PB111 Principles of low-level programming

Faculty of Informatics
Spring 2025
Extent and Intensity
2/2/1. 4 credit(s) (plus extra credits for completion). Recommended Type of Completion: zk (examination). Other types of completion: z (credit).
In-person direct teaching
Teacher(s)
RNDr. Petr Ročkai, Ph.D. (lecturer)
Mgr. Adam Matoušek (seminar tutor)
Tomáš Pavlík (seminar tutor)
Bc. Vladimír Uhlík (seminar tutor)
Tomáš Waldsberger (seminar tutor)
Jozef Sabo (seminar tutor)
Pavol Trnavský (seminar tutor)
RNDr. Samuel Pastva, Ph.D. (seminar tutor)
Erik Sedlák (seminar tutor)
Matej Korž (seminar tutor)
Bc. Tomáš Rohlínek (seminar tutor)
Mgr. Ján Labuda (seminar tutor)
Karel Čermák (seminar tutor)
Guaranteed by
RNDr. Petr Ročkai, Ph.D.
Department of Computer Systems and Communications – Faculty of Informatics
Supplier department: Department of Computer Systems and Communications – Faculty of Informatics
Prerequisites
IB111 Foundations of Programming && PB151 Computer Systems
Ability to apply basic elements of programming – control flow, data definitions, abstraction, decomposition, recursion.
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
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Course objectives
Familiarize students with computational resource of a computer, learn about their relationship with more abstract notions of computation and, in particular, gain detailed knowledge about key abstractions and their implementation: variables, branching and looping, subroutines and their invocation, parameter passing, return values, layout of data in memory – arrays, records, dynamic allocation. Further expand the ability to decompose computational problems and build more complex abstractions out of the aforementioned building blocks.
Learning outcomes
Students will be, after completing this course, able to:
• name and describe basic abstractions used in programming
• describe their implementation using elementary computational machinery
• write simplified versions of standard subroutines for memory and data manipulation
• write a simple program in C.
Syllabus
  • Block 1: Model of computation
    1. abstract machine,
    2. automatic variables, structured control flow,
    3. subroutines and their invocation,
    4. address of a variable, array, record.

  • Block 2: Using and Organizing Memory
    5. flat memory, sorting and searching,
    6. linked lists in flat memory,
    7. dynamic allocation, bump allocator, malloc,
    8. first-fit allocator, free.

  • Block 3: Data Structures and Algorithms
    9. dynamic array, realloc,
    10. binary heap, priority queue,
    11. hash tables with fixed and variable-length keys,
    12. search trees.

Teaching methods
lecture, weekly programming exercises, seminars, 3 assignment sets
Assessment methods
Semester work (by individual choice): active participation in seminars + weekly programming exercises + 3 sets of more complex assignments + 3 midterm programming tests. Graded in four-week blocks. Exam: programming test using a school computer without internet access.
Language of instruction
Czech
Follow-Up Courses
Further Comments
The course is taught annually.
The course is taught: every week.
Listed among pre-requisites of other courses
The course is also listed under the following terms Spring 2024.
  • Enrolment Statistics (recent)
  • Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/fi/spring2025/PB111