conway game error with 2d array manipulation - c++

Question

So I'm working on the life game, and so far I have come up with this http://ideone.com/QG4tsS I'm not sure exactly if I am on the right track or not. Basically I have a function putting out random values to try and test my code. But nothing seems to happen. I suspect my problem lies with the following code
int sum = 0;
for (int k = (i - 1); k <= (i + 1); k++) {
for (int l = (j - 1); l <= (j + 1); l++) {
sum += currentGen[k][l];
}
}
return sum;
So my result gives me a 2d array with all 0's but shouldn't I start to see some changes and patterns starting to form? I get one 1 and the rest are 0.
Output
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 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
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0

Answer 1

I provide this answer based on the code you posted at http://ideone.com/QG4tsS . You really should consider adding that code to your original question, so that future folks who find this on StackOverflow have the full context.
Your RandomCells function only sets cells to 1 if they meet the RANDOM threshold. It doesn't clear them to 0 otherwise. Once you fix that, you'll be all set. ie.
void RandomCells(int currentGen[][CELLY]) {
for (int i = 0; i < CELLX; i++) {
for (int j = 0; j < CELLY; j++) {
if (rand() % 100 + 1 < RANDOM) {
currentGen[i][j] = 1;
} else
{
currentGen[i][j] = 0;
}
}
}
}
Without that else clause, I was seeing initial generations that looked like this:
0 0 4196155 1
1813657216 1 4197653 0
-870503576 1 4197584 1
Clearly, most of those cells were non-zero, and so Conway's Life algorithm would map them to 0 in the next generation because of "crowding".
The reason currentGen was filled with such 'random' values is that it was allocated as an automatic variable to main. Automatic variables do not get initialized to any particular value. You need to initialize them yourself. You can do that by modifying your algorithm (as I did above), or by adding an explicit bit of code to initialize the structure.
This differs from file-scope variables, which C and C++ define as initialized-to-zero on program start if they don't have initializers or default constructors. (Pedants will point out that even that has caveats.)
Once you make the required fixes, to truly see Conway's Life, you'll need to set CELLX and CELLY to larger values...