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Food Magnate Simulation Questions

  1. State the name of an identifier for:

    1. A subroutine in the Settlement class that returns something other than a primitive value

      GetRandomLocation

    2. A local variable that is used to return a Boolean

      CloseCompany

    3. A collection attribute in the Company class

      _Outlets

    4. An instance of Settlement

      _SimulationSettlement

  2. Explain how validation might be added to the OpenOutlet subroutine of the Company class to prevent a new outlet being created beyond the bounds of the settlement.

    The OpenOutlet subroutine could be passed the instance of Settlement the company resides within and ensure that the target X and Y are within the Settlement's X and Y bounds.

  3. Explain the role of the variable UpOrDown in the ProcessCostOfFuelChangeEvent subroutine of the Simulation class.

    The variable UpOrDown determines if the price of fuel will increase or decrease; if UpOrDown is 0 then the price goes up and if it's 1 (or anything else) then the price goes down.

  4. In the Simulation constructor, the integer literals 100000, 200, and 203 are passed to the Company constructor when creating the 'AQA Burgers' company. State the role of each of these integer literals.

    100000, the first integer literal, is passed to the Company initialiser as the company's balance; how much money it has. 200, the second integer literal, is passed to the Company initialiser as the company's first outlet's X position, and 203, the third integer literal, is passed to the Company initialiser as the company's first outlet's Y position.

  5. Describe in full the operation of the GetIndexOfCompany subroutine in the Simulation class.

    GetIndexOfCompany begins by setting a sentry variable, Index, equal to a sentry value, -1. It then iterates through each valid index into the Simulation object's _Companies attribute, and compares the Company's name, case insensitively, to the search query (by normalising both names to lower case). If the Company is determined to match then the current index is returned, otherwise the loop continues.

    If the loop completes without finding a match, then the Index sentry is returned. (It's never modified, so it could just be a constant. Whatever.)

  6. Describe the circumstances under which the ModifyCompany subroutine of the Simulation class would output the text 'Invalid coordinates'.

    Any of the following:

    • Desired X is less than 0
    • Desired X is more than the X size of the settlement's
    • Desired Y is less than 0
    • Desired Y is more than the Y size of the settlement's

  7. Currently, a call to the LargeSettlement constructor could not result in a settlement that is smaller than 1,000 by 1,000. This is true even if negative numbers are entered by the user when prompted for additional x and y values. Explain how a call to the LargeSettlement constructor never results in a smaller settlement size.

    As the Settlement initialiser is called, the initial 250 houses will be within the 1000x1000 area, even if the bounds of the settlement (or even the number of houses) are lowered afterwards by LargeSettlement's initialiser.

  8. Describe exactly how the ProcessDayEnd subroutine works in the Simulation class.

    First, an empty string Details is created, along with ProfitLossFromOutlets and ProfitLossFromThisOutlet, both of which are set to 0.

    Then, if there is more than one outlet, DeliveryCosts is set to the base delivery cost + a calculated cost between outlets, otherwise it is set to the base delivery cost.

    Then, some information about the costs for the day are added to Details.

    After that, ProfitLossFromThisOutlet is calculated for each outlet, a message is added to Details, and ProfitLossFromOutlets is increased by ProfitLossFromThisOutlet.

    Next, the company's current balance is appended to Details, updated with the daily costs, delivery costs, and profit/loss from all outlets, and the new balance is appended to Details.

    Finally, the fully constructed Details is returned.

  9. Describe how the program would respond to a call to the Company constructor using a category that is neither 'fast food', 'family', nor 'named chef'.

    Any category other than 'fast food' or 'family' is treated as if it were a 'named chef' category; the initial values (other than category itself) are created as if the category were 'named chef'.