life-cli

A terminal-based implementation of Conway's Game of Life written in Python. It simulates the classic cellular automaton in a toroidal grid and includes an interactive editor mode for creating custom patterns directly in the terminal.

Features

• Real time controls: Pause, resume and adjust simulation speed.
• Interactive editor: Pause the simulation and toggle cells
• Toroidal grid: The edges wrap around
• Zero dependencies: Built entirely with Python's standard library.

Usage

This application uses sys.stdin, tty and termios and thus runs natively on Unix-like environments without requiring external packages.

git clone https://github.com/vrncff/life-cli.git
cd life-cli
python main.py

You can view all available arguments by running python main.py --help:

usage: main.py [-h] [-W WIDTH] [-H HEIGHT] [-i INPUT]

A terminal-based implementation of Conway's Game of Life.

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -W, --width WIDTH     Width of the grid. Defaults to CSV width if provided, else 60
  -H, --height HEIGHT   Height of the grid. Defaults to CSV height if provided, else 15
  -i, --input INPUT     Path to a CSV file representing the initial grid state (0s and 1s)

Controls

Normal mode:

• SPACE: Play/Pause
• +/-: Increase/Decrease simulation speed
• r: Generate a random grid state
• e: Enter editor mode
• q: Quit

Editor mode:

• h, j, k, l: Move cursor (left, down, up, right)
• SPACE: Toggle the current cells (alive/dead)
• a,s: Select previous/next pattern
• r: Rotate current pattern
• e: Exit editor mode
• q: Quit

How It Works

The project is structured to separate mathematical logic from state management and the user interface:

• core.py: Contains stateless functional logic for grid creation, neighbor counting and application of the game's rules without mutating the input state.
• engine.py: The LifeEngine class acts as the controller. It maintains the current generation state, manages the simulation tick rate and coordinates the switch between simulation and editor modes.
• ui_terminal.py: Handles terminal rendering and intercepts keystrokes using sys.stdin and termios.
• patterns.py: Defines relative coordinate matrices for classic Game of Life patterns.