Calculator of dot products

Author: Danielė Stasiūnaitė, IFM 4/2 gr.

Subject: Component Based System Engineering

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About the component

The vdot component is an educational tool for upper secondary school (11-12) students who want to better understand the concept of vector scalar product and improve their Python programming language skills by developing programs that integrate the developed component.

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✨ Features

The Python component processes text files containing vectors, computes scalar products and displays the results in a specified format.

Input

The component is able to process input files containing:

• Comment lines (they do not contain vector values). These lines start symbol #;
• Empty lines;
• Vector values that are provided in a scientific notation (for example, -5.125e19);
• Lines with non-numeric vector values (for example, 6d);
• Odd number of vector values in a line (in such case scalar product cannot be computed).

Result

The result (the scalar product) is represented using the default format 5.6g, which indicates that small numbers are represented using a low decimal expression, very large or very small values are represented using an exponential format (scientific notation).

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⚙️ Installation

pip install git+https://github.com/dansta0804/component_scalars.git

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❓ Usage

The installed component can be used in multiple ways, where different vdot program usages are described below. Input files that are used to explain program usage are available in directory Inputs: 1. One input file. The program reads one provided file that contains vector values.

Program call:

vdot ./Inputs/even_nnum.dat

Expected result:

Processing ./Inputs/even_nnum.dat...
Working with vectors: 5 6a 8 9              2.3 4.05 6.001 1.5
Value '6a' does not match numeric syntax in./Inputs/even_nnum.dat!

Working with vectors: 1.5 6.5 5 1.5         3.6 4.05 6_ -6.3
Value '6_' does not match numeric syntax in./Inputs/even_nnum.dat!

Working with vectors: 4 5 6 4               7 4 9d 9
Value '9d' does not match numeric syntax in./Inputs/even_nnum.dat!

Working with vectors: 6.2 5.8 -7.1 5.02    -0.1 -1.05 -1.25 -0.99
Result (dot product): -2.8048

Working with vectors: 7.39 10.31 6.42 7.4   8.88 1.11 7.4 6.96
Result (dot product): 176.079

Working with vectors: 3.84 7.72 2.52 7.87   2.59 4.65 3.91 3.93
Result (dot product): 86.6259

# 3 vector pair(-s) was(were) multiplied in total.

2. Multiple input files. The program reads multiple provided files that contain vector values.

Program call:

vdot ./Inputs/even_nnum.dat ./Inputs/odd_num.dat [file3 file4 ...]

Expected result:

Processing ./Inputs/even_nnum.dat...
Working with vectors: 5 6a 8 9              2.3 4.05 6.001 1.5
Value '6a' does not match numeric syntax in./Inputs/even_nnum.dat!

Working with vectors: 1.5 6.5 5 1.5         3.6 4.05 6_ -6.3
Value '6_' does not match numeric syntax in./Inputs/even_nnum.dat!

Working with vectors: 4 5 6 4               7 4 9d 9
Value '9d' does not match numeric syntax in./Inputs/even_nnum.dat!

Working with vectors: 6.2 5.8 -7.1 5.02    -0.1 -1.05 -1.25 -0.99
Result (dot product): -2.8048

Working with vectors: 7.39 10.31 6.42 7.4   8.88 1.11 7.4 6.96
Result (dot product): 176.079

Working with vectors: 3.84 7.72 2.52 7.87   2.59 4.65 3.91 3.93
Result (dot product): 86.6259

# 3 vector pair(-s) was(were) multiplied in total.

Processing ./Inputs/odd_num.dat...
Working with vectors: 6 3 4 1     9 2 3 4
Result (dot product):    76

Working with vectors: 5 2 3 4     5 3 6
Issue: vector component count is not even!

Working with vectors: 0.1 5 6     5 8 9 1.3
Issue: vector component count is not even!

Working with vectors: 9 7 3 4     9 9 7 3
Result (dot product):   177

# 2 vector pair(-s) was(were) multiplied in total.

3. One or more input files and '-f'. The program reads one or more provided files that contain vector values and displays the formatted scalar product (-f is used to specify the format; allowed formats: 5.6g, 3.3e, 4.4f):

Program calls:

vdot ./Inputs/even_nnum.dat -f 3.3e

vdot ./Inputs/even_nnum.dat ./Inputs/odd_num.dat -f 3.3e

Expected result (the first example):

Processing ./Inputs/even_nnum.dat...
Working with vectors: 5 6a 8 9              2.3 4.05 6.001 1.5
Value '6a' does not match numeric syntax in./Inputs/even_nnum.dat!

Working with vectors: 1.5 6.5 5 1.5         3.6 4.05 6_ -6.3
Value '6_' does not match numeric syntax in./Inputs/even_nnum.dat!

Working with vectors: 4 5 6 4               7 4 9d 9
Value '9d' does not match numeric syntax in./Inputs/even_nnum.dat!

Working with vectors: 6.2 5.8 -7.1 5.02    -0.1 -1.05 -1.25 -0.99
Result (dot product): -2.805e+00

Working with vectors: 7.39 10.31 6.42 7.4   8.88 1.11 7.4 6.96
Result (dot product): 1.761e+02

Working with vectors: 3.84 7.72 2.52 7.87   2.59 4.65 3.91 3.93
Result (dot product): 8.663e+01

# 3 vector pair(-s) was(were) multiplied in total.

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📝 Methods

Method name	Description	Parameters	Output
calculate_dot_product (output, str vectors, str filename, frmt)	Calculates the dot product of two vectors in a string.	vectors: a string with vector elements separated by space; filename: - name of the file (used for error messages); frmt - output format string (e.g., '5.6g').	Dot product as float or None if error.
handle_input (output, files, frmt)	Processes input files and computes dot products from each line.	files: - a list of input file paths; frmt - output format string (e.g., '5.6g').	Nothing. Prints results to stdout.

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🔍 CHANGELOG

All the changes are described in the file CHANGELOG.md.

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