ccgol

Conway's Game of Life in the console

Description

ccgol is a C program that draws Conway's Game Of Life in your terminal window.

Features

• Generating a random field of alive and dead cells and running the GOL
• Can read a field from a file which can be shifted inside a bigger field
• Automatically recognizes the size of the console window and creates a field of appropriate size in the default mode
• Variable speed
• Automatically stops when it recognizes a final or alternating field configuration

Installation

Clone ccgol:

git clone https://github.com/BaumGuard/ccgol

Enter the folder of ccgol:

cd ccgol

Compile:

make

Install:

chmod +x install.sh
sudo ./install.sh

Usage

Start ccgol from inside its directory:

./ccgol

Default mode

If you haven't entered parameters, ccgol will run in the default mode, meaning that...

• ...it will operate on a randomly generated field
• ...it will adjust the field size to the console size
• ...it will stop automatically when it recognizes a final or alternating configuration

Options

Display options

• -w: Set width in characters
• -h: Set height in characters
• -i: Set speed (milliseconds between two drawings)
• -r: Number of runs
• -inf: Infinite execution (No check for final or alternating configuration)
• -init: Only show initial configuration
• -help: Show help dialog

File options

• -f: Path to a field file
• -x: Horizontal offset of the imported field in the surrounding field
• -y: Vertical offset of the imported field in the surrounding field

Example

./ccgol -w 100 -h 40 -f glider_canon.gol -x 10 -y 5 -i 80

Explanation

ccgol creates an empty field with a width of 100 characters, a height of 40 characters, imports the field file glider_canon.gol and shifts it 10 characters to the right and 5 characters downwards. Also the display will refresh every 80 milliseconds.

Field file

ccgol enables you to import a field as a file.
In the file the field is represented as a set of lines of 0s and 1s where...

• 0 is a dead cell
• 1 is an alive cell

All the lines must be of equal length! Otherways the execution might fail!

Uninstall

Enter the directory of ccgol:

cd ccgol

Uninstall:

chmod +x uninstall.sh
sudo ./uninstall.sh