Need help C++

[lam388]

Write a program to implement the simulation of life as described in Scientific American by Martin Gardner. The program will be implemented on a two dimensional surface of size 80 by 80 visible elements. The rules of the simulation are as follows:

1) An initial set of cells are marked as “alive” by the user. This is generation 0. Your program will ask the user to input a set of row and column values to let the user determine which cells are “alive”. Display this generation.
2) Cells change for each succeeding generation by the following rules:
a. A living cell dies of overcrowding in the next generation if it currently has 4 or more living neighbors.
b. A living cell dies of loneliness in the next generation if it currently has only 0 or 1 living neighbors.
c. An empty cell becomes a “birth” cell (becomes alive) in the next generation if it has exactly 3 living neighbors.
d. All other cells remain unchanged.
3) The new generation becomes the current generation and is displayed.
4) After displaying each new generation, ask the user if they wish to continue to the next generation or stop at this point.

[sicarie]

What have you tried? Where are you stuck?

[Studlyami]

that is called cellular automata. Now, if I'm at row 0 what is up above that row? do you loop around and check the bottom ?

here is a few basic steps for completing this program.

first your going to need to make a copy of the original array so that any changes will only take affect at each new generation.

develop a method to check all the neighbors and find out how many are alive
from the original array.

then apply changes to the new array.

then copy new array over.

[lam388]

i don't know how to do all of them

[Studlyami]

okay which one specifically can't you do? what problems exactly are you running into? We will not do the problem for you, but will assist you with problems you are having.