README

This is a Go-implemented simulation of Conway's Game of Life.

Configuration File

The configuration file, which can be specified by a CLI flag (below), configures the same things which the CLI flags configure. Those options are detailed below. A sample configuration file can be seen at configuration.dist.yaml.

CLI Flags

CLI flags override anything loaded via the configuration file.

• -configuration <file>: Use a configuration file
• -help: Shows the help/usage of the application
• -input <file>: Rather than use stdin for the input to the application, you can have it use this file instead
• -output <file>: Rather than use stdout for the Life 1.06 output of the application, you can have it use this file instead
• -outdir <directory>: If you want to output the Life 1.06 format for every single tick of the world, you can set this to a directory and an output file will be generated for each tick, including the seed (which will be *0.txt)
• -ticks <integer>: The number of ticks/iterations to run in the world
• -nowrap: By default, the world will wrap at the edges to the other side; you can disable this behavior if you want the world to have hard boundaries at the edges
• -world <dimensions>: By default the world will be as large as the signed 64-bit integer allows; you can set this manually with the format min-x:max-x;min-y:max-y
• -newlife <csv>: With comma-delimited integers, you can set when new life will spawn in a coordinate
• -exlife <csv>: With comma-delimited integers, you can set when existing life will remain in a coordinate

Organisms Map

The organisms map is indexed by the x-coordinate first, then the y-coordinate, mapped to an integer notating alive or dead. Example illustration in JSON:

{
  "x_coordinate_1": {
    "y_coordinate_1": 1,
    "y_coordinate_2": 0
  }
}

When adding new live organisms to the map, additional entries for all 8 neighbors will be added and set to 0 (if they are not present/alive already) to make iterating over the map for the next generation of life easier. No entries are in the map if they are either not alive or a neighbor to a live organism - there's no need to keep track of coordinates which cannot be alive in the next tick of the world.