mandelbrot.lua

local width = tonumber(arg and arg[1]) or 100
local children = tonumber(arg and arg[2]) or 6
local srow = tonumber(arg and arg[3]) or 1
local erow = tonumber(arg and arg[4]) or 100

local height, wscale = width, 2/width
local m, limit2 = 50, 4.0
local write, char = io.write, string.char

io.output("/dev/null")

if not srow then
   -- we are the parent process.  emit the header, and then spawn children
   
   local workunit = math.floor(width / (children + 1))
   local handles = { }
   
   write("P4\n", width, " ", height, "\n")
   
   children = children - 1
   
   for i = 0, children do
      local cs, ce
      
      if i == 0 then
         cs = 0
         ce = workunit
      elseif i == children then
         cs = (workunit * i) + 1
         ce = width - 1
      else
         cs = (workunit * i) + 1
         ce = cs + workunit - 1
      end
      
      handles[i + 1] = io.popen(("%s %s %d %d %d %d"):format(
         arg[-1], arg[0], width, children + 1, cs, ce))
   end
   
   -- collect answers, and emit
   for i = 0, children do
      write(handles[i + 1]:read "*a")
   end
   
else
   -- we are a child process.  do the work allocated to us.
   local obuff = { }
   for y=srow,erow do
     local Ci = 2*y / height - 1
     for xb=0,width-1,8 do
      local bits = 0
      local xbb = xb+7
      for x=xb,xbb < width and xbb or width-1 do
        bits = bits + bits
        local Zr, Zi, Zrq, Ziq = 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0
        local Cr = x * wscale - 1.5
        for i=1,m do
         local Zri = Zr*Zi
         Zr = Zrq - Ziq + Cr
         Zi = Zri + Zri + Ci
         Zrq = Zr*Zr
         Ziq = Zi*Zi
         if Zrq + Ziq > limit2 then
           bits = bits + 1
           break
         end
        end
      end
      if xbb >= width then
        for x=width,xbb do bits = bits + bits + 1 end
      end
      obuff[#obuff + 1] = char(255 - bits)
     end
   end
   
   write(table.concat(obuff))
end