blifs

Simulate and generate 2D (discrete, neighbor-based) cellular automata in a console by using formatted files.

A cell's state is determined by the number of live neighbors around it and the corresponding rules, which is given by a rules file.

At the moment, the board space is a torus, i.e. any edge on the board loops to the opposite edge.

Compiling

Run ./build.sh on a Linux system, or in an Ubuntu Subsystem for Windows 10 (developer mode should be enabled first).

To-do

High Priority:
- Piping the board generator to the board simulator
- Optimize the board updating (current impl. creates separate "buffer board" containing number of neighbors per cell)
Medium Priority:
- Support for cell states other than alive(1) and dead(0)
- Adding cells from a board file to a larger board
- Support for non-torus boards (e.g. board bordered by dead cells)
Low Priority:
- Support for other rule formats
- RLE file compatibility
- ncurses port

Command line options

Basic:

-b board-file: Load a board file
- required, unless -g is passed which ignores it
-r rules-file: Load a rules file
- required, unless -n 0 is passed
-o file: Output final result as a board file
- if -g is passed, the randomized board is the output; otherwise, the final iteration of the board is the output
-n integer: Number of generations to iterate through
- 1 by default
- if 0 is passed, then the rules file isn't required (for only parsing a board file)

Other:

-d double: Delay in seconds between displaying each generation
- 0 by default
- You probably want to use this with -v if you plan on viewing the simulation as it happens
-g w:h:d: Generate a random board of size w*h with a 1/d chance of a live cell
- w & h are required, d is optional and 2 by default
- overrides
- if -o is passed, it'll output the board to that file; otherwise, it'll print it in the standard output
- overrides -s when -o isn't passed, but removes the extra board info

Info display:

-c: Display only initial & final iteration, or info for -g (default)
-v: Display verbose output
-s: Don't display any output
- if -g is passed without -o, it'll still print to the standard output (for piping the output to another program w/o the extra board info)
-i: Interactive mode, press any key to go to the next generation
- You probably want to use -v as well for this

Help options:

-h b: Show info on board files
-h r: Show info on rules files
-h: Show the help options

Sample Usage

Load the boards/life_glider board, simulate it with the rules/life rules for 100 times, with a 1=second delay between each iteration, and output the resulting board in the 100th iteration to board.out:

./blifs -b boards/life_glider -r rules/life -n 100 -v -d 1 -o board.out

Generate a random 20-wide 40-high board with a 1/3 (33%) chance of a cell being alive, and output the board to random.out:

./blifs -g 20:40:3 -o random.out

Board file format

A board file is a space-delimited plain text file with the format :

<w> <h>
<col> <row>
<col> <row>
...
<col> <row>

The <w> <h> pair defines the width & height of the simulation grid, respectively.

Each <col> <row> pair defines a live cell in the grid, and is zero-indexed (col is in [0, w-1], row is in [0, h-1]).

e.g. the configuration of a glider in a 10*10 grid (also in boards/gol_glider):

Rules file format

A rule file is a space-delimited plain text file with the format:

<0> <1> <2> <3> <4> <5> <6> <7> <8>
<0> <1> <2> <3> <4> <5> <6> <7> <8>

Each of the numbers can either have 0 or 1 in the file. Each line has exactly 9 numbers.

The first line corresponds to which number of neighbors is needed for a live cell to live (1) or die (0).

The second line corresponds to which number of neighbors is needed for a dead cell to become live (1) or remain dead (0).

e.g. the Game of Life rules configuration (also in rules/life):

0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0

A live cell survives if it has 2 or 3 live neighbors, and dies otherwise. A dead cell will become alive if it has exactly 3 live neighbors.

License (GPLv3)

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

serin113/blifs