Project 1: Address Book

Due Date: 19^th Feb 2003

Problem Statement					To design an address book containing the names/aliases, phone numbers and addresses of contacts. The address book application is to be developed for the PocketPC platform using MFC and WinCE API on the embedded Visual C++ platform. The application is to be finally deployed on the Ipaq handhelds provided.
Front-End Implementation Details
	User Interface			To be designed using MFC classes. Application should have a menubar with a single menuitem - the "File" menu. This menu should give the user four options - "Open", "Save As", "Sync" and "Exit". The "Open" option is to enable the application to import a text file as the current database. The "Save As" option would save the current database as a normal text file. The "Sync" option will initiate a client-initiated (ipaq initiated) sync operation, to synchronize the database on the ipaq with the one on the desktop. An SDI view is to be implemented (shown below).

		Contact Management			The user should be able to tap in (stylus input) the name/alias, phone number and address of a person. After doing so, the user taps either the "Add" or the "Search" or the "Delete" button.
			Add		To enter a contact into the database, at least the name and the phone number must have been entered. A name that is already in the database cannot be entered into the database again. In case of the above two errors, an errorbox should show up, showing the appropriate error message; on clicking "OK" to this errorbox, the focus should return to the application - no need to erase any of the text in any of the three edit boxes. If the record doesn't exist in the database, only then add it. Look at "Database Structure" section for error-handling when database is full.
			Search		Should initiate a search query on the database, indexed by the case-insensitive form of the name string. In case the name is found, show the record, else show and errorbox telling that the desired contact wasnt found; on returning to the application, do not erase the data already entered in any of the text boxes.
			Delete		This query requires only the name string. Search the database for the desired contact. If found, display it, and show a confirmation box, confirming that the record is to be deleted, and then proceed to delete it; then erase the text in all the edit boxes and then return to the application. If the record was not found then show an errorbox, with the appropriate error message; donot erase any of the text in the text boxes on returning.

Back End Details
		Database Structure			Each contact should be stored as a fixed length struct - struct contact{ char name[25]; char phone[10]; char address[125]; } The database is to be maintained as a binary file(the standard binary file that is supported by C, when using stdio.h). Use file handling API like open(), seek(), read(), write() and close() - the standard file handling API. Pad up the empty characters in any field(name or address) using empty spaces). When given a record to be written/read/searched, take the name field of the record, apply a hash function to it. The number that you get will give you a page number in the database file. Each page shall consist of 10 contact structs. The hash function should generate numbers in the range 0 to 99 only. This hence, ensures a fixed file size for the database. This also makes collision handling very simple. Populate your database initially with empty records - any record with a phone number of 0000000000(ten zeroes) is an empty record that can be filled in with a "real" record. So, in case, we are searching for a person called "Sara". If that hashes to the number 45, then we know that we are looking at the 45th page. So we seek 45 times 10(number of records in a page) times 160(the size of a "contact" struct). And from that offset onwards, we read the next one page (ten "contact" structs) into an array. We then sequentially search the array for the desired name. In case the desired operation was an add, we write to the first empty array slot(will have a phone number of 0000000000), and then write back the whole array to "disk". In case no empty slot is found, an errorbox should be thrown up saying that database is full. Make sure that all adds/deletes are committed instantly "to disk".
					For sync-ing the database with the database on the desktop, take a look at the StockPor example and Visual Studio Documentation(Help Menu in VC++, go to the "Contents" tab -> MS Win CE -> Connectivity Services -> Programming ActiveSync -> The Sample StockPor application). The eVT should provide you sufficient code (look in the "Contents" tab -> PocketPC 2002 SDK-> Supported Win CE API Reference; MFC - sample projects etc) to complete the whole project without having to write much code- it should be a cut copy paste exercise.