Past exam of the year 1 of the computer science course of the University of Oxford / 2019 / Imperative programming / 8 / c / Solution 2026-10-25
View more
The Observer pattern lets interested observers subscribe through a common interface to a subject's events or state changes. The subject notifies registered observers, which perform their own reactions; subscriptions can later be removed. A document model can thereby update multiple editor views without containing explicit knowledge of each view class.
It avoids tightly coupling the subject to every concrete consumer. Adding another view does not require adding a new view-specific call inside core model logic. Notifications should expose a coherent updated state, and unused observers should unsubscribe. The pattern does not itself prevent feedback cycles: observers that update each other's sources can still cause repeated or reentrant notifications. The supplied buttons and containing frame use this subscription-and-reaction design through Scala Swing.
Read the full article
Past exam of the year 1 of the computer science course of the University of Oxford / 2019 / Imperative programming resit / 8 / c / Solution 2026-10-25
View more
In Scala Swing, a Publisher is the observable subject and a Reactor supplies an observer's reactions. A reactor calls listenTo(pounds, euros, rate) to subscribe to the relevant publishing components. It adds a partial function from events to actions with reactions += { case ... => ... }; unmatched event types need no action. When a publisher calls publish(e), subscribed reactions that handle that event are notified. Calling deafTo removes subscriptions that are no longer wanted.[ref]
The publisher does not need to know the concrete frame or its currency-conversion code. A TextField supplies the relevant editing events, and the frame's reaction distinguishes the source field using EditDone(source). Both registration and a matching reaction are needed: installing a case handler without subscribing does not establish the notification path. The observer logic should update the conversion model once and then refresh the other fields from that coherent state.
Read the full article
Past exam of the year 1 of the computer science course of the University of Oxford / 2019 / Imperative programming resit / 8 / d / Solution 2026-10-25
View more
Let the committed model be amounts and an exchange rate , with invariant . Editing pounds keeps the rate and computes euros; editing euros keeps the rate and computes pounds; editing the rate keeps pounds and computes euros. A usable rate must be strictly positive, and every accepted floating-point number and derived result must be finite. Negative amounts are allowed. Rejecting invalid text preserves the last committed model.
Insert the following members inside the supplied MainFrame, after the three fields have been initialized. Its existing layout can remain as written:
private var p = 10.0
private var e = 11.5
private var r = 1.15
private var refreshing = false

private def finite(x: Double): Boolean = !x.isNaN && !x.isInfinity

private def showModel(): Unit = {
  refreshing = true
  try {
    pounds.text = java.lang.String.format(java.util.Locale.ROOT, "%.2f", Double.box(p))
    euros.text = java.lang.String.format(java.util.Locale.ROOT, "%.2f", Double.box(e))
    rate.text = r.toString
  } finally {
    refreshing = false
  }
}

private def edit(source: TextField): Unit = {
  try {
    val v = source.text.trim.toDouble
    if (finite(v)) {
      var nextP = p
      var nextE = e
      var nextR = r
      if (source eq pounds) {
        nextP = v
        nextE = v * r
      } else if (source eq euros) {
        nextE = v
        nextP = v / r
      } else if (source eq rate) {
        nextR = v
        nextE = p * v
      }
      if (nextR > 0.0 && finite(nextP) && finite(nextE) && finite(nextR)) {
        p = nextP
        e = nextE
        r = nextR
      }
    }
  } catch {
    case _: NumberFormatException => ()
  }
  showModel()
}

listenTo(pounds, euros, rate)
reactions += {
  case EditDone(source) if !refreshing => edit(source)
}
The invariant is interpreted with the usual floating-point rounding in multiplication and division. All candidate values are calculated before committing any of them, so invalid text, zero/negative rates, NaN, infinity and floating-point overflow leave the old model intact. The committed r remains positive, so euro-to-pound division is defined. Using a fixed formatting locale keeps the decimal separator compatible with toDouble. The displayed amounts are rounded to two decimal places, while the model retains their full available precision. The rate is not forcibly rounded to two places, which could otherwise turn a valid small positive rate into displayed zero.
The refreshing guard prevents synchronous derived-field notifications from recursively committing another edit. EditDone is an edit-completion event, not a request to react to every partial keystroke; pressing the field's completion action is enough to trigger the conversion. If a particular UI additionally needs live updates, it can subscribe to the appropriate text-change events with the same validation and authoritative-source policy. The supplied API and archived Scala Swing documentation suffice for the requested completion-event implementation; no unidentified practical library is required.[ref]
Read the full article