LLP109 Coursework - Python

Design and develop your own electronic 'car parking information management' system in
Python.

Assignment: Write a complete, well-structured Python program that begins by asking a
user to enter car parking information, such as check-in/out time, vehicle numbers, hours.
The program will produce datasets with the input values and display the stored ones to the
user. You must use: Data Structures, Loop, Conditionals, user defined Functions, and
Data (keyboard) Input/ (screen) Output. Therefore, you should ask yourself how you can
incorporate the technical concepts and skills you learnt in the module into this specific
project. Be sure to write your student number in the upper right-hand corner of the code.
Use comments to explain intended meaning, reason, and functions of each part in the
program. This will be very helpful for readers to understand your codes.

Directions: Above all, think of the general architecture of the code. Think of a Data
Structure that includes detailed data sets such as entry time/date, exit time/date, hours,
identification number, size of a car, parking area. Your code should be able to display all (or
selected) the data sets on a screen after entering the input data. The code should have an
input and output (display) functions that defined by you.

Hint: A sequence of instructions may loop endlessly in the code unless the user chooses
terminating condition. Or, you can give the finite appropriate number for the loop. Declare
and define 'Insert' and 'Display (Show)' functions. Define a data structure, e.g. list, having
multiple elements of lists. Instead of a list, alternatively class can also be used. Think of an
idea to append a data structure element to the main data structure. Note, a small data
structure can be an element of a bigger main data structure, e.g. nested list (Refer to the
lecture notes). Remember how to access each data at different levels (dimensions), which is
explained in the lecture notes. The total number of the nested data structures corresponds to
the number of items stored, e.g. cars. A few items can be enough in order to demonstrate
the functionality of your code, i.e. no need to suppose a case of parking over 100 cars.

A user should be asked to choose an operation out of multiple options, such as (1) Data
input, (2) Display the data sets, (3) Finish and exit. When (1) is chosen, the code calls the
'input' function and the user put information for each item. After entering all the data of an
item, the user can make a choice out of the three (or more than three) options again.
Therefore, a loop and conditionals are required in the main algorithm. For example, a user
can see the data sets stored in the data structure so far when (2) has been chosen, finish
the job and exit the entire program when (3) has been chosen, or carry on with the data input
job with the option (1). It is necessary to write a code preventing (unintended results,
overflow, wrong input data type) errors, i.e., exception/error routine, when a user tries
to make wrong/unintended attempts, e.g. to try putting more data than the storage size of an
array, a character string to a number variable.

Start early
Programming is not an activity that can be reliably scheduled to take a predetermined
amount of time. The best thing you can do for yourself is to 'get started right away'. Refer to
recommended on/offline literature on coding, especially sections about Loop, Data Structure
(List, Tuple), Input/ Output, Conditionals, and User-defined Function.