Python 2.x - 210/234 characters
Okay, the 210-character code is kind of cheating.
#coding:l1
exec'xÚ=ŽA\nÂ@E÷sŠº1ƒÆscS‰ØL™Æª··âî¿GÈÿÜ´1iÖ½;Sçu.~H®J×Þ-‰Ñ%ª.wê,šÖ§J®d꘲>cÉZË¢V䀻Eîa¿,vKAËÀå̃<»Gce‚ÿ‡ábUt¹)G%£êŠ…óbÒüíÚ¯GÔ/n×Xši&ć:})äðtÏÄJÎòDˆÐÿG¶'.decode('zip')
You probably won't be able to copy and paste this code and get it to work. It's supposed to be Latin-1 (ISO-8859-1), but I think it got perverted into Windows-1252 somewhere along the way. Additionally, your browser may swallow some of the non-ASCII characters.
So if it doesn't work, you can generate the file from plain-old 7-bit characters:
s = """
23 63 6F 64 69 6E 67 3A 6C 31 0A 65 78 65 63 27 78 DA 3D 8E 41 5C 6E C2
40 0C 45 F7 73 8A BA 31 13 AD 83 15 11 11 C6 73 08 63 17 05 53 89 D8 4C
99 C6 AA B7 B7 AD E2 EE BF 47 C8 FF DC B4 31 69 D6 BD 3B 53 E7 75 2E 7E
48 AE 4A D7 DE 90 8F 2D 89 AD D1 25 AA 2E 77 16 EA 2C 9A D6 A7 4A AE 64
EA 98 B2 3E 63 C9 5A CB A2 56 10 0F E4 03 80 BB 45 16 0B EE 04 61 BF 2C
76 0B 4B 41 CB C0 E5 CC 83 03 3C 1E BB 47 63 65 82 FF 87 E1 62 55 1C 74
B9 29 47 25 A3 EA 03 0F 8A 07 85 F3 62 D2 FC ED DA AF 11 47 D4 2F 6E D7
58 9A 69 26 C4 87 3A 7D 29 E4 F0 04 74 CF C4 4A 16 CE F2 1B 44 88 1F D0
FF 47 B6 27 2E 64 65 63 6F 64 65 28 27 7A 69 70 27 29
"""
with open('life.py', 'wb') as f:
f.write(''.join(chr(int(i, 16)) for i in s.split()))
The result of this is a valid 210-character Python source file. All I've done here is used zip compression on the original Python source code. The real cheat is that I'm using non-ASCII characters in the resultant string. It's still valid code, it's just cumbersome.
The noncompressed version weighs in at 234 characters, which is still respectable, I think.
import sys
f,f,n=sys.argv
e=open(f).readlines()
p=range
for v in p(int(n)):e=[''.join('.X'[8+16*(e[t][i]!='.')>>sum(n!='.'for v in e[t-1:t+2]for n in v[i-1:i+2])&1]for i in p(80))for t in p(40)]
open('out.txt','w').write('\n'.join(e))
Sorry about the horizontal scroll, but all newlines in the above are required, and I've counted them as one character each.
I wouldn't try to read the golfed code. The variable names are chosen randomly to achieve the best compression. Yes, I'm serious. A better-formatted and commented version follows:
# get command-line arguments: infile and count
import sys
ignored, infile, count = sys.argv
# read the input into a list (each input line is a string in the list)
data = open(infile).readlines()
# loop the number of times requested on the command line
for loop in range(int(count)):
# this monstrosity applies the rules for each iteration, replacing
# the cell data with the next generation
data = [''.join(
# choose the next generation's cell from '.' for
# dead, or 'X' for alive
'.X'[
# here, we build a simple bitmask that implements
# the generational rules. A bit from this integer
# will be chosen by the count of live cells in
# the 3x3 grid surrounding the current cell.
#
# if the current cell is dead, this bitmask will
# be 8 (0b0000001000). Since only bit 3 is set,
# the next-generation cell will only be alive if
# there are exactly 3 living neighbors in this
# generation.
#
# if the current cell is alive, the bitmask will
# be 24 (8 + 16, 0b0000011000). Since both bits
# 3 and 4 are set, this cell will survive if there
# are either 3 or 4 living cells in its neighborhood,
# including itself
8 + 16 * (data[y][x] != '.')
# shift the relevant bit into position
>>
# by the count of living cells in the 3x3 grid
sum(character != '.' # booleans will convert to 0 or 1
for row in data[y - 1 : y + 2]
for character in row[x - 1 : x + 2]
)
# select the relevant bit
& 1
]
# for each column and row
for x in range(80)
)
for y in range(40)
]
# write the results out
open('out.txt','w').write('\n'.join(data))
Sorry, Pythonistas, for the C-ish bracket formatting, but I was trying to make it clear what each bracket was closing.
