Editing Life-like cellular automaton (section)

==Notation for rules==
There are three standard notations for describing these rules, that are similar to each other but incompatible. {{harvtxt|Wolfram|Packard|1985}} use the [[Wolfram code]], a [[decimal]] number the binary representation of which has bits that correspond to each possible number of neighbors and state of a cell; the bits of this number are zero or one accordingly as a cell with that neighborhood is dead or alive in the next generation.<ref>{{citation
 | last1 = Wolfram | first1 = Stephen | author1-link = Stephen Wolfram
 | last2 = Packard | first2 = N. H.
 | title = Two-dimensional cellular automata
 | journal = Journal of Statistical Physics
 | volume = 38
 | year = 1985
 | pages = 901–946
 | doi = 10.1007/BF01010423
 | issue = 5–6| bibcode = 1985JSP....38..901P}} Reprinted in {{citation
 | last = Wolfram | first = Stephen | author-link = Stephen Wolfram
 | isbn = 978-0-201-62664-3
 | pages = 211–249
 | publisher = Westview Press
 | title = Cellular Automata and Complexity
 | year = 1994}}.</ref> The other two notations unpack the same sequence of bits into a [[String (computer science)|string]] of characters that is more easily read by a human.

In the notation used by Mirek's Cellebration, a rule is written as a string x/y where each of x and y is a sequence of distinct digits from 0 to 8, in numerical order. The presence of a digit ''d'' in the x string means that a live cell with ''d'' live neighbors survives into the next generation of the pattern, and the presence of ''d'' in the y string means that a dead cell with ''d'' live neighbors becomes alive in the next generation. For instance, in this notation, Conway's Game of Life is denoted 23/3.<ref name="mirekw">{{citation
 | last = Wójtowicz | first = Mirek
 | publisher = Mirek's Cellebration
 | title = Cellular Automaton Rules Lexicon — Family: Life
 | url = http://www.mirekw.com/ca/rullex_life.html}}.</ref><ref name="wuensche">{{citation
 | last = Wuensche | first = Andrew
 | contribution = 16.10 The game-of-Life and other {{Not a typo|Life-like}} rules – rcode
 | isbn = 978-1-905986-31-6
 | pages = 145–146
 | publisher = Luniver Press
 | title = Exploring Discrete Dynamics: The DDLAB manual
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=qsktzY_Vg8QC&pg=PA145
 | year = 2011}}.</ref>

In the notation used by the [[Golly (program)|Golly]] open-source cellular automaton package and in the RLE format for storing cellular automaton patterns, a rule is written in the form By/Sx where x and y are the same as in the MCell notation. Thus, in this notation, Conway's Game of Life is denoted B3/S23. The "B" in this format stands for "birth" and the "S" stands for "survival".<ref name="e10"/>