https://github.com/lukasepple/cl-ca.git
git clone 'https://github.com/lukasepple/cl-ca.git'
(ql:quickload :cl-ca)
cl-ca is a common lisp library for simply implementing programs using cellular automata (e. g. Conway's game of life).
There some example programs to introduce you. Also it might help to read the actual source code (don't worry: It isn't too much) and the following chapter here. (more detailed documentation is about to come)
cl-ca is build around three functions which access the hash table all automata are stored in. This hash-table is located in a closure, therefore only these functions can access it.
The functions are:
set-automaton used to modify/add automataget-automaton used to get informations about an automaton
(The Hacker's note: It is just a call to gethash)run-step walks over a specified part of the hash-table and calculates the new states of the automatons.The data about the automata is stored this way in the hash-table:
(x . y) . (state function)
(the cons pair (x . y) is the key and the list ist the value)
The function gets called each step with the list representing the automaton itself and a list of lists representing its neighbors (more on that later). It must return a list representing itself (this one then gets put in the hash-table). This allows an automaton not only change its state but also to modify its behavior.
The functions moore-neighbors and von-neumann-neighbors implement neighborhood (See the corresponding Wikipedia articles: Moore Neighborhood and Von Neumann Neighborhood). One of these functions (or another one doing something reasonable in this context) should be passed to run-step and is used to calculate neighborhood then.