Implementation of a Falling Matrix

Since the dawn of computers, Hollywood has greatly demonstrated a Hacker or a Programmer as someone sitting on a computer typing random keys on computer which ultimately compiles to a Falling matrix like simulation. Here, we will try to implement a similar falling matrix simulation on the console using C++.

A Falling-Matrix on command line using C++

The idea here is to print random characters over a defined width, where the two successive characters may or may not have certain amount of gap defined randomly. A certain amount of delay between printing successive lines has to be implemented in order to have a ‘falling effect’.

Recommended: Please try your approach on {IDE} first, before moving on to the solution.

// C++ program for implementation of falling matrix. 
#include<iostream> 
#include<string> 
#include<thread> 
#include<cstdlib> 
#include<ctime> 
#include<chrono> 
  
// Width of the matrix line 
const int width = 70; 
  
// Defines the number of flips in Boolean Array 'switches' 
const int flipsPerLine =5; 
  
// Delay between two successive line print 
const int sleepTime = 100; 
  
using namespace std; 
  
int main() 
{ 
    int i=0, x=0; 
  
    // srand initialized with time function 
    // to get distinct rand values at runtime 
    srand(time(NULL)); 
  
    // Used to decide whether to print 
    // the character in that particular iteration 
    bool switches[width] = {0}; 
  
    // Set of characters to print from 
    const string ch = "1234567890qwertyuiopasdfghjkl"
                      "zxcvbnm,./';[][email protected]#$%^&*()-=_+"; 
    const int l = ch.size(); 
  
    // Green font over black console, duh! 
    system("Color 0A"); 
  
    // Indefinite Loop 
    while (true) 
    { 
        // Loop over the width 
        // Increment by 2 gives better effect 
        for (i=0;i<width;i+=2) 
        { 
            // Print character if switches[i] is 1 
            // Else print a blank character 
            if (switches[i]) 
                cout << ch[rand() % l] << " "; 
            else
                cout<<"  "; 
        } 
  
        // Flip the defined amount of Boolean values 
        // after each line 
        for (i=0; i!=flipsPerLine; ++i) 
        { 
            x = rand() % width; 
            switches[x] = !switches[x]; 
        } 
  
         // New Line 
        cout << endl; 
  
        // Using sleep_for function to delay, 
        // chrono milliseconds function to convert to milliseconds 
        this_thread::sleep_for(chrono::milliseconds(sleepTime)); 
    } 
    return 0; 
} 

This prints the amazing Falling-Matrix simulation on the console.

Note :

This program would not run using Run on IDE button because system is disabled.
If you get compiler error while compiling this program. Compile it using below command on GCC.
```
$ g++ -std=c++11 abc.cpp -o falling.o
$ falling.o 
```

Please write comments if you find anything incorrect, or you want to share more information about the topic discussed above.

Implementation of a Falling Matrix

Recommended: Please try your approach on {IDE} first, before moving on to the solution.

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