# The Challenge

GIFs are the most common image format for animation, and are used pretty heavily in today's social media. For the purpose of this challenge, I'm going to redefine what a GIF can be. This challenge will require you to take in a 3D array containing some sort of representation of a 2D 'image' and iterate through them, displaying an animation. This animation can be done anywhere, in a GIF, in your console, in a GUI, etc; the delivery doesn't matter, so long as it is animated.

## The Input

• A 3D array where the data inside somehow represents a 2D image.
• The array may contain RGB data, true/false data or anything else you see fit.
• I'm also fine with you dumbing it down to a 2D array of strings or something similar, but the animation must be a 2D animation.
• The time between each frame in a format of your choosing (Seconds, Milliseconds, etc...).
• People have been asking me whether or not they HAVE to include the duration length. My answer is "meh", as long as you are able to show animation. I'm more concerned that you adhere to the "Array" parameter than this one, meaning no random animations.

## The Output

• A seamlessly iterated sequence of output that looks like a 2D animation with the correct delay on each transition based on the value input.

# The Rules

• Output can be, but is not limited to:
• GIF image.
• GUI animation (my example).
• In-console animation.
• Honestly, any "animation" that you see fit, as long as it follows the below rules.
• When outputting your image you must clear the console before showing the next frame, you cannot just print them sequentially.
• Emulating a console "clear" is also acceptable, as long as it looks like a seamless animation (see the hint under my example for more information on what I mean).
• Regardless of implementation, your animation should loop forever, or until stopped.
• The "looping" can be as simple as while(true){} or infinite recursion, you may assume the user wants to view this masterpiece until they hit "ctrl+c".
• You must be able to handle any size 2D 'images', if your language is limited by buffer sizes, this is acceptable and you may state this in your explanation.
• Standard loopholes are disallowed.

# Example I/O

## Input (3D Array, Delay)

f([
[[1,0,0],
[0,0,0],
[0,0,0]],
[[0,0,0],
[0,1,0],
[0,0,0]],
[[0,0,0],
[0,0,0],
[0,0,1]],
], 1)


## Output (Example, 2020 Bytes - Java)

import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JTextArea;

/**
* Simple GIF class to animate a 3D integer array in a swing text area.
* (Clearing the console in java isn't something you really do, so I chose
* java on purpose to make it an extremely ungolf-able answer that someone
* wouldn't bother to steal).
*/
public class Gif implements Runnable {
/**
* The output area.
*/
private final JTextArea area;

/**
* The list of images.
*/
private final int[][][] images;

/**
* The delay between image transitions.
*/
private final long transitionDelay;

/**
* Main method, instantiates a GIF object and runs it.
* @param args Does absolutely nothing.
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
final int[][][] images = {{{1,0,0},{0,0,0},{0,0,0}},{{0,0,0},{0,1,0},{0,0,0}},{{0,0,0},{0,0,0},{0,0,1}}};
final long transitionDelay = 1000L;
}

/**
* Constructor for a GIF, takes in a 3D array of images and a transition
* delay to wait between transitioning the images.
* @param images The list of images.
* @param delay The delay between each image.
*/
public Gif(int[][][] images, long transitionDelay) {
this.images = images;
this.transitionDelay = transitionDelay;
this.area = new JTextArea();
final JFrame frame = new JFrame("It's a GIF!");
frame.setSize(10,100);
frame.setVisible(true);
}

/**
* When run, it will alter the area to imitate an animated GIF.
*/
@Override
public void run() {
while (true) {
for (int i = 0; i < images.length; i++) {
final StringBuffer frame = new StringBuffer();
for (int j = 0; j < images[i].length; j++) {
for (int k = 0; k < images[i][j].length; k++) {
frame.append("" + images[i][j][k]);
}
frame.append("\n");
}
this.area.setText(frame.toString());
this.area.setText("");
}
}
}
}


This results in a swing GUI popping up, animating the array:

HINT HINT: Use a language where console clearing is possible, or specify why what you are doing will end up with a result that looks like an animation in the language you chose. I think some languages have default buffer sizes on their consoles, you may use this to your advantage, but I expect an explanation or example. Just because I output my animation as a string, you don't have to; I could've just as easily used 0 for black and 1 for white and made a real GIF.

## Judging

This is code-golf, lowest byte count wins (inputs excluded).
I'll +1 anyone who uses a language in a cool or unexpected way as well.

• How many lines long does the "clear" have to be? Can it be the same as the number of characters per line? – Riley Sep 14 '16 at 21:29
• Similar challenge with more strict input: codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/27101/… – luser droog Sep 15 '16 at 1:54
• @Riley I'm not sure I get what you're asking. The clear is essentially to keep the output on the same line; your code may not actually "clear" anything, but replace in line as well. I don't care how you accomplish the animation, more that it essentially functions using frames. – Magic Octopus Urn Sep 15 '16 at 12:07
• @luserdroog I hadn't seen that one, but I also saw one on "create a snowscene" as well, but I don't see either as close enough to warrant not posting this. – Magic Octopus Urn Sep 15 '16 at 12:08
• @carusocomputing No worries, more than happy to do the grammar check. By the way, in terms of what language is used for the animation, does it matter if it's one no longer in popular use? – Monomeeth Sep 15 '16 at 19:05

# MATL, 1612 11 bytes

G@)D1Y.XxT


Input is a cell array of 2D. For example:

{[1 0 0; 0 0 0; 0 0 0] [0 0 0; 0 1 0; 0 0 0] [0 0 0; 0 0 0; 0 0 1]}


The pause time is the 1 in the code. It can be changed to any real number, such as .5 or .2 .

Try it at MATL Online! (If it doesn't work, refresh the page and press "Run" again.)

The input can also be a cell array of 2D char arrays. For example:

{['x...';'+...';'....';'....'] ['+x..';'....';'....';'....'] ['.+x.';'....';'....';'....'] ['..+x';'....';'....';'....'] ['...+';'...x';'....';'....'] ['....';'...+';'...x';'....'] ['....';'....';'...+';'...x'] ['....';'....';'....';'..x+'] ['....';'....';'....';'.x+.'] ['....';'....';'....';'x+..'] ['....';'....';'x...';'+...'] ['....';'x...';'+...';'....']}


Try this one too!

### Explanation

       % Do...while
G     %   Push input: cell array
@     %   Push iteration index
)     %   Index to obtain that cell. This uses modular indexing,
%   so each cell is addressed cyclically
D     %   Display
1     %   Push 1: number of seconds to pause
Y.    %   Pause for that many seconds
Xx    %   Clear screen
T     %   True. This is used as loop condition: infinite loop
% End. Implicitly end do...while loop

• Can you save a few bytes using my trick? Filling the matrix with [0.2 0 0.2;0 0.2 0] ... , and thus reduce xx to x, and avoid 1G and 2G? I believe it adheres to the rules. You need to add a few bytes in order to convert 0.2 to 1, unless you want 0.2 to jump around of course, and some way to store the pausing value. I still think it could reduce the byte count though :) – Stewie Griffin Sep 15 '16 at 6:16
• @Weeingitfirst Thanks! Well, the challenge specifies two inputs: the array and the pause, so I think both are needed. Let's wait for confirmation anyway – Luis Mendo Sep 15 '16 at 7:10
• Wow. You followed the brief perfectly, even adhering to the inputs. This is a very impressive answer. Definitely will be hard to beat, and compared to answers that didn't include pause duration, this is basically flawless, bravo. – Magic Octopus Urn Sep 15 '16 at 11:57
• @carusocomputing Great! Thanks for letting me know. 4 bytes off! The duration can still be changed, it's pretty obvious in the code – Luis Mendo Sep 15 '16 at 14:00
• I'm going to be honest, I doubt this is going to be beat, so until further submissions I'm marking this as best answer. – Magic Octopus Urn Sep 20 '16 at 15:44

# Octave, 5654 47 bytes

Removed the possibility to input the pausing time as part of the input matrix. I was very satisfied with it, so have a look in the edit history if you want to have a look. This solution is 7 bytes shorter.

n=input('');while(any(n=~n))spy(n);pause(1);end

n=input('');  % Takes input as a matrix of zeros and ones

k=n(1);       % maximum of the input matrix is the desired pause time. Have to store
% this, because n is soon to be messed with
% NOTE: k=n(1); is not needed anymore, since the pause time can be hardcoded!

any(n=~n)     % Check if there are any truthy values in n (there is), and at the
% same time negate it, thus creating a matrix where all elements
% alternates between 1 and 0.
while(any(n=~n))   % Loop as long as there are any non-zero elements (always some)
spy(n)        % Create a spy-plot where all non-zero elements are shown as a dot
pause(1)      % Pauses for k seconds
end           % ends the loop (will never happen, since it's infinite).


The input will be something like this: [4 0 0 4;0 4 4 0;4 0 0 0], where this will be a matrix of dimensions 3x4, and the desired pause time is 4 seconds.

It displays a plot like the one below, but alternates between showing the true and the false values of the input. So all the blue dots will become white in the next iteration, and all the white will become blue.

In the below plot, I used the input rand(10,10)>0.6*2. This means it will have dimensions 10x10, and all elements of the random matrix that are larger than 0.6 will be true. After that I multiply it by the desired pausing time, 2 seconds. I used a random matrix here, but I could have created the matrix manually too.

I don't have Octave installed on this computer, so I made a minor alteration to make this work in MATLAB. It's the exact same principle, but n=~n doesn't work in MATLAB.

• @carusocomputing, do I have to take the pausing time as input, or can I choose it myself? For instance always have 1 seconds? – Stewie Griffin Sep 15 '16 at 6:20
• @carusocomputing, also: Is it OK to let the user choose the pause time, but don't have it as a separate parameter? In my not so humble opinion, this qualifies as: "a cool or unexpected way" ;-) – Stewie Griffin Sep 15 '16 at 8:45
• Yeah, I agree completely, this qualifies; as long as you are allowing the user to specify some parameter of input, and it is not entirely randomized, I think it's fine. The whole point of the pausing was to be able to see the animation. I didn't want any for loops where people state, "well, you can't see it, but it's definitely animating." – Magic Octopus Urn Sep 15 '16 at 11:54
• Also, I liked both of your ideas; the "TV Static Generator" was a very unique implementation, using randomization, which I didn't even consider. This is also impressive in that you managed to take the first iteration and adhere closer to the brief. Great job man. – Magic Octopus Urn Sep 15 '16 at 11:58

# sed 141 134 90

-51 thanks to seshoumara

/^$/!{H;d} :;/^$/g;s,^\n,,;s,$, ,;s,^,\d27[2J,p :p;P;s,[^\n]*\n,,;/^ \n/!bp;N;s,[ \n]*,,;b  Input: First takes each frame separated by a line with a single space then display the next frame after each blank line is received (looks like a flipbook). Minimum 3 frames. By default on my system (Windows 7) when I open cygwin it have 24 lines vertically. Between frames, there are always at least that many blank lines printed. This effectively clears the screen. Over 1/3 of the bytes come from clearing the console. I'm sure there's a better way. • You can reduce 1 byte by having the first p command as part of s///p, plus 6 bytes more by removing /^\n/! before P, which I think is not needed. For the effort, +1, though I'm also sure there's a better way. – seshoumara Sep 19 '16 at 3:09 • After some time browsing the internet, I found a simple way to manipulate the terminal's cursor, thus also clearing a screen: using ANSI Escape Sequences. The mechanism is also used to print text in colors. Please see my answer for details and an example usage. I don't know if they work on cygwin, but you can try. – seshoumara Sep 19 '16 at 10:51 • @seshoumara It works in cygwin when it comes from sed, but for some reason it doesn't work with cat or echo. – Riley Sep 19 '16 at 14:47 • Try echo -e "\e[2Jtest". With cat the escape character must already be in the file/input, try echo -e "\e[2Jtest"|cat -n and scroll up. – seshoumara Sep 19 '16 at 17:02 • @seshoumara I knew it had to be something like that. thanks! – Riley Sep 19 '16 at 17:03 ## GNU sed, 88 84 + 1(n flag) = 85 bytes Edit: 3 bytes less thanks to Riley H;1h;${:
g;s:\n.*::;H;x;s:[^\n]*\n::;x;y:,:\n:;s:^:ESC[2J:;s:ESC:\d27:gp;esleep 1
b}


The input format is one animation frame per line. For multiple output lines in a frame, use comma as separator. Because I run the program in a Linux console, the maximum image size available (measured in rows and columns) is dependent on the size of the terminal window. The pause between two frames is accomplished by the sleep shell command; to get a faster animation call esleep 0.4 (seconds).

100,000,000            # The timer could be read from the input as well, but that
000,010,000            #would require a lot more bytes and I understand I'm allowed
000,000,001            #to hardcode the value.


The best part is that I support color animation! To do this, I used the so called ANSI Escape Sequences to control the text font, foreground and background color, plus the position of the cursor, thus being able to clear the screen before each frame (code ESC[2J). To add color information, use the following format in the input, which is better explained here.

ESC[$FORMATm$textESC[0m     # 'ESC' is an actual string, it is then replaced
#in sed by the character with the ASCII value 27


Run:

sed -nf animate.sed input.txt


Examples: for each test, 2 animation cycles were screen-captured and saved in image GIF format (apologies for the low resolution)

0.4 seconds pause

1 second by default

Explanation:

H;1h                           # read each line/frame and store them in hold space
\${:                            # when the input was read, start a loop
g                           # copy hold space to pattern space
s:\n.*::                    # remove all except the first/current frame
H                           # append frame to hold space
x;s:[^\n]*\n::;x            # delete first frame from hold space
y:,:\n:                     # replace all commas with a newline
s:^:ESC[2J:;s:ESC:\d27:gp   # use an ANSI Escape Sequence to clear the screen
#and print frame in color
esleep 1                    # wait 1 second
b}                             # repeat

• You could save a few bytes by replacing 1h;1d;H; with H;1h; – Riley Sep 19 '16 at 14:21
• @Riley Thanks, I updated the code. – seshoumara Sep 19 '16 at 17:25
• Wow, this was more in depth than a lot of the others, I like the color support and it's the only answer that does that :). Pretty unique use of newlines as well. +1 for color support and the uniqueness of the answer itself. I honestly wouldn't've believed it if I hadn't seen it myself! – Magic Octopus Urn Sep 20 '16 at 15:42

## Ruby, 89 45 bytes

f=->h,t{h.cycle{|x|puts"^[[2J",x.map(&:join)}}


The ^[ is an escape character.

Hexdump:

00000000: 663d 2d3e 682c 747b 682e 6379 636c 657b  f=->h,t{h.cycle{
00000010: 7c78 7c70 7574 7322 1b5b 324a 222c 782e  |x|puts".[2J",x.
00000020: 6d61 7028 263a 6a6f 696e 297d 7d         map(&:join)}}


Saved a lot of bytes thanks to @Jordan

• @DLosc Ah, yes, fixing – TuxCrafting Sep 14 '16 at 22:07
• You can save a lot of bytes here. ->h,t{h.cycle{|x|puts"^[[2J",x.map(&:join)}} – Jordan Sep 14 '16 at 22:32
• Good answer, also as an FYI the brief was changed, you no longer have to adhere to the duration being an input, as this restricts the possible languages. You just need to pause so the animation is apparent. – Magic Octopus Urn Sep 15 '16 at 15:01

# Lua(LÖVE), 296 287 bytes

c=0;f=1;t=10;l=love
function l.update(d)if c>s then
c=0;f=f==#i and 1 or f+1
end;c=c+d;end
function l.draw()for K,V in pairs(i[f])do
for k,v in pairs(V)do if v>0 then l.graphics.rectangle('fill',k*t,K*t,t,t)end
end
end
end


Usage Example

love main.love '{{{1,0,0},{0,0,0},{0,0,0}},{{0,1,0},{0,0,0},{0,0,0}},{{0,0,1},{0,0,0},{0,0,0}},{{0,0,0},{0,0,1},{0,0,0}},{{0,0,0},{0,0,0},{0,0,1}},{{0,0,0},{0,0,0},{0,1,0}},{{0,0,0},{0,0,0},{1,0,0}},{{0,0,0},{1,0,0},{0,0,0}},{{1,0,0},{1,0,0},{0,0,0}},{{1,1,0},{1,0,0},{0,0,0}},{{1,1,1},{1,0,0},{0,0,0}},{{1,1,1},{1,0,1},{0,0,0}},{{1,1,1},{1,0,1},{0,0,1}},{{1,1,1},{1,0,1},{0,1,1}},{{1,1,1},{1,0,1},{1,1,1}},{{1,1,1},{1,1,1},{1,1,1}},{{0,0,0},{0,0,0},{0,0,0}}}' 1


Output : https://youtu.be/0kDhPbbyG9E

• Hmm, I've not had much exposure to lua, I didn't know it had graphics support as well, but knew it had great performance. A very interesting and unexpected answer. This is probably the answer that is closest to allowing colored input based on the numbers passed. Also the first answer to not use ASCII, despite the high byte count, great job man +1 for uniqueness. – Magic Octopus Urn Sep 15 '16 at 12:14
• @carusocomputing Thanks! LÖVE is a framework for making 2d games. You should check it out :-) – Master_ex Sep 15 '16 at 20:22
• Oh man, really? Can you link me to some of your other work man? I would absolutely love to see it dude. – Magic Octopus Urn Sep 15 '16 at 21:19

# SmallBasic, 167 bytes

As a parameter, define and set the global var i! Sadly, SmallBasic does not support parameters for own Sub-routines.

sub animate
for j=0 to Array.getItemCount(i)
for k=0 to Array.getItemCount(i[0])
TextWindow.writeLine(i[j][k])
endfor
Program.delay(9)
TextWindow.clear()
endfor
endsub
`