Overview

A simple conceptual model inspired by the Turing machine. The Turing machine is a theoretical device that manipulates symbols on a strip of tape according to a set of rules and is a fundamental concept in computer science. This program follows a similar principle, processing an input tape based on user-defined rules to perform state transitions until a halt condition is reached.

To learn more about Turing machines visit the Wikipedia page on Turing machines.

Running the program

1. Compile the program:

   cargo build --release

2. Run the program:

   ./tura <source.tura> <input.tape>

   • <source.tura>: A file containing the rules for the machine
   • <input.tape>: It contains the initial tape configurations

Example

Given the following rules in source.tura:

Inc 0 1 R Halt
Inc 1 0 R Inc

And the following input tape in input.tape:

  1 1 1 1 0

Running the program will process the tape according to the rules and output the tape's state at each step, showing the head's position with a ^ until the machine reaches a halt state, like so:

Inc: 1 1 1 1 0
     ^
Inc: 0 1 1 1 0
       ^
Inc: 0 0 1 1 0
         ^
Inc: 0 0 0 1 0
           ^
Inc: 0 0 0 0 0
             ^
Halt: 0 0 0 0 1 0
                ^

Acknowledgments

This project was developed while watching Tsoding's video series, Turing Machine in Rust.