autograde

A tool that helps automate the more mechanical aspects of grading homework assignments. The program is designed to configure, build, and test student assignments written in C++.

CMake is used to support cross-platform builds, allowing students to work in whatever IDEs are supported by that system (e.g., VS, Eclipse, or just a shell and editor).

It is assumed that students will write portable code. That is, they should not rely features specific to any operating system. Projects with external dependencies should guarantee that those dependencies are also portable. That is, they can be compiled or linked against on any system on which the student or evaluator might build and run the project).

Installing autograde

The project has a several dependencies:

• python-2.7
• cmake
• pandoc
• ps2pdf
• a2ps

Installation is triival. Just clone this direcory. You can put it on path, create an alias to the autograde executable, or create a symlink in a directory that is already on path.

Running autograde

Usage: autograde [all] <dir>

The <dir> is the top-level directory of the project. For example, an assignmennt to implement a Linked_list class might be developed in a list directory. So, the project would be graded by running:

$ autograde list

Autograde will attempt to configure a build system, build the project, run the test suite, and assemble a manifest for grading. Autograde creates a file within the target directory (e.g., list) called eval-$dir.log (e.g., eval-list.log) that

Note that autograde does not assign grades to student projects. Grades are assigned by evaluating the results of autograde and the project as a whole.

If the all option is specified, then autograde assumes that you are in a directory containing student directories. The program will descend into each student directory and run autograde for that student.

Project layout

Student projects must contain a CMakeLists.txt file that can be used to configure a build, a test suite, and a manifest (or submission). A sample CMakeLists.txt can be found in the cmake directory of this project.

The CMakeLists.txt must have the following build components:

• Testing must be enabled
• The project must have at least one test (add_test)
• The project must include a manifest (make_manifest)

The project may include a README.md file -- I prefer to use Markdown to document project or include written components of the project.

Manifest

The manifest is a PDF containing project documentation (i.e., README.md) and source code listits.