)

void multiply_large(u_int a[16], u_int b[16], u_int c[32])

{

11