---
name: "pbmlife"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "netpbm"
version: "10.86.51-2"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/pbmlife"
---

# pbmlife(1)

apply Conway's rules of Life to a PBM image

## NAME

pbmlife - apply Conway's rules of Life to a PBM image

## SYNOPSIS

**pbmlife** \[*pbmfile*\]

## DESCRIPTION

This program is part of **Netpbm**(1) .

**pbmlife** reads a PBM image as input, applies the rules of Life to it for one generation, and produces a PBM image as output.

A white pixel in the image is interpreted as a live beastie, and a black pixel as an empty space.

## OPTIONS

There are no command line options defined specifically for **pbmlife**, but it recognizes the options common to all programs based on libnetpbm (See \
  Common Options ⟨index.html#commonoptions⟩ .)

## SEE ALSO

**pbm**(1)

## AUTHOR

Copyright (C) 1988, 1991 by Jef Poskanzer.

## DOCUMENT SOURCE

This manual page was generated by the Netpbm tool 'makeman' from HTML source.  The master documentation is at

-

  **http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/doc/pbmlife.html**