Automating the Checking of Multiple Student Answers

[Warren Toomey]

The Tecs software allows testing to be done via the command-line, so I have written a Perl script which, given a specific project name and a list of Zip files, will unpack the contents of each Zip file, bring in the correct set of .tst and .cmp files, run the tests on the files from the Zip, and print the results.

This should help me automate the checking of my students' submissions. I will still need to read through each answer anyway, but this should help me to focus on the areas in the answers which need most attention. Hopefully this tool will be useful to other people running the Tecs course.

hdltest

The tool is designed for a Linux environment, as it uses command-line tools like cp and unzip.

[Kostyantyn]

Thanks Warren. That's a very useful utility, and a very nice and quick way to test files before submission. I just have a suggestion to make it work with all types of archives via Extract::Archive perl module, for example with the use of the following subroutine:

extract.pl

[ybakos]

Thanks Warren, I will definitely steal your script and make some changes.

Since one of the underlying principles of the class is also to engage the students in postmodern best practices (TDD, etc) I have them all using git and github for source control.

Note that the folks at github will extend free repositories and collaborators to teachers and students, you just need to ask.