This project is Web-based. The data file comes from the Web, and your
answers must be submitted via the Web. There are two buttons on the Web
form, corresponding to the two steps you should follow
You are asked to enter your full name. Make sure you use the same
name for both steps in the project!
Each record in your personal data file has the same structure. There
are five fields per record:
- one field of 6 EBCDIC-encoded characters
- one 32-bit 2's complement field
- one 32-bit IEEE 754 normalized floating point field
- one 3 byte packed decimal field
- one 5 byte zoned decimal field
Adding up the above sizes, you see that each record is 22 bytes long. There
are four records in your data file, giving a total file size of 88
bytes. (Make sure your downloaded data file is exactly this big, before
you begin!)
As implied by the EBCDIC fields, this is an IBM mainframe simulated file;
as a result, the 2's complement and the floating point fields are not in the
reverse byte order you would expect for a standard MS-DOS ASCII dump. The byte
order you see is the byte order you decode.
Decode the file into four records with five fields each. Decode the first
field of each record into characters; decode the other four numeric fields
into ordinary decimal numbers.
After you have decoded the file, enter your name again and use the Upload
My Answers button to enter and upload your answers for marking.
To upload your answers, use exactly the same name you entered in Step 1.
