Implementation of a Falling Matrix (Green Text Falling)

 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++.

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’.

// 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,./';[]!@#$%^&*()-=_+";

    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.