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CENG Take Home Exam 3 Solution
PRELUDE
It is 2910... The year of the Ox... Or it would have been if humanity had survived. People realized too late to set aside their di erences and instead focus on their real enemy. Well, they didn’t know that there was an enemy.
In the last mission to exoplanet WASP-33b, astronauts brought some simple life forms that appeared harmless. Tiny little things they were. Humans called them froblins. They seemed to replicate a little and then die. Only a few survived for more than a handful of generations. But then some did. One form was in particular quite odd. It seemed to behave haphazardly for a long while until it turned into a feracious monster. It glided across the sky and wreaked havoc on humanity.
However, humans are not to be taken lightly. Despite the destruction caused by these unpre-dictable life forms, a small group of scientists managed to persevere in an underground research facility. They dedicated themselves to understand how these life forms behaved and reproduced. To their surprise, they found that their entire behaviour is governed by some very simple rules.
People thought they now have the upper hand. But not for long. Their overmind suspected that something was o . She sensed the presence of humans and their activities to undermine their dominance. So she changed the rules. The rules were no longer xed. The only chance of the humanity was to learn what the new rules were and how it a ects the spread of these creatures. Only then they could be prepared to ght what lurks in the darkness of the times to come.
PROBLEM
You are among this small group of scientist who are working toward understanding the propaga-tion of these froblins. Your team produced a model of their behaviour on a 2-dimensional grid. This grid is represented in a text le, which looks like:
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-***-
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The cells denoted by - are empty. Those denoted by * represent the froblins. Spaces are used to make the le more readable. Initially, your team discovered that their behaviour is governed by 3 simple rules:
• = 3 * *<2-*>3-
In each rule, the rst character represents the cell type that the rule will a ect. It can be - or *. The second character denotes an arithmetic relationship. It can be =, <, or >. The third character is a numeric value. It is a single digit. It represents how many froblin cells there are in the 8-neighborhood of a given cell. 8-neighborhood is de ned as the four cells on the left, right, bottom, top as well as the four cells along the diagonals. The last character in each rule determines what to do in case the relationship is satis ed.
For example, the rst rule says that: \All empty cells which have exactly three froblin neigh-bors, will become froblin cells in the next generation". The second rule says that: \All froblin cells which have less than two froblin neighbours will become empty in the next generation". Well, froblins don’t like loneliness. Finally, the third rule says: \All froblin cells which have larger than three froblin neighbors will become empty in the next generation". Apparently, they also don’t like to be overcrowded. It is important to note that the rules apply simultaneously to all cells in the map. This means that all updates must be made on a copy of the map in order to preserve the original state of the map as the rules are being applied.
EXAMPLES
Below are some example evolutions of these scary froblin monsters. In these examples, \Genera-tion 0" represents the input map.
Example 1
Generation 0
Generation 1
Generation 2
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--*--
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-***-
--*--
-***-
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--*--
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It then alternates between Generation 1 and 2 thereafter.
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Example 2
Generation 0
Generation 1
Generation 2
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----*----
---***---
---***---
---***---
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----*----
---***---
---*-*---
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----*----
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Generation 3
Generation 4
Generation 5
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----*----
---------
----*----
----*----
---***---
---*-*---
---*-*---
---*-*---
--*---*--
----*----
---***---
---*-*---
----*----
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----*----
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Of course, if a di erent set of rules were used we would have observed di erent evolution patterns between generations. It is also possible that froblins are entirely eliminated after a certain number of generations, as shown by the next example.
Example 3
Generation 0
Generation 1
Generation 2
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--*-
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-*--
-**-
----
-*--
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----
----
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----
All other generations will remain empty.
OBJECTIVE
As the last hope of humanity, your goal is to write a Python program, called the3.py, that reads two input les that represent the initial map and the rules as well as an integer value that represents a generation count. Your program should output the map’s state after simulating that many generations using the given rules. An example run will be as follows: python the3.py map.txt rules.txt 56. If map.txt contains the following data:
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------------**-----------
-----------**------------
------------*------------
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and the rules are as above, your program should produce the following output:
-------------***---------
-----------**---*--------
-----------**-*-*--------
-----------*---*-**------
----------------**-*-----
-----------****-*--***---
------------*****--------
------------*--**--------
-------------**----------
-------------*-----------
-------*----*-*----------
-------*-----*-----------
-------*-----*-----------
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---------***-------------
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SPECIFICATIONS
You are expected to implement a Python2 program that takes 3 command line ar-guments in this order: the path to the map le, the path to the rules le, number of generations and prints the nal state of the map.
Your code should be run on inek machines with a command like this: python the3.py map path rules path number of generations.
The map you print should not contain any other characters than "*", "-", and "nn". Do not print anything other than the nal map.
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Map le contains a map with height and width being greater than or equal to 1.
Rules le contains the rules line by line. Rules do not contradict with each other. There may be 1 or more rules in a le.
number of generations is an integer greater than or equal to 0. In both les the lines are separated with \nn" characters.
You can only use sys and copy modules. No other modules are allowed. You can use recursion or iteration, there is no limitation.
Your codes will not be tested against erroneous inputs.
GRADING
Comply with the speci cations. Since your returned results will be evaluated automatically, non-compliant results will be considered as incorrect by our evaluation system.
Your program will be tested with multiple data (a distinct run for each data).
Any program that performs only 30% and below will enter a glass-box test (eye inspection by the grader TA). The TA will judge an overall THE3 grade in the range of [0,30]. The glass-box test grade is not open to negotiation nor explanation.
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