https://conwaylife.com/w/api.php?action=feedcontributions&feedformat=atom&user=HubTouLifeWiki - User contributions [en]2026-11-15T15:48:02ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.45.3https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?title=Plaintext&diff=71732Plaintext2020-05-16T14:06:15Z<p>HubTou: Added a variants section</p>
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<div>The '''plaintext''' file format is a recent ASCII file format that is similar to [[Life 1.05]] in that it stores patterns simply by representing dead and alive cells by different characters and "drawing" the pattern with those characters. The particulars of the plaintext file format described here are based on the format used by [[Edwin Martin]]'s [[Life|Game of Life]] program, which uses the .cells file extension. <br />
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==Description of format==<br />
The first line is a header line, which has the form<br />
<br />
<code>!Name: Something</code><br />
<br />
where "Something" is the name of the pattern described by the file. This is followed by optional "!" lines that describe the pattern. For example:<br />
<br />
<code>!This is a really cool pattern.<br />
<br />!It was first discovered by Some Guy.</code><br />
<br />
It seems as though the convention is to add one final "!" line with nothing else on it before the pattern itself, but this is optional.<br />
<br />
To store the pattern itself, a "." is used to represent a dead cell, while an "O" (capital o) is used to represent an alive cell. This choice of characters was derived from the visual format used on [[Stephen Silver]]'s [http://www.argentum.freeserve.co.uk/lex.htm Life Lexicon].<br />
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Because this file format was created much more recently than other similar file formats (such as Life 1.05), there is no restriction on the number of characters per line.<br />
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== Variants ==<br />
Trailing dead cells are sometimes omitted on a line, and lines containing only dead cells are sometimes left completely blank.<br />
<br />
Some programs use "*" instead of "O" (only one case in the pattern collection).<br />
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==Examples==<br />
The following is a [[glider]] in plaintext format:<br />
<br />
<code><br />
!Name: Glider<br />
<br />!<br />
<br />.O.<br />
<br />..O<br />
<br />OOO<br />
</code><br />
<br />
The following is the [[Gosper glider gun]] in plaintext format:<br />
<br />
<code>!Name: Gosper glider gun<br />
<br />!<br />
<br />........................O...........<br />
<br />......................O.O...........<br />
<br />............OO......OO............OO<br />
<br />...........O...O....OO............OO<br />
<br />OO........O.....O...OO..............<br />
<br />OO........O...O.OO....O.O...........<br />
<br />..........O.....O.......O...........<br />
<br />...........O...O....................<br />
<br />............OO......................<br />
</code><br />
<br />
==External links==<br />
*[http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/lexicon/ John Conway's Game of Life] by Edwin Martin<br />
*{{LinkLexicon|style=raw|filename=lex.htm|patternname=The Life Lexicon}} by Stephen Silver<br />
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[[Category:Everything else]][[Category:File formats]]</div>HubTou