CS126 Design of Information Structures Coursework Specification 2026 | UOW

CS126 Coursework Specification

1 Introduction

A developer of a new Java application has asked for your help in storing a large amount of film data efficiently. The application, called Warwick+, is used to present data and fun facts about films, the cast and crew who worked on them, and some ratings the developer has gathered in there free time. However, because the developer hasn’t taken the module, they don’t want to design how the data is stored.

Therefore, this coursework and the task the developer has left to you, is to design one or more data structures that can efficiently store and search through the data. The data consists of 3 separate files:

• Movie Metadata: the data about the films, including there ID number, title, length, overview etc.
• Credits: the data about who stared in and produced the films.
• Rthaetiunsgesr: rtahteeddtahtea fialbmo.ut what different users thought about the films (rated out of 5 stars), and when

To help out, the developer of Warwick+ has provided classes for each of these. Each class has been populated with functions with JavaDoc preambles that need to be filled in by you. As well as this, the developer has also tried to implement the MyArrayList data structure into a 4th dataset (called Keywords), to show you where to store your data structures and how they can be incorporated into the pre-made classes. Finally, the developer has left instructions for you, which include how to build, run and test you code; and the file structure of the application (see Section 4).

Therefore, your task is to implement the functions within the Movies, Credits and Ratings classes though the use of your own data structures.

2 Submission Details

You should submit the following in a singular ZIP file by Tuesday 5^th May 2026 @ 12 noon:

• Tsuhbemdisisrieocntoarfyteorfzitphpeinagppulpictahteiocnodinec,ltuodienngsuAreLaLll ficoledsealroecpatreedsenwt.ithin it. Make sure you check your
• Asho1u5l0d0iwncolruddreepdoetratidlsisocnustshinegdtehceisdioantsa ystoruucmtuardee(,s)inycoluudhinavgewimhyplyemouenptiecdkefdorththeed3atcalasstsreus.ctTuhree(sr)epaonrdt how you implemented it/them. The report can be structured however you see fit, but should be saved as a PDF document. References, captions, tables, figures and code listings do not count towards the word limit.

The ZIP file should be uploaded to Tabula by the deadline specified. Instructions for combining all your files together into a ZIP file on the DCS system can be found by running the command man zip in the terminal of any DCS machine.

All marking will be done in accordance with the Universities marking scheme (more details can be found at https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/dcs/teaching/handbook/assessment/). The work you submit should be your own work, and thus should abide by the Universities rules on plagiarism. All late submissions and cases of plagiarism will be handled in accordance with the Universities regulations (Reg. 36.3 and 11 respectively). Any and all code will be evaluated on the Department of Computer Science machines. Therefore, you should test and validate your code works on these machines before and after submitting your work to Tabula.

When developing the code, you should not use the data structures, searching algorithms or sorting algorithms implemented within the Java itself. This includes the data structures found within the Java utils package. However, you are allowed to use any Java data structure interfaces. These should be clearly communicated in both your code and in the report.

It should also be noted that submitting a solution that utilises the MyArrayList will score low marks, as an example of this solution has been provided for you. You should implement your own data structures within the Movies, Ratings and Credits classes.

3 Guidance

Have a read through the documentation provided in Section 4. This explains how to build and run the application. This can be done without writing anything, so make sure you can do that first.

I would then have a look at the comments and functions found in the Movies, Credits and Ratings classes. The location of these is described in Section 4.5.2. Each of the functions you need to implement has a comment above it, describing what it should do. It also lists each of the parameters for the function (lines starting with @param), and what the function should return (lines starting with @return).

When you are ready to start coding, I would recommend starting off with the Movies class first. This is because whist it is a rather long file, it is also one of the simplest. When you have completed a function, you can test it using the test suit described in Section 4.4. More details about where the code for the tests are can be found in Section 4.5.3.

If you have any issues, don’t hesitate to contact the Module Organisers or the lab tutors!

Details for them can be found on the module webpage.

4 Warwick+

Warwick+ is a Java application that pulls in data from a collection of Comma Separated Value (csv) files. It is designed to have a lightweight UI, so that users can inspect and query the data. The application also has a testing suit connected to it, to ensure all the functions work as expected. The functions called in the Warwick+ UI are the same as those called in the testing, so if the tests work, the UI will also work.

4.1 Required Software

For the Warwick+ to compile and run, Java 21 is required. If you are running Warwick+ on the DCS system, then you don’t need to worry about this as it has already been installed for you. However, if you are planning on working on Warwick+ on your own machine, then you will need to make sure you download this specific version of Java. Whilst a newer version of Java can be utilised, other parts of the application will also have to be updated and this has not been tested. As such, it is highly recommended you download and use Java 21.

4.2 Building Warwick+

To compile the code, simply run the command shown in the table below in the head directory (the one with src directory in it).

4.3 Running the Warwick+ Application

To run the application, simply run the command shown in the table below in the head directory (the one with src directory in it).

This command will also compile the code, in case any files have been changed. When this is done, a window will appear with the UI for the application. The terminal will not be able to be used at this time. Instead it will print anything required from the program. To stop the application, simply close the window or press CTRL and C at the same time in the terminal.

4.4 Running the Warwick+ Test Suite

This command will also compile the code, in case any files have been changed. When ran, this will produce the output from each test function. It will also produce a webpage of the results, which can be found in build/reports/test/test/index.html

4.5 Warwick+ File Structure

Every effort has been made to keep the file structure simple and clean, whilst maintaining good coding practices. In the following subsections, a brief description of each of the key directories is given, along with its contents and what you need to worry about in them.

4.5.1 data/

This directory stores all the data files that are pulled into the application. There are 4 .csv files in this directory, 1 for each of the datasets described in Section 1. Each line in these files is a different entry, with values being separated by commas (hence the name Comma Separated Values). You do not need to add, edit or remove anything from this directory for your coursework. More details on how these files are structured can be found in Section 4.6.

4.5.2 src/main/

This directory stores all the Java code for the application. As such, there are a number of directories and files in this directory, each of which are required for the application and/or the UI to function. To make things simpler, there are 3 key directories that will be useful for you:

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• jfraovma/Ssetcotrioens/1: Satroerleosctahteedc,latshseeslfaotrtetrhe3doaftawsheitcsh. aTrheisthisewchlaesrseesthyeoKueynweoedrdtso, Mcoovmipelse,teC.reTdhietrse,fRoraet,iynogus should only need to edit the following files, but it might be worth reading the others:
  • java: Stores and queries all the data about the films. The code in this file relies on the Company and Genre classes which can be found in the Company.java and Genre.java files.
  • java: Stores and queries all the data about who stared in and worked on the films. The code in this file relies on the CastCredit, CrewCredit and Person classes which can be found in the CastCredit.java, CrewCredit.java and Person.java files respectively.
  • java: Stores and queries all the data about the ratings given to films

In Movies, Credits and Ratings, you will see that the constructor requires a singular argument, a variable called stores of type Stores and uses this to store an variable called stores. This class contains a reference to all the data stores, including itself. As such, if you need to access data from other stores, you can use this class to attain the data through the appropriate get functions. For example, if you need to call a function from the Movies store, you can use the function stores.getMovies() to get the instance of the Movies store currently being used by the application.

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4.5.3 src/test/

This directory stores all the code that related solely to the JUnit tests. As such, there is a Java file for each of the stores you need to implement, and one that manages the tests. You do not need to add, edit or remove anything from this directory for your coursework.

4.6 Data used for Warwick+

All of the data used by the Warwick+ application can be found in the data directory, as described in Section 4.5.1. Each file in this directory contains a large collection of values, separated by commas (hence the CSV file type). Therefore, each of these can be opened by your favourite spreadsheet program. Most of these values are integers or floating point values, but some are strings. In the cases of strings, double quotation marks (“) are used at the beginning and end of the value. Where multiple elements could exist in that value, a JSON object has been used. You do not need to parse these files, Warwick+ will do that for you in the LoadData class. The data generated by the LoadData class is passed to the corresponding data store class (Movies, Credits, Ratings and Keywords) using the add function. The only exception to this is the Movies class, more details for this can be found in Section 4.7.1.

To make development easier, we have provided only 1000 films present in the data. This means that there are 1000 entries in the credits data set, and 1000 entries in the keywords data set. However, some films may not have any cast and/or crew (that information may not have been released yet, or it is not known), some films don’t have keywords and some films may not have ratings. In these cases, an empty list of the required classes will be provided the add function.

When we are testing the application, we will be using a larger film data set. Therefore, the data structures you develop should be both memory efficient and time efficient. Every effort has been made to ensure the data we have given you is a fair representation of the larger data set.

The dataset used in Warwick+ is a little dated. As such, some films will have release dates and other information missing when it is readily available online. You are not expected to update the data provided, only to process the data passed to the stores. The data passed to the stores is valid, and should be handled appropriately. If data is missing, an appropriate value has been provided where necessary.

4.7 Key Information and Stats About the Data

Table 1 shows all the stats about the dataset provided with the application. This can be used as a reference when checking to see whether data is being stored correctly.

Table 1: Stats generated for the dataset provided with the application

4.7.1 Movies Metadata

The following is a list all of the data stored about a film using the given name from the CSV file, in the same order they are in the CSV file. Blue fields are ones that are added through the add function in the Movies class. • adult: A boolean representing whether the film is an adult film.

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• ^bth^ued^gb^eu^td:gAetliosnsgetinttoeg0e.rTthhaetresftoorree,stthhise wbuildl gaelwt aoyfsthbeefiglrmeaitnerUtShaDnoollraresq.uIafltthoe0b.udget is not known, then
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For ease, Warwick+ passes this as an array of Genre objects.

• ^hth^oi^ms^es^pt^ar^gin^eg: iAs lsetfrtinegmpretpy.resenting a URL of the homepage of the film. If the film has no homepage, then
• ^tinm^do^bt^_hⁱerd:dAatna isnettesg.er representing the ID of the film. This is used to link this film to other pieces of data
• ⁱth^med^b_s^__eⁱ_t^d_I:_MDA_Bsfturnincgtiornepirnestehneti_Mn_og_vith_ee_s e part of the IMDb URL for a given film. This is added using
• ^op^rroⁱd^guiⁿce^adl^_i^ln^a.nguage: A 2-character string representing the ISO 639 language that the film was originally
• ^ofi^relⁱd^g,ⁱbⁿu^atl^_istⁱn^to^lt^ea:lwAasytsritnhgerceapsree.senting the original title of the film. This may be the same as the title
• overview: A string representing the an overview of the film.
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• ^pp^oo^sst^te^er^ra^_v^pa^ai^tla^hb:leA. Isntritnhgesreepcareseses,ntainngemthpetyunstiqriunegpisargtivoefna. URL for the film poster. Not all films have a
• pJrSoOdNucltisitohn_acsoampkeayniveaslu: eApaJiSrO, wNhleirset tthheatkesytoirsesthteheIDproofdtuhceticoonmcpoaunnyt,riaensdfotrheavfiallmue. iEsatchhe ennatmrye ionf tthhee company. For ease, Warwick+ parses each list element into a Company This object is the added using the addProductionCompany in the Movies class.
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here: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/Calendar.html).

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• risunntoitmken:oAw,fltohaetnintgheporiunnttvimaleueisrseeptretsoen0t.inTghtehreefonruem, btheirsowfimllianluwtaeyssthbeefiglrmeattaerketshtaonpolraye.quIfatlhteor0u.ntime
• saspoakelinst_loafnkgeuya-gvealsu:eApaJiSrsO,Nwhliesrtetthhaet ksteoyreiss tahllet2h-echlaanragcutaegreIsStOha6t3t9hceofidlem, ainsdavtahielavbaleluien.isTthhiesliasnsgtuoaregde name. For ease, Warwick+ parses these as an array of keys stored as strings.
• status: A string representing the current state of the film.
• ^tIna^gt^lhⁱeⁿsee:caAsesst,rianngermepprteysesnttriinngg tisheprpeossetnetredta.gline of the film. A film is not guaranteed to have a tagline.
• title: A string representing the English title of the film.
• video: A boolean representing whether the film is a “direct-to-video” film.
• vtiomtee_tahveerdaagtae:wAasflocoaltliencgtepdo.inAtsvasluuceh,reiptriessennottinugsaedn ainvetrhaegeRsecvoireewasdagtiavseent.byTahethsocsoereonwIilMl aDlwbaaytstbhee between 0 and 10. This data is added using the setVote function in the Movies
• vtootcea_lccuoluantte:thAenscinotreegfeorrrveoptrees_eanvteinrgagteeAnsumsubcehr, oitf ivsonteost ounseIdMinDbthaetRtheveietwimdeatthaesedt.atTahwisaswcilollalelcwtaeyds, be greater than or equal to 0. This data is added using the setVote function in the Movies class.

4.7.2 Credits

The following is a list all of the data stored about the cast and crew of a film using the given name from the CSV file, in the same order they are in the CSV file. All these fields are used by Warwick+:

• chaasstd:etAaiJlsStOhNatlrisetlattheattoctohnetraeinrsolaellinthtehecafistlmfoarnadptahretmicsuellavresfi.lmF.orIneatshe,eWJSaOrwNiclkis+t,peaascshescathstisminetmobaenr array of Cast objects, with as many fields populated as possible.
• chraeswd:eAtaiJlsSOthNatlirsetlattheattocotnhteareinrsoalellitnhethcerefiwlmfoarnadptahretmicsuellavresfi.lmF.orIneatshee, WJSaOrwNicliks+t, peaacshsescrtehwisminetmobaenr array of Crew objects, with as many fields populated as possible.
• ^tm^mo^dv^bi^_esi^dd:aAtansientte(sgeeer Sreepctrieosnen4t.i7n.g1)t.he film ID. The values for this directly correlates to the id field in the

4.7.3 Ratings

The following is a list all of the data stored about the ratings for a film using the given name from the CSV file, in the same order they are in the CSV file. Blue fields are ones that are actually used by Warwick+:

• userId: An integer representing the user ID. The value of this is greater than 0.
• ^md^ois^vrⁱe^eg^Lar^edⁿe^sd^I.d: An integer representing the MovieLens ID. This is not used in this application, so can be
• ^tm^mo^dv^bi^Iesd:dAatna isnetteg(seererSepecretisoennt4in.7g.1t)h.e film ID. The values for this directly correlates to the id field in the
• rating: A floating point value representing the rating between 0 and 5 inclusive.
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https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/Calendar.html).

4.7.4 Keywords

The following is a list all of the data stored about the keywords for a film using the given name from the CSV file, in the same order they are in the CSV file. All these fields are used by Warwick+:

• ^tm^mo^dv^bi^_esi^dd:aAtansientte(sgeeer Sreepctrieosnen4t.i7n.g1)t.he film ID. The values for this directly correlates to the id field in the
• kaseyawkoeryd-sv:alAueJpSaOirN, wlishtetrheatthceoknetyaiinssraepllrtehseenkteeydwaosrdasnrIeDlantiunmgbtoera, gainvdenthfielmva.luEeacishrkeepyrwesoerndteisdraespraessternitnegd.

For ease, Warwick+ passes this into an array of Keyword objects.

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