ideas.txt

The syntax for the input turing machine is the following...

The program will run a Turing machine that is read from a file passed by the user,
and will simulate the machine on the input string passed by the user.

There are going to be some specific flags that the user can pass to the program to
change the behavior of the program.

Possible Flags:

  --help, -h: Display the help message.
  --verbose, -v: Display the tape and the current state of the machine at each step.
  --step, -s: Display the tape and the current state of the machine at each step, and wait for the user to press enter to continue.
  --input, -i: Specify the input string for the machine. If not specified, the user will be prompted to enter the input string.
  --file, -f: Specify the file containing the Turing machine. If not specified, the user will be prompted to enter the file name.

The input file should contain a turing machine with the correct syntax. The syntax is the following...

Syntax:

  Each line should contain one tuple of the form '<current state> <current symbol> <new symbol> <direction> <new state>'.
  You can use any number or word for <current state> and <new state>, eg. 10, a, state1. State labels are case-sensitive.
  You can use almost any character for <current symbol> and <new symbol>, or '_' to represent blank (space). Symbols are case-sensitive.
  You can't use ';', '*', '_' or whitespace as symbols.
  <direction> should be 'l', 'r' or '*', denoting 'move left', 'move right' or 'do not move', respectively.
  Anything after a ';' is a comment and is ignored.
  The machine halts when it reaches any state starting with 'halt', eg. halt, halt-accept.

Also:

  '*' can be used as a wildcard in <current symbol> or <current state> to match any character or state.
  '*' can be used in <new symbol> or <new state> to mean 'no change'.


Ideas on how we can make this work

1. Read the file (and check if the syntax is correct, if not, throw an error) and store the tuples in a list.
2. Create a dictionary with the tuples as keys and the values as the new symbol, direction and new state.
3. Create a doubly linked list to represent the tape. 
4. Initialize the tape with the input string. (in case the syntax is wrong, throw an error)

Functions needed:

1. read_file(file_name): Reads the file and returns a list of tuples.
2. check_syntax(tuples): Checks if the syntax of the tuples is correct.
3. create_dict(tuples): Creates a dictionary with the tuples as keys and the values as the new symbol, direction and new state.

4. initialize_tape(input_string): Initializes the tape with the input string.
5. run_machine(tape, dictionary): Runs the machine on the tape using the dictionary.

6. display_tape(tape): Displays the tape.
7. display_state(state): Displays the current state of the machine.

8. main(): Main function that calls all the other functions.