Ants: A Computer Assisted Bullshit for random based life form research

Screenshot

Disclaimer

This module is intended to run as a python 2.7 module and is provided AS IS under the WTFPL (See LICENSE.TXT).

This module has been tested on Linux and OpenBSD systems ONLY.

However it uses python 2.7 standard modules only and it may run on Windows or MacOS.

Your mileage may vary.

Content

• ./README.md
• ./LICENSE.TXT
• ./gendoc.sh
• ./screenshot.png
• ./ants.py
• ./ant.py
• ./config.py
• ./display.py
• ./farm.py
• ./mine.py
• ./playground.py
• ./utils.py
• ./doc/ant.html
• ./doc/ant.txt
• ./doc/config.html
• ./doc/config.txt
• ./doc/display.html
• ./doc/display.txt
• ./doc/farm.html
• ./doc/farm.txt
• ./doc/mine.html
• ./doc/mine.txt
• ./doc/playground.html
• ./doc/playground.txt
• ./doc/utils.html
• ./doc/utils.txt

Goal

This programm is a pure Computer Assisted Bullshiting project trying to demonstrate that ants may have a life based on random and basic reflexes only.

It also provides a way to understand python multi-thread programming and inter-process communications.

This project is NOT science, it's CAB.

API and documentation

The documentation can be generated by running the gendoc.sh shell script from within the module directory:

$ gendoc.sh
Generating documentation:
  [+] ./playground.py
  [+] ./config.py
  [+] ./farm.py
  [+] ./mine.py
  [+] ./ant.py
  [+] ./ants.py
  [+] ./display.py
  [+] ./utils.py

The gendoc.sh script SHOULD be used as a Git pre-commit hook.

For all details on objects and there method and attributes, see all files in the /doc directory.

TODO

• A convenient way to close the application and all its threads (See 'Run the application') !
• Multiple farms on same map
• War between different ant factions
• Ant subclasses (worker, warrior, ...)
• Allow swarming when farm reach a number of individuals
• SDL2 implementation

Install from file:

• Copy the module directory in any directory of your home dir.

Install from github

Clone the Github repository with the followning command

$ git clone /~https://github.com/doug-letough/ants.git ants

Configuration

You'll find a bunch of parameters to play with in the application configuration file config.py.

Default values will do fine.

Run the Ants application

Run the following commands

$ cd ants
$ python -m ants

This application is a massively multi-threaded program.

Closing the main window SHOULD exit the application.

In case the application does not quit properly, run the following command to ensure that all remaining processes are killed:

$ kill -15 $(ps aux | grep "python -m ants" | grep -v grep | awk -F ' ' '{print $2}')

Logging

This application logs many things to stderr.

If you want to keep the logs of your runs, start the application with the following command:

$ python -m ants 2>&1 | tee -a ants.log

This will still display the log to stderr and log this output to the ants.log file.

Uninstall

Simply remove the module directory.