A simplified version of Twitter where users can post tweets, follow/unfollow another user, and are able to see the 10 most recent tweets in the user’s news feed.
To use the project, simply clone the Github repository with the following command:
git clone https://github.com/Rishiry/COMP10050_Assignment_2.git
Then, open the folder in CLion as a project. Now, simply run the project and you would be prompted with a terminal.
The project can be run directly via the command line by navigating to the cmake-build-debug folder and calling the executable file present in there. This is the preferred method of execution as sometimes due to the CLion terminal occasionally glitching - specially on Windows. For this method, you will still be required to open the project with CLion at least once and build it, otherwise the cmake-build-debug would not be present.
Due to time constraints, we are unable to provide pre-compiled binaries for the project.
The project was broken down into multiple separate libraries. These libraries were mostly independent and were designed to provide a certain kind functionality each.
In addition to the libraries, certain helper functions were also used.
For a better user experience, a table like structure was used. The Display library is responsible for controlling this user interface and rendering the tables. It was initially created to only display tables with a list of all users, however, eventually all grew to contain virtually all outputs that need to be given to the end user.
It is important to note that the library is hard coded and would require a major refactor before it could be used in any other project. Since the display library is only part of the entire project, it would be futile to divert resources in an effort to make it more flexible.
COLS Number of Columns in the table displayed
ID_COL Number of Characters in the ID Column
USERNAME_COL Number of Characters in the Username Column
FOLLOWERS_COL Number of Characters in the Followers Column
FOLLOWING_COL Number of Characters in the Following Column
TOTAL Number of Characters in the row
LONG_CELL Number of Characters in a long cell
BORDER String to be used as border for the table
These values are placed in constants.h.
The library allowed for creation of graphics shown below.
The Twitter Create Library is responsible for initializing the twitter system and interacting with the end user to create accounts. The code for this library is well commented and the helper functions used are also rather intuitive. The only function this library contains is:
void create_twitter_system(twitter *twitter_system);The Twitter Functions Library is the core of the project and is further divided into sub libraries. These sub libraires are responsible for performing a single task each and contain only one function to do so. These single task functions are called by the driver code that exists in twitter_functions.c which is responsible for asking the user which function they want to execute. It takes a menu driven approach with an array of functions. The driver function is:
void run_twitter_functions(twitter * twitter_system);The single task functions used are:
void follow(twitter * twitter_system, user * active_user);
void unfollow(twitter * twitter_system, user * active_user);
void get_news_feed(twitter * twitter_system, user * active_user);
void delete(twitter * twitter_system, user * active_user);
void post(twitter * twitter_system, user * active_user);These functions reside in a .c and a corresponding .h file with their names in the same folder as the twitter functions library. Since these functions are in their own files, they aren't exposed to the main function as the driver function will be invoking them.
The helper directory houses miscellaneous functions which are utilized across the project. This includes asking for the user's input, converting an integer to a string, checking if a username is unique etc.
The project made use of certain constant values due to the nature of C. These were all contained in constants.h and were reused across the every library. In addition to the constants mentioned under the display library, the following constants were used:
COLS Number of Columns in the table displayed
TWEET_LENGTH Maximum Length of a Tweet
USR_LENGHT Maximum Length of Usernames
MAX_FOLLOWERS Maximum Number of Followers a user can have
MAX_FOLLOWING Maximum Number of users a user can Follow
MAX_USERS Maximum Number of users allowed
DISPLAY_TWEETS Number of tweets to Display
The following constant was used in earlier versions of the project, however, was scraped when the Tweets were refactored to be stored in a Linked List instead of an array.
MAX_TWEETS Maximum Number of Tweets allowed
Custom structures were used to store and access the working data of the program. The definition of these structures along with their use can be found in structs.h. The structures used were:
tweet Used to hold a single tweet. It also holds a pointer to last tweet posted which allows for the traversal of all tweets given only the latest tweet.
user Used to hold a single user. Contains any information like username or follower count.
twitter Used as the main data store for project. Contains latest tweet, array of all users etc. Passed down to almost every function so the data can be accessed and modified from any layer of the application - including the main function, the libraries and even the helper functions.