linux-shell-class

Grading System

The project uses a centralized grading script (grade.sh) located in the root directory to grade lab2 and later labs.

Recent Modification: Automatic Generation of Expected Outputs

As of April 20, 2026, the grade.sh script has been modified to automatically generate missing expected output files (taskN.out) from standard teacher implementations when grading a lab. This eliminates the need for individual grade.sh scripts in lab2 and later directories and ensures consistency.

How It Works

1. Teacher Implementations: Each lab should have a submissions/teacher/ directory containing standard implementation scripts (task1.sh to taskN.sh).

2. Input Files: Test cases are stored in labN/test_cases/taskN.in.

3. Expected Outputs: If taskN.out files are missing, the script will:

   • Check for the corresponding teacher script and input file.
   • Execute the teacher script with the input to generate the expected output.
   • Save the output to taskN.out.

4. Grading Process:

   • The script compares student submissions against the expected outputs while ignoring extra blank lines and whitespace-only formatting differences.
   • Uses binary (pass/fail) task scoring for the shared lab2+ workflow.
   • Results are saved to labN/results/ as CSV files.

Usage

# Grade a specific lab
./grade.sh lab3

# Grade a specific lab and print mismatched output diffs
./grade.sh --debug-diff lab3

# Grade all shared-grader labs
./grade.sh

# Use a specific ID file
./grade.sh lab3 id/5.csv

Benefits

• Consistency: Single grading script for all labs.
• Content-Based Comparison: Extra spaces and blank lines do not change the grade.
• Debugging Support: --debug-diff prints a unified diff when student output does not match the teacher output.
• Automation: No manual generation of expected outputs required.
• Error Prevention: Handles missing .out files gracefully by generating them from standards.
• Maintainability: Removes duplication of grading logic across labs.

Lab1 remains outside this shared workflow and keeps its own lab-specific grading script.