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https://github.com/rafael-santiago/googol

You can choose: [Goo]gol is yet another [g]ame [o]f [l]ife or [G]ame [o]f Life... err... [o]h! in [gol]ang
https://github.com/rafael-santiago/googol

board-game cellular-automata game-of-life game-of-life-golang gif-animation golang self-hosted

Last synced: 3 months ago
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You can choose: [Goo]gol is yet another [g]ame [o]f [l]ife or [G]ame [o]f Life... err... [o]h! in [gol]ang

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# Googol



``Googol`` is a well-simple program that outputs generations of Conway's Game of Life as GIF animation. The name is a

lousy acronym which stands for ``Goo``gol is yet another ``g``ame ``o``f ``l``ife. It was written in Golang, thus some

gophers certainly will prefer ``G``ame ``o``f Life... err..  ``o``h! in ``gol``ang...



If you are hooked on Game of Life maybe you should like also check another implementation of mine of this game by using

``IA-32`` assembly [here](https://github.com/rafael-santiago/life).



## How can I build it?



You need Golang installed. You can get it installed by [accessing](https://golang.org/dl).



Being a Golang program, you can only use:



```

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# go run googol.go [sub-command] [options]

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# _

```



If you actually want to its binary, use:



```

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# go build googol.go

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# ./googol [sub-command] [options]

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# _

```



If you want to install it, you will need to install [Hefesto](https://github.com/rafael-santiago/hefesto).



Once Hefesto well-installed and running. Do the following:



```

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# mkdir temp-mess

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow/temp-mess# git clone https://github.com/rafael-santiago/helios

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow/temp-mess/helios# hefesto --install=go-toolset

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow/temp-mess/helios# cd ../..

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# rm -rf temp-mess

```



Now your Hefesto copy knows how to build a Golang program. If you want to build the program by using Hefesto:



```

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# hefesto

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# _

```



In order to install Googol on your system:



```

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# hefesto --install

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# _

```



Uninstalling:



```

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# hefesto --uninstall

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# _

```



## How can I create certificates for httpd mode?



I have automated it through a build task that you can use just by invoking:



```

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# hefesto --make-certificate \

    > --server-key=my-httpd.key --server-crt=my-httpd.crt

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# _

```



## How can I play with it?



If you do not know what Game of Life is take a look at [here](https://www.conwaylife.com).



Until now googol can be used in two ways. As a batch tool that can creates GIF images representing the game's generations

or as a webserver with a web page where you can input game data and see its output.



### Playing with it in batch mode



Use the sub-command ``gif``:



```

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# googol gif > big-blank.gif

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# _

```



This is the shortest way of using the gif command. However, it will produce game generations that are nothing else that a

big boredom. You need to define the initial game board state. The way of doing it is by passing a set of options in the

form ``--,.``, where  denotes the alive cell coordinates.



Let's suppose we want to define a blinker:



```

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# googol gif --2,2. --2,3. --2,4. > blinker.gif

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# _

```



The default output is stdout, but you can change it by passing ``--out=``:



```

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# googol gif --2,2. --2,3. --2,4. \

    > --out=/usr/share/docs/gifs/conways-game-of-life-blinker.gif

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# _

```



The GIF animation is not endless by default. In order to make it endless pass the option ``--endless``.



```

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# googol gif --2,2. --2,3. --2,4. \

    > --endless > blinker.gif

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# _

```



This is the basic usage, anyway there are a bunch of other options accepted by ``gif`` sub-command. If you want to learn

more get the gif's command guide in the following way:



```

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# googol help gif

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# _

```



The following command generates the ``acorn.gif`` pattern in Figure 1.



```

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# googol gif \

    > --50,50. --51,52. --52,49. --52,50. --52,53. --52,54. --52,55. \

    > --board-width=100 --board-height=100 \

    > --cell-size-inpx=2 --delay=1 --gen-total=5206 \

    > --gif-width=200 --gif-height=200 --endless --out=acorn.gif

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# _

```



**Figure 1**: Acorn pattern.



![Acorn](https://github.com/rafael-santiago/googol/blob/master/etc/acorn.gif)



### Playing with it in httpd mode



Use the sub-command ``httpd``:



```

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# googol httpd

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# _

```



If you run the command above, a webserver at ``http://localhost:8080/googol`` will be created. Only you will be able to

access it. If you want to other people accessing it you must to pass the interface address:



```

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# googol httpd --addr=

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# _

```



In order to set another port than 8080:



```

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# googol httpd --addr= \

    > --port=101

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# _

```



It is also possible to have a secure httpd by passing ``--https`` option flag, but in this case will be necessary to pass

``--server-crt`` and ``--server-key`` options, too. The ``--server-crt`` must point to a valid crt file and the

``--server-key`` must point to a valid private key file.



```

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# googol httpd --addr= \

    > --port=101 --server-crt=etc/googol.crt --server-key=etc/googol.key --https

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# _

```



In order to define a default alive cells set pass options in the same form that gif command expects (``--,.``).



If you want to change the (lousy) HTML form template, use the option ``--form-template``:



    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# googol httpd \

    > --form-template=etc/poetry-in-html/your-utter-awesome-googol-template.html

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# _



Table 1 lists all available template actions.



**Table 1**: All available HTML template actions.



| Action | Expands to |

|:------:|:-----------|

|``{{.Proto}}``|``http`` or ``https`` depending on ``--https`` option flag|

|``{{.Addr}}``|the server address|

|``{{.Port}}``| the server port|

|``{{.InitialState}}``|lists the set of initial alive cells (iterate over by using .range)|

|``{{.BoardWidth}}``|the board width|

|``{{.BoardHeight}}``|the board height|

|``{{.GIFWidth}}``|the GIF width|

|``{{.GIFHeight}}``|the GIF height|

|``{{.Delay}}``|the animation delay|

|``{{.CellSizeInPx}}``|the number of pixels per board cell|

|``{{.GenTotal}}``|the total of game generations|

|``{{.BkColor}}``|a HTML select field which lists all available background colors|

|``{{.FgColor}}``|a HTML select field which lists all available foreground colors|

|``{{.Endless}}``|the current state of '--endless' flag (for the current game instance)|

|``{{.Error}}``|an error message when occurred one|

|``{{.GIFData}}``|GIF image encoded in radix/base-64|



The best way of understanding how to deal with those template actions is by reading ``etc/template.html``.



The sub-command ``httpd`` also accepts a bunch of other commands that you can learn more by running its command guide:



```

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# googol help httpd

    you@somewhere:~/over/the/rainbow# _

```



In Figure 2 you can see the ``Googol``'s default HTML interface.



**Figure 2**: Default HTML interface.



![HTTPd-default-interface](https://github.com/rafael-santiago/googol/blob/master/etc/httpd-screenshot.png)