Project 1: Mad Libs

In this project you will write a program that plays the game Mad Libs. Mad Libs involve a story or essay with important words left out. Players unaware of the text are asked to fill in the blanks with words with the given parts of speech. (Often something more specific is asked for, such as "past tense verb," "proper noun," or even "food.")

1. Setup

Bring up a terminal window (Applications->Accessories->Terminal). First you will want to make a directory for this class, change into that directory, make a directory for this project, and again change into it.

mkdir csci235
cd csci235
mkdir proj1
cd proj1

Start Xemacs, giving as an argument the file named something like "MadLibs.java".

xemacs MadLibs.java &

2. Program

Write or find a story or other text that can be changed into a Mad Lib. Write a program that asks the user for a series of words, for example,

noun--> computer
past tense verb--> walked
interjection--> splat
...

Then display the story or essay with the words filled in the right place. Your program should meet the following specifications:

• It should ask for at least ten words.
• It should ask for at least one proper noun, which will appear capitalized in the story.
• At least one word that is asked for should stand at the beginning of a sentence and should be capitalized.
• Capitalization should not depend on the user. If the user enters bob for a proper noun, it should appear in your story as Bob. If the user enters wAlRuS and it is not at the beginning of a sentence, it should appear as walrus.
• Your story should use quotation marks at least once.
• If you do not make up your own text, cite your source in the opening documentation.

I will not take off points for documentation this time, but documenation will be part of your grade on future projects. Accordingly, do your best to imitate the way I document the examples we have in class.

3. Turn in

When you are all finished and are confident that your program fulfills all the instructions here and is working right, perform the usual turn-in procedure.

• Start a typescript file (using the command typescript
• Display the file using cat
• Compile and run your program.
• Exit the script.

Then print the script file.

 
a2ps  (the name of the script file)

Then turn in the hard copy in class or put it in my box.

DUE: Friday, September 11, at 5:00 PM.