Buffer pools and file processing projects for an undergraduate data structures course
Clifford A. Shaffer · ACM SIGCSE Bulletin · 2004
This paper presents a family of programming projects appropriate to a sophomore-level data structures course, centered around the concept of a buffer pool serving as the access intermediary to a disk file. These projects provide a meaningful vehicle for practicing object-oriented design techniques and teach fundamental material on file processing and manipulating binary data. I begin with a concrete example, a heap stored on disk and mediated by a buffer pool. Several important intellectual concepts introduced by such a project are enumerated. Significant extensions and alternatives to the basic project are then described. I conclude with some observations on the role of file processing in modern CS curricula, and the significance of recent trends away from coverage of these topics.