Lem-in

A digital ant farm simulation written in Go. This project reads a file describing a colony of ants, rooms, and tunnels, and calculates the most efficient way to move n ants from a start room to an end room while avoiding traffic jams.

📖 Table of Contents

• About the Project
• How it Works
• Input Format
• Output Format
• Getting Started
• Usage
• Error Handling

About the Project

Lem-in is an algorithmic project that focuses on Graph Theory and Pathfinding. The goal is to find the optimal flow of ants through a network of rooms and tunnels.

The challenge lies in the constraints:

1. One Ant per Room: Only one ant can occupy a room at a time (except for ##start and ##end).
2. Traffic Management: You must find not necessarily the shortest path, but the quickest combination of paths to move all ants without bottlenecks.

How it Works

The program parses a map file to construct a graph. It then uses pathfinding algorithms (typically BFS or concepts similar to Edmonds-Karp/Max-Flow) to determine the best set of non-conflicting paths. Finally, it simulates the movement turn-by-turn.

Input Format

The program takes a file passed as an argument. The file structure is as follows:

1. Number of Ants: Single integer.
2. Rooms: Name X Y (e.g., RoomA 2 3).
   • Special commands ##start and ##end signal the entry and exit rooms.
3. Links: Name1-Name2 (Defines a tunnel between two rooms).
4. Comments: Lines starting with # are ignored.

Example Input:

3
##start
1 23 3
2 16 7
#comment
3 16 3
4 16 5
5 9 3
6 1 5
7 4 8
##end
0 9 5
0-4
0-6
1-3
4-3
5-2